So a few weeks ago I was asked to DP a project that needed to feel like a music video, and they wanted some 35mm action! Unfortunately – or perhaps fortunately – I recently broke the coupler ring on my Redrock M2, and I needed to rent a cinema adapter package for this project. I’d been wanting to work with the Letus Extreme for a while so seemed like a great opportunity! I rented one for the day, hired my buddy Keegan Ead to come AC for me, and it was a fantastic experience!
The setup was a little tricky, but only because I’d never set this rig up before. Getting everything to align perfectly was a small chore, but if I owned the rig I’d have to do this once, and then I’m done.
The first thing I noticed right out of the gate is the construction of this bad boy is solid, and once the mount was on the EX1’s lens, and the adapter was attached there wasn’t anything precarious about this setup. Of course one of the best parts about the Letus rig is it flips the image, so I didn’t have to have an external monitor to flip upside down in order to see a properly orientated image. I did hook up a small 10” HD monitor just so I’d have a larger viewing screen, but it was a commodity more than a necessity. I could have serviced just fine using the EX1’s 3” display.
The footage I got was great! The only issue I ran into was a few shots had some streaking-grain. I’m assuming this was my error in shooting with a shutter that was too slow, and caught the movement of the ground glass. Perhaps? I have yet to completely figure that one out. I also lost my back focus often, but again I believe this to be a user error. Anytime I felt like I couldn’t get critical focus, it took maybe 20 seconds to stop the ground glass, double check my focus is sharp, start it back up, and on we went!
I did some POV shots that I didn’t/couldn’t do with the Letus. They were from the perspective of the person in the HazMAT suite, so I actually had to put the suite on, and shoot through the plastic face cover. It was a little awkward with the suite, but the shots turned out great so of course it was all worth it in the end!
The final piece turned out pretty good, and the over all experience working with the rig was fantastic! If I had to purchase a cinema lens adapter again, I would certainly go with a Letus!
I’ll post the finished project when it’s online!
- Tim
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