Premiere Pro EX-1

[Steve Connor]

[randy Strome] ” think it is probably important to consider that that look is not possible with an out of the box EX (1 or 3) alone.
“

Well if you put a long lens on an EX3 then you will be able to achieve that look without a Letus adapter that’s why I’m going to be buying one!

Steve Connor
Adrenalin Television

Have you tried “Search Posts”? Enlightenment may be there.

[Ron Shook]

Steve,

[Steve Connor] “Well if you put a long lens on an EX3 then you will be able to achieve that look without a Letus adapter that’s why I’m going to be buying one!”

I beg to differ. It’s not even close to the same look with a long lens, because with the long lens all the depth elements are scrunched together to get that foreshortened depth of field. It’ll be quite unnatural for many shots, even if you have the depth in the setting to back off far enough. You wouldn’t want your shots to all look like nature photography. A long lens is no substitute for a 35mm adapter.

Ron Shook

Ron Shook
Shoulder-High Eye Productions
CreativeCOW Forum Host for Discreet edit*

[Ron Shook]

Craig,

All good points.

Ron Shook
Shoulder-High Eye Productions
CreativeCOW Forum Host for Discreet edit*

[Craig Seeman]

[Steve Connor] “Well if you put a long lens on an EX3 then you will be able to achieve that look without a Letus adapter that’s why I’m going to be buying one!
“

I’m not absolutely sure that would be practical for several reasons.

I believe the Letus Extreme is only around $1000. What are you expecting to pay for a good lens? How long and how far away would you have to position yourself to match what the shallow DOF with Letus plus 35mm lens?

Good video lenses (especially HD lenses) are very expensive (can cost more than the camera).
Interchangeable lenses are nice but your client or your “indie” feature has to have the budget for them. Some rent the lenses as needed.

[Steve Connor]

[Craig Seeman] “I’m not absolutely sure that would be practical for several reasons.

I believe the Letus Extreme is only around $1000. What are you expecting to pay for a good lens? How long and how far away would you have to position yourself to match what the shallow DOF with Letus plus 35mm lens?

Good video lenses (especially HD lenses) are very expensive (can cost more than the camera).
Interchangeable lenses are nice but your client or your “indie” feature has to have the budget for them. Some rent the lenses as needed.
“

Disagree entirely, we’re doing this all the time with Digibeta cameras and HDCam cameras, as for lenses we rent them and if you use the 2/3 inch converter, the extra focal length will make it even easier to achieve.

Steve Connor
Adrenalin Television

Have you tried “Search Posts”? Enlightenment may be there.

[Craig Seeman]

[Steve Connor] “Disagree entirely, we’re doing this all the time with Digibeta cameras and HDCam cameras”

For under $1000? And you can match the shallow DOF of a Letus Extreme. Keep in mind EX3 is 1/2″ and not 2/3″ also. Zooming in is NOT going to give you the same field of view as a Letus with 35mm lens attached.

[Randy Strome]

[Steve Connor] “Well if you put a long lens on an EX3 then you will be able to achieve that look without a Letus adapter that’s why I’m going to be buying one!”

Hi Steve,

You can actually get really nice short DOF shots with the EX1 at the long end of the stock lens when close up and this will be enhanced for $1,000 with the Schneider 1.6X and hopefully later a 2X. But, as others have noted, this requires a very specific set of shot rquirements and is no sub for the adaptors. The beauty of the Letus type adaptors is reducing that set of requirements so as that very short DOF can be acheived in most situations. In my mind the coolest feature they allow is the use of Tilt / Shift lenses on a large (creatively imposed) “film size”.

These adaptors are still the key for those shots, the size of the gadget pretty well mandates tripod use (thus eliminating the benefit of the “semi shoulder” mount for that type of shooting), there is no image quality improvement. For that style of shooting I would think EX1, Letus, great monitor. Unless you need Genlock or Timecode you will add nothing that I can see by going EX3. Caveat: that really cool frame rate dial.

[Pat Ford]

That made me chuckle. I suspect that Philip would be the last to claim DP immortality. If you leave the camcorder on auto and shoot for SD delivery, it’s unlikely that the EX1 would give you too much of an advance over your current set-up. Philip couples learning the capabilities of his camera inside and out, shooting with the 35mm adapter, a learned/natural sense of composition and structure, and creative CC in post to deliver what he does. It’s not that a lot of us couldn’t do the same, it’s just that many of us don’t. It ain’t magic, but it may in its totality be close to rocket science. (g)

Thanks for your answer…I understand about the depth of field that Letus provides.

However, the thing that impresses me about the EX-1 is the color. Colors seems much brighter and vivid that I get on my PD 150. Sonys have always said to tend toward blue. It seems that this follows whatever the time of day is when Phillip is shooting. Is this camera or have the camera settings been changed to create this lush color?

[Ron Shook]

Pat,

[Pat Ford] “However, the thing that impresses me about the EX-1 is the color. Colors seems much brighter and vivid that I get on my PD 150. Sonys have always said to tend toward blue. It seems that this follows whatever the time of day is when Phillip is shooting. Is this camera or have the camera settings been changed to create this lush color?”

I obviously can’t speak for Philip, but from what I understand of his workflow, much of this lushness of color is created on a 4:2:2 ProRez FCP timeline using Magic Bullet. I’ve seen plenty of footage from the EX1 shot on auto that isn’t anywhere near as lush (more like your 150, but sharper). You could probably do some of this in the camera, but the chances of screwing up are more probable when you don’t have the chances for do overs that you have in post. Choose your gamma curve, expose and white balance properly, and CC in post.

That’s my best guess, anyhow.

Ron Shook
Shoulder-High Eye Productions
CreativeCOW Forum Host for Discreet edit*

[John Zentmeyer]

Lets say just for conversation that someone invested mega bucks on a Macbook pro just to dump the cards upon. Using the only available software to do so quickly and efficiently (XDcam transfer)puts it on the drive as a .mov file which still cannot be imported into Premier. What am I missing here?

Thanks.