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Test Drive: Cinevate Brevis35, Part 2

Nov 24, 2008 12:00 PM, By Jan Ozer

I know, it’s been two weeks since I left you hanging with the receipt (but not the use) of the Cinevate Brevis35 imaging system. In this episode, I’ll take you through assembly, alignment, and configuration of the unit and reveal the first images shot with my now supercharged Canon XH A1 (Spielberg, watch out! I’m coming). OK, I’ll calm down. Truthfully, though, this process has been intensely interesting and fun, and if the early results are any indication, more than worth the effort.

Assembly

Let’s start with a look at the assembled unit. On the right is the base Canon XH A1, with the lens hood off and the Brevis with Flip Module attached. On the extreme left is the 35mm Canon lens, and the entire rig is sitting on and supported by the 45cm rails system. Pretty sweet.

Of course, assembly is just the first stage, albeit an important one. Beyond this are the three stages of configuring the unit, or alignment, focusing the camcorder, and collimation. Let’s take this one item at a time (and yes, there will be a test).

Alignment

Step 1 is alignment. Essentially, you’re screwing a tube to the end of your camcorder, and then shooting through the tube. If it isn’t properly aligned, you won’t get the optimal results. As I mentioned in the first article, you attach the Brevis Flip Module to your camcorder via four set screws in a ring that sits outside your camcorder’s lens, similar to how you would attach a lens hood or matte box.

To align the unit, you loosen the screws, point the camcorder in the air to lessen the weight of the adapter (hence the picture of my air-conditioning vent), and then jiggle the lens around until the opening is squarely in the middle of the frame. In the figure, I probably could rotate the lens perhaps 1/4in. counter-clockwise, and perhaps a few millimeters to the right. When you’re perfectly centered, you tighten all the screws to set the alignment.

Then, using the camcorder’s zoom control, you zoom the image in until all the edges you see in that sexy shot of my office ceiling are gone. Then you save the zoom position, because as long as you have the adapter attached, you’ll never use it again.

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Test Drive: Cinevate Brevis35, Part 1 Like most shooters, I’ve encountered many situations where I wished the 3 1/3in. CCDs on my best Canon and Sony camcorders could produce sufficiently shallow depth of field to allow me to blur out irrelevant sections of the frame. Perhaps it’s the ability to blur out the background in an interview or training video, which hides lots of flaws in the back wall...

Why is that? If you think about what’s going on here, it works like this. You’ve attached a 35mm lens to your camcorder. That lens sends the image back to where the CCD would sit in a regular 35mm camera. What’s there instead is the image element of the Brevis adapter. What you’re trying to do during alignment is to frame the camcorder as closely as possible to that image element. In essence, with your camcorder, you’re trying to take the best picture of the picture captured by the 35mm lens. If you zoom into the picture with the camcorder’s zoom lens, you’re actually focusing on a smaller chunk of that picture, which can degrade quality.

Continue the discussion on “Crosstalk” the Millimeter Forum.
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