Comments

farss wrote on 6/16/2005, 6:34 AM
We had a good look at the vastly more expensive original units and I gotta say I think the whole idea is pretty silly. Sure you get the DOF of the 35mm lens but at what cost in terms of image quality.
You're still using the same cheap glass that came with the camera, then it's being used at far from it's optimal focal length or aperture. So no matter how great an image you can get onto the image screen the final image on the CCDs can only be worse than what you can get through the camera's native lens.
Maybe if you're using say the Z1 and downscaling to NTSC then you can afford the loss of resolution as you've got more than enough to start with but if your plans are for the silver screen I'd be mighty nervous.
Maybe I'm wrong, maybe someone can run some resolution tests, certainly from what I'd seen with a Mini35 in front of a DVX100 and onto a studio monitor up against the same rig minus the Mini35 the image going through the Mini35 looked very soft and that was only on a small monitor.
I'd also be interested to see how adding the moving 'grain' of the screen impacts the HDV encoding performance.
Bob.
Coursedesign wrote on 6/16/2005, 8:19 AM
from what I'd seen with a Mini35 in front of a DVX100 and onto a studio monitor up against the same rig minus the Mini35 the image going through the Mini35 looked very soft and that was only on a small monitor.

I have Mini35 footage shot with a large 2/3" SD camera, it looks totally great. No mush, although it doesn't look as razor sharp as video (film doesn't and we still like it).

The Mini35 requires skill and practice though, there are gotchas.
farss wrote on 6/16/2005, 2:56 PM
The reason video looks razor sharp (particularly DV25) is most cameras have some degree of edge enhancement, even the encoding makes edges sharper. That despite what are eyes tell us doesn't mean it has higher resolution. 35mm is good for at least 4K resolution against around 600 for the best video gear. It's not until you put images onto a large screen that you start to see the difference, I know the first time I saw HiDef on a small screen it looked very soft compared to SD DV.
Certainly if you're only intending to deliver your product as video then these kind of adaptors do have a place although you can achieve the same level of softness with the careful use of filters in front of the lens.
But if you are really aiming for release on 35mm, the one thing all the labs say is to shoot for the cleanest, highest resolution image. Trying to make your video look like film before it's printed to film is a bad idea.
Bob.