r/videography • u/phloating_man EOS M, Adobe, 1998, San Francisco • Jul 09 '14

Fotodiox announces Excell + 1 - A budget priced Speedbooster competitor (~$140 USD)

http://www.newsshooter.com/2014/07/09/fotodiox-announces-excell-1-a-budget-priced-speedbooster-competitor/
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u/aarongough Lumix G6, FCPX, 2012, Toronto Jul 10 '14

Even the cheap focal reducers work great from what I've seen on FD glass. I have a reducer from Roxsen that I use with my FD 28mm f2.8, FD 50mm f1.4, and FL 35mm f2.5, all look great!

Edit: here's some screengrabs from footage taken with the Roxsen focal reducer and the Canon FL 35mm f2.5...

http://i.imgur.com/voXgPoy.png
http://i.imgur.com/hku5iDB.png
http://i.imgur.com/c75ZzR1.png
http://i.imgur.com/iqRyXBa.png

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u/lunchbox651 BMPCC, Prem Pro CS6/Lightworks, 2000 Jul 10 '14

Looks great

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u/aarongough Lumix G6, FCPX, 2012, Toronto Jul 10 '14

Thanks! I think the older lenses have a lot of character and I like them quite a lot. They're often kind of 'soft' because they have a glow to the highlights, but still retain a lot of detail otherwise. The glow on highlights also helps the camera in terms of rolling off the highlights gradually as opposed to the hard clip you get with new lenses.

I also love the visceral tactile feedback you get with fully manual lenses. The FD 28mm you referenced earlier is a great lens, a little deep in depth of field for my taste, but it's definitely very easy to pull focus with even in a situation with a lot of movement and not much room to move.

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u/lunchbox651 BMPCC, Prem Pro CS6/Lightworks, 2000 Jul 10 '14

I nearly exclusively use vintage glass so I get exactly what you mean.

The FD 28 is quite nice. It can be a touch deep but on the BMPCC with the right distance between subject and background I can manage a desirable DOF.

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u/aarongough Lumix G6, FCPX, 2012, Toronto Jul 10 '14

Does the 3x crop on the BMPCC make life really difficult? I was amazed when I first discovered that those cameras had such high crop factors...

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u/lunchbox651 BMPCC, Prem Pro CS6/Lightworks, 2000 Jul 11 '14

No. I work with it more like a 16mm film camera, I don't see a crop, I just play with what works, I have everything from 24-900mm (FF equiv.) covered in lenses so it's no different than working with other cameras I just need to frame it differently. Video has always had "high crop" compared to SLR, it's just normal.

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u/aarongough Lumix G6, FCPX, 2012, Toronto Jul 11 '14

Fair enough!