[Anthony Miles] "Thanks Todd,
Do you have to calimate the P+S technic or does it just hold with PL mount lenses?"
Hi Anthony... you just put the PL mount lenses on the P+S Technik Mini35 and you are good to go. There is an easy to use backfocus adjustment (although it requires an allen wrench), and I check it every now and then (maybe every three or four weeks with a good monitor and test chart) but it is always spot on and has never required additional tweaking since the first setup.
I actually cannot say enough good things about the P+S Technik... it is one of the best built, best designed, and easy to use pieces of equipment that we have ever had. They only downside is the price, they are
waaaaaay expensive and thus quite painful on the wallet. We paid a fair bit more for the converter than we did for the camera itself (and we have one of the more expensive HDV cameras, XLH1). I really wrestled with making that big and painful an investment (especially since I knew lenses were going to cost even more than the converter), but it has paid off in spades and I am completely happy with the setup.
I think these lens converters are pretty much like most any other equipment in our industry.... you get what you pay for. A P+S Technik may cost ten times as much as a Brevis35 (or a Letus or whatever), but if it is ten times better then it can be worth it, depending on your situation. My recommendation is aways this: for real hard-core cinematograhers who are out there in the trenches shooting every day on mid-to-high-end projects, P+S Technik is the way to go... hands down. For others... say guys who do
not make their living as full-time cinematographers, or maybe are trying to shoot an inexpensive indie feature, or simply can't afford to spend that kind of money... there
is a rental market for the P+S Technik Mini35s, and you
can find them in some rental houses. Or... play with some of the cheaper ones, many people
do get good results... just budget in a lot of time for testing in advance, and a reasonable amount of time for tweaking during the actual shoot itself.
Incidentally, you can occassionally find P+S Technik converters cropping up on eBay (usally an older 200 or 300 series) and I have seen them go in the $3-4K range.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
