what to choose cinemek/micro35/mini35/indie35/letus35?

[janet]

I will shoot a music video in February 2006 and unfortunately I do not have too much money to spend, but nevertheless, I would like to use DOF effect in the video.

It took sometime for me to understand the DOF adapter market, however, I must admit that 1) mini35 is out, because of high price 2) cinemek has the most impressive demos

I made a comparison table of my DOF adapter web findings

1) Micro35
* website: http://www.redrockmicro.com/
* technology: moving ground glass
* availabilty: marketed
* price: 500$

2) Letus35
* website: http://www.letus35.com/letus35.html
* technology: moving ground glass
* availability: beta testing finished, not marketed
* price: around 500$

3) Indie35
* website http://www.indie35.com
* technology: static ground glass
* availability: marketed
* price: around 500$

4) Cinemek
* website: http://www.cinemek.com
* technology: static ground glass
* availability: not marketed
* price around 1300$

Probably the best solution would be to rent cinemek adapter, but it is not on the market yet as I read it here (correct me if I am mistaken)

Then remaining marketed ones are Micro35 and Indie35. I even could afford buying one (500$), however, it is hard to decide which technology is better - static or moving ground glass? Any suggestions? Has anyone compared the adapters?

 

[David Mullen ASC]

Music videos are usually one to two-day shoots, so why buy anything when you can rent a P&S Technik Mini-35 adaptor? Unless you want to own something for future shoots.

I don't have an opinion on the other products, so you'd want to test them if possible.

The real problem isn't so much the cost of the adaptor, it's the cost of a set of 35mm cine prime lenses to put on the adaptor, unless you really want to be dealing with still camera lenses, which are a pain to pull-focus on (and since the point of these adaptors is to get a shallow-focus look, you'll deliberately be making focus harder on yourself.)

 

[bvalente]

...to answer that, Redrock has announced the microFollowFocus (which will be shipping in March), the first follow focus optimized for still 35mm lenses. There is more info on it from our website www.redrockmicro.com look under Products tab.

We have a cinema-quality follow focus couple with lens gearing for 35mm lenses. So far the reviews have been extremely positive.

Also, you can buy our adapter and a set of nikon primes for the cost of a 1-2 day rental of the other solution

 

[dan]

the first follow focus optimized for still 35mm lenses.

You can ignore me all you like but that does not mean I wasn't there MONTHS before you!
Oh Brian...... where are thou? :
http://www.dandiaconu.com/newweb/mpff.htm