XDCAM EX

A few weeks ago I met a french guy, living close to where I live in the 11th district of Paris. He is supposed to be a photographer, but had great interrest in the EX1 ans the Shoot35 SG BLade 35mm adapter.
I proposed him to come over at my place for a demo.
He came, at my request, with some of his Nikon lenses : 80-200mm f2.8 zoom and a 105mm f2.8 macro.
We tried both lenses on the blade : SUBLIME !!

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Just received the 35mm f1.4 and 50mm f1.2 I bought on ebay. This is a quick versus test.
First, the pics of the two 50mm lenses :


As you can see, the f1.2 is clearly bigger than the f1.8. You really have the feeling of a real good lense with the 1.2.

Then, pics of the two 35mm :

There, not much difference. The f1.4 is just a little bigger, but you still have a better feeling with it.

Now, the test on the EX1 + SGBlade and RotoRazor 1 (1080@25p) :

First test finaly done ! 

Check it on vimeo

I planed for some time to get a 35mm adapter for my Sony PMW-EX1 camera. A lot of people ask me : what for ?

the short answer is : the Depth Of Field (DoF). A longer answer will also include bokeh, which is how light points render in the ouf of focus part of the image. Generaly, this also describe oh blury is the out of focus area.

The difference of DoF between real 35mm and common video camera comes from the size of the video sensor. Most of video camera have 1/3″ or 2/3″ sensor size, which is far smaller than the full frame 35mm size, as you can see on this picture from http://www.cambridgeincolour.com :

The Sony EX1 and EX3 have a 1/2″ sensor, which is not so bad compared to the 10 times more expensive 2/3″ camera, like the Sony F900.

Without going too deep in how a 35mm adapter work(you can get a good explanation here), let’s see what are the different parts composing it : the lense, the lense mount, the glass, the flip module, the accromate and the camera mount.

• the lense and the lense mount :
  
  most of 35mm adapters offer different lense mount, like Nikon, Canon, Pentax or the more expensive PL mount. Mine will have Nikon lense mount. I also already ordered some old 35mm lense on ebay. More on this later.
• the glass :
  
  depending on the adaptor, the image, coming through the lense, will be displayed on a vibrating glass or a rotative one. First is cheaper to build but have serious problem when using high shutter speed or stopped down lenses. Later have better rendition, but can be really expensives.
• the flip module
  
  When your image reach the glass, it is upside down. Your camera will then record it this way. Some camera have a way to flip the image in the viewfinder so you can work with the picture in the right side. You will then have to flip the image in post production, before cutting it. This is why most brand are selling a flip module. This will simply flip the image, so the camera sees the right image.
• the accromate
  As most prosumer camera have a fixed lense that you can’t take off, you will have to zoom in to have the image using the whole camera sensor. You will also have to focus on the rotating glass, maybe using a macro mode. This can give some distortion to the final image. The accromate is the small part going in between the adaptor or flip module and the camera lense.
• the camera mount
  This is just the piece allowing to fixe the whole adaptor to the camera. It may include a step-up or step-down ring, depending of the thread size of the adaptor and the one on the camera.

Now You know all this, what do you have on the marker ? This is not a full listing but what is available and working on most prosumer camera.

• Letus Extreme
• Letus Ultimate
• Brevis 35
• SG Blade
• RedRock M2
• P+S Technic Pro35 or Mini35

I have just purchased the SG BLade two weeks ago, which will be out mid-february. I also bought old 35mm Nikon lenses, as : 35mm f2, 50mm f1.8, 85mm f1.8 and 105mm f2.5.
I purchased the full kit, with rods, flip module and case for the EX1 for around 1400€. Lenses are between 60/100€ each. I’m still looking for 24mm f2 and 135 f2 or 2.8, but they can be a little bit pricy, like the 24mm sold between 200/300€ on ebay !!

At the end, it should look like this :

This adaptor, successor of the SGPro, seems to lose almost no light, less than 1 f/stop. You can also replace the glass to get one, losing a little more light, but adding some grain and beeing close to some 35mm strips.

Next purchase will be a follow focus and a matte box, but these simple gears are really expensives right now so I will wait to really need them.

While I’m at it, I aslo purchased eFilms MxR express-card to replace the two 8Gb SxS cards of the EX1. I’m about to buy two 16Gb SDHC cards:
MxR cards, 35$ each, and SDHC cards, 30€ each, will give me almost two hours of shooting for less than 200€, which is just half the price of a 30 min SxS card from Sony… Only downside : you can’t shoot overcranked images… I will still have the two SxS cards for that, so, who cares ?

[EDIT]
Just got some news of the SGBlade. First you can get the manual here. Then, here are 3 more pictures of the production release… Yes, we are getting close to it !