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JAG35 Film Lens Adapter and Sony SR11
I have been given the opportunity to test out an inexpensive 35mm depth of field adapter designed for the small consumer camcorders. JAG35.com sent me a JAG35 PRO with the Canon to Nikon adapter to mount my Nikkor glass to the front of it. My first impression was positive. This is an entry level $400 35mm lens adapter that works quite well.
But, it does have a few limitations and this adapter would never replace my Letus. I have posted a video to my “Equipment Reviews” section of this website visually reviewing this product. I will go into a little more detail with this article.
First of all, this adapter does not have a flip prism inside of it. The good part about that is the fact that the device is quite small and lightweight. The bad part is that the image is recorded to the camera upside down. It is very easy to flip the image in post when editing, but when shooting, the up-side-down image is hard to work with.
JAG35 offers a hack to most video cameras that will basically add a switch that will engage “mirror mode” with the LCD so that the camera displays the image from the JAG35 Pro properly. The great part about having the switch added is that you can set the camera back to normal when you want to just shoot without the film adapter.
Another issue I found is that the adapter is light hungry. If you are going to use the JAG35 pro inside or in low light conditions outside, you will need fast lenses. I used a Nikon 50mm f1.4 and was having trouble exposing in the overcast and dark forest.
If you are shooting in broad day light, I am certain that this depth of field adapter will work quite well. I plan on shooting more with it to test it out in other lighting conditions.
One thing that JAG35 is working on are multiple lens mounts. Currently, the JAG35 Pro only has a fixed Canon mount. I had to use a Canon to Nikon metal adapter ring to mate the Nikkor glass to the JAG. This proved slightly problematic as the extra piece added some wobble and slip when trying to pull focus. I did find this adapter to be surprisingly sharp and clear of ground glass artifacts. The motor is powered by two rechargeable (user replaceable) AAA batteries. To turn the motor on, you just flip a switch. When running, there is a bright green indicator light. The motor is very quite and in the video review I did, I used all the audio for my voice and the water directly off the camera mic! While the JAG35 was vibrating!
There is an interesting add on that proved to be invaluable. On the side of the JAG35 pro is a small white button I call the “super charger”. When pushed the motor speeds up to a crazy rotational speed as it get a jolt of power . When released the motor goes back to normal. This came in handy when I had difficulty getting the motor to spin. Sometimes, the weight on the end of the motor that shakes the ground glass as it rotates has trouble getting started on its own and needs a jump start. I had this problem on my Letus Extreme on occasion. With the Letus, I had to open up the front and “finger” manual start the motor. This “super charger” sends a bust of power to the motor and gets it spinning in a flash. There is also a small screw that regulates how fast the motor spins. I need to experiment with that to see if by turning it up, the motor will work better. In my test, I was able to run the motor for two hours continuous before it died. I must say that I was running off the charge that the batteries were under shipped from JAG. So I will have to test this again under a full charge to see if the motor really operates for 20+ hours like the JAG35 website states. When charging the batteries, you simply plug in the included a/c adapter into the small hole on the side of the JAG35 pro. There are no indicator lights to confirm a charge is in progress or when it is done, but I have been told that it will complete the trickle charge (with no confirmation) after about four hours.
When I brought the footage into my Final Cut system, I was really happy with the look of the the video. I did have to log it all upside-down, which was a first for me. All the blood was rushing to my head! Even though it was shot with a $650 interlaced tiny single cmos chip camera, the footage looked very good. Not nearly as good as the Sony EX1 with a Letus, but certainly good enough to pass as “film-like” high definition footage. There are several ways to flip the image on the timeline. I just rotated everything in the “motion” tab. I only used the super fast 50mm f1.4 Nikon lens in my initial test. I tired to mount the 55mm f2.8 macro lens to the front of the JAG35, but found serious vignetting in the low lighting conditions of the dense forest and cloudy, near-dusk skies. I will have to preform more experiments with this camera system.
Overall, I recommend this to anyone who just wants to “play around” with the film look on your little consumer camera. I do not recommend this to people who want to shoot high end stuff for broadcast. Please go and buy a Letus and a proper camera for that. As far as this setup goes… I shot a review video talking about and testing out the JAG35 Pro. You can see it by clicking here. If you want more information, please visit JAG35.com and letusdirect.com. 39 comments to JAG35 Film Lens Adapter and Sony SR11 |
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Copyright © 2012 Tom Guilmette - All Rights Reserved |
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Tom,
Great post. I think I am going to invest in one of these and a flip hack. This way I can practice and become a better shooter. Possibly someday I will get a better setup. Right now I have so much to learn anyway. I don’t know what “fast lens” means so this set up will allow me to shoot good enough video while I learn.
@Matt Stapleton: A fast lens is a lens with a lot of glass in it. The lens can open up to f1.2 or f1.4 or f1.8. Some cheap lenses are slow and can only open to f4 for example. Not enough light can come through at f4 when shooting with some adapter in low light conditions to make good pictures.
Just remember that if you buy this you are going to need to buy a Canon manual “fast” prime lens (or Nikon with adapter). This adapter does not come with a lens.
I recommend local camera shops to buy used old lenses or maybe even ebay.
Hi Tom,
Good review. I have been looking at JAG35 for several months now, but there is a lack of good information and solid third party reviews, so thanks! I do have a question though: why do you say the JAG35 pro is $400? The smaller pro is $300, whereas the JAG SP (spinner) is $400. This is the one I am thinking about getting, since it should solve some of the vignetting problems with higher f-stops? I have a 20mm 2.8 lens I would like to use for wide angle shots, stopped down for more depth of field. I also have an 80-200 f2.8 that I think would be fun to use for video.
I wanted to add this to the review to help answer some questions:
The SR11 is a great camera because of its manual controls. I set the camera to total manual and set the focus to .1 meter. This locked onto the JAG35 ground glass perfectly.
I set the exposure to manual and dialed set it in the menu to operate off the little Sony silver knob just under the SR11’s lens. This game me instant control of the camera’s iris. I had to adjust it a few times and the iris on the SR11 was close to 80-100 percent open in the dark woods. The Nikon 50mm f1.4 film lens was set to full open at f1.4. I love the SR11 because it has exposure zebra indicators in the view finder that I can set to 100IRE, just like a pro camera. This way, my exposure is spot on.
You could also use the plus and minus on the exposure inside the menu, I liked to link it to the little knob and lock out the focus on the GG.
Another thing I should add is that my zoom on the SR11 was at z0. So the camera was fully zoomed out. I found that I could zoom into the ground glass a little bit, like maybe z20 before the SR11 went totally out of focus. This is a great little plus!
Tom
@Devin Ellis: I also found very little information about this great little adapter. I am glad I could test it out. It is not perfect, but the price reflects that.
I think these range from $300 to $450 depedning on ground glass, acromat and lens diameter. SO you will have to go to http://www.jag35.com to find out more.
I am not certain of vignetting on slower lenses. I used a very fast 1.4 and found very little vignetting. I will test it more. You can also zoom the video camera in a little to get rid of the dark edges. That is a bonus on this little adapter.
Just remember that when using a zoom film lens, if the back focus is out (and in this case nonadjustable on the JAG35) your zooming will go in and out of focus on the film lens.
Give it a shot, let me know what happens.
Tom
I do not understand what is the motor for? I understand is a 35 mm adapter but why the motor>
T
Did you try stopping the lens down, or increasing the shutter speed?
If so, how does the Ground Glass look?
I’ve seen so many adapters that are lmited to 3-4 stops from open and after that all you see is the ground glass.
And as most old lenses look best (least vignetting, flaring and blurring) at the mid point aperture this is almost impossible to achieve on many cheaper adapters out there…!
Be honest, how much colour correction did you do? Some of those greens are FAR too green to be natural.
Also, what legs and head are you using in this review?
Cheers.
Tom, thank you for the great review. Could you enlighten me with your export settings in FCP? I’m having a tough time with the AVCHD files. Also, did you perform any color correction on the footage? It was all very beautiful work, thanks again!
Ricky
@Tero: The motor is there because it had a spinning weight on the end of it. This weight vibrates the ground glass (a semi-transparent frosted glass pane where the 35mm image is formed in the adapter) and by doing so, the ground glass becomes invisible. The video camera shoots this clean image off the ground glass and records it to the small video camera chips.
Also, the vibration moves around dust and other debris so that it does not show up. A spinning piece of ground glass is the other option and this also requires a motor.
@Matt: You will see the ground glass pattern in the JAG35 Pro if you stop down past 5.6. I find that by running the film lenses wide open I get the best result. Fast lenses work much better however when it comes to vignetting. I get very little black on the sides of the frame with the 50mm f1.4 but find vignetting slight problems (depending on how much light is available) when shooting with my f2.8’s.
Yes I did mess with the colors, I upped the saturation 50 percent. I just like it that way.
The tripod is a Vinten Vision 3 on Vinten aluminum sticks. 75mm bowl. Great pan head.
@Ricky Moore: Check out my FAQ section on this site for all my export settings for the web. I edit on the timeline as Apple ProRes 422 (import it as AVCHD and FCP converts it to the large ProRes files).
Let me know if you have further questions.
Tom
Great article, many thanks.
Thanks for the great review. I see JAG products have multiple choice for ground glasses. (5~20micron) What GG did your unit have?
@Euisung Lee: I am using the 5 micron GG
Great article and Video! This looks like a great budget option for those wanting to bring their video to another level! Thanks!
Great Article !!
I am looking to buy Jag35Pro adapter, but I do not want to spend $200 on mounting rods. I can see in your pictures that you are using adapter without supporting rods. I use Velbon’s DV-7000 tripod for my Canon HF-S100. Do I need to buy supporting rods ?
as long as you use small and light lenses like canon or nikon primes you should be ok without rods. if you place a 200mm or higher telephoto lens or a fast zooming lens, the weight could cause damage to your camera without the support rods.
Thanks for reply, I will be using Canon FD f1.4 lenz and Jag35pro with 40mm Achromat, so hopefully I am OK without supporting rods ?
yea, you should be fine. you can always get the rods later.
Hi Tom,
I´ve just bought the jag35 st to use with my SR11.
I´m producing a short film and I´d like to make the making of videos look professionals with it.
Do you have any tip about this set up?
thanks
H
the jag35 needs extra light, so make sure you have what you need for exposure. i would only use this setup for the “interview” portion of the behind the scenes. the actual doc style coverage (broll, ect) might be best captured with a naked sr11.
Thanks for the quick reply, Tom.
Hi Tom,
Super useful post and discussion, thanks. I am having trouble finding out what difference the size of the Achromat makes….5mm vs 40mm, etc. What are the pros and cons of smaller (thinner?) vs larger (thicker?).
Thanks…
Todd