I was so « jealous » that I spent some time on ebay and bought these two, plus a 35-70mm f2.8 macro (macro is only working at 35mm, but i’m sure it will help where the 105mm is too much).
I just received the 80-200 yesterday, so I had some tests.
Of course, my tests are not as good as those from Ken Rockwell.

First, the lense. It’s a brand new one, coming from Hong-Kong. I received it in 3 days with Chronopost, well packed in a Chronobox box. Inside was the lense box with bubbles to protect it. Lense was 660€, 15€ shipping and 40€ taxes.

The lense is massive, heavy, feels really solid.
Starting from the top you’ll find the focus indicator and a « limit » switch. This can be used to constrain the focus ring from infini to 3m or from 2.5m to « macro » mode, which is around 1.5 meters.
Then comes the focus ring. When focusing, the top element moves. Infinite is max inward, macro is max outward. As noted by Ken Rockwell, the external filter thread is made of plastic but the case is made of metal. There is a rubber band at the end so the plastic won’t be hurt if you accidentaly hit something.

On the bottom part is the zoom ring. Moving it will move most of the elements in the center of the lense. This needs to have some strength, but whatever, who love zooms in a video ?
Then comes (not pictured) the support ring. you can rotate it to accomodate. I will have to find a support element for the rig. This lense is heavy and I don’t want it to break the shoe of the SG BLade.
Finaly comes the aperture ring, going from 2.8 to 22, which is not totaly closed. You also have a « lock », if you really want to be sure not to change the apertue without noticing it. Seriously, the aperture ring is not like it will move by itself. It’s well crancked.

And now, set on the rig :
      

And now, result of the first test, featuring Mouchette !!!
(Last pictures are made with the Nikon 50mm f1.2 AI-S)

Last words : it’s heavy, but it’s awsom, clear and sharp. it’s quite hard to follow the focus with this kind of zoom, but I’m sure I’ll get used to that. Footages have just been put on a timeline, quickly graded in one shot with a dispertion + contrast preset.

• Vimeo (see on their site, the embeded version can’t do HD)

Mouchette from sebastien THOMAS on Vimeo.

• Youtube (lesser quality, even in HD… what are they doing ?)

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

Notice, on next picture, the Follow focus. At it seems to be a real strong device, you can’t change the gear side. If you want to use it on the left of the camera, you need to have long lenses or, I will try this soon, put the blade support backward to be able to push the floow-focus a little bit closer to the lense mount… (hey, i’m french ! Do you seriously expect me to do a review without complaining ? )

Another complain here… The battery charger of the Blade comes with a UK electric plug. In fact, the charger can also be used from a 12v source (car battery for example). Shoot35 provide a french plug to 12v battery adapter, and then you can use the charger in France. Great ! Maybe I will cut the UK plug and replace it by a french one, or simply cut the 220 input cable and only use the 12v adapter…

Then the plug on the blade. It seems to not « click » when you plug in, meaning the cable could move outside the plus without notice. Be carefull of that !

And finaly my best actress around who helped me shooting (video to come soon) : Mouchette !!

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 !
    

The EX3 is just a remake of the EX1, with same sensor and electronics. Expect the same image quality. The EX3 have a removable lense so you can use it with other 1/2″ lenses and maybe others. Everything seems to be plastic so I hope there will be no back-focus problem when the camera gets warmer.

Waiting for more infos and test…

My first thought was to wait for some other brand… but as far as I know, we are near the end of february and there are still none…

As the shooting of the first short (Bird Of Prey) was comming, I had to find a solution.

I ended by :

- opening the Sony EX1 charger and replace the cable for the camera by a XLR4 plug
- put a XLR4 male plug on the EX1 power cable
- buy  two 12 Volt 7AH lead/acid batteries
- build a cable with female XLR4 on one side and a car plug in the other.

Here are the pictures :

For information, opening the EX1 charger is really easy and related on another blog. As I remember, just remove the 2 screw (which are under the sticker), then use a thin tool to open.
I first wanted to put a XLR4 socket, but wasn’t ready to « break » the case (lake a hole in it). I just put a cable going to a plug.

The standard XLR4 plugs are :
plug 1 : ground
plug 4 : hot (+12v)
Other plugs not used

The EX1 seems to be able to handle from 11v to almost 17v. No problem to use a car battery with the car running. Then you will have almost 13,6 or 13,8v.  Just be carefull to stop the camera before starting the engine. This will reduce the voltage for a few moment and will power down, then up the camera. Even if it’s not critical, you better avoid this kind of things.

I hope this will help others to do the same.

Whatever you do, remember to unplug the charger before opening it. Only do this if you have the skills and the hardware needed. I or my blog are not responsible for whatever you. This is just informational.

As it’s a « no budget » film, everybody have to be inventive to find cheap and easy solutions to many problems. One of them was shooting « out of the car » while moving.
Of course we don’t have any travelling car.

The solution was found by Claire and I. Here it is in picture :

This is build with a metal plate used for house building. We set 2 metal tubes in the holes and attached it to the car. You can see the Sony EX1 attached to the tripod. Of course this was damn scary for me !!

We also did some « Death Proof »‘s shot, with the EX1 attached directly to the metal plate, directed to the road. I’ll put some footage soon.

We went up to 50Km/h !!! The metal plate only touched the groud one, when making a U turn slowly.

After that we put the plate on the top of the car, going left to right, with the EX1 upside-down. We were able to shoot by the right window, changing focus point from the driver to the passenger. I have no pictures of this one, but I’ll ask people of the team, i’m sure they have some.

This was the first week-end of Bird of Prey, out of 3, comming next week and the week after. It was also the first short made with my EX1, outdoor, in the dust, the fog, the sun… It seems my baby handle it fine

As you can see it was a bright day, with some clouds crossing by.


Romain (DoP), Matthieu (director) and Martin (assistant).

Martin, Matthieu and Romain looking at Jean-marc, the first assistant.

The car that will be used for the movie. An old Volvo with clinky chromes.

Pierre-yves « Pytou » and Martin.

Everybody’s looking at the frame.

Claire, the actress, playing her role.

Jean-marc shooting Martin, the test male actor.

Jean-marc is really focused on the LCD viewer. See how he rotated the handler 45°.