Letus Announces “Mini” 35mm Adapter for Small Camcorders at FreshDV

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Letus Announces “Mini” 35mm Adapter for Small Camcorders

Published by Matthew Jeppsen December 1st, 2007 in Cameras, Lenses, News, Production, Shopping

The guys over at Letus have had a very busy fall. First they announced the shiny new Letus Extreme, a 35mm adapter with built-in prism flip and a mere half-stop of light loss. By most reports, the Extreme has been very well-received in the video community. Not content to rest there, Letus has just announced the Letus35 Mini, a 1lb 9oz compact lens adapter designed for small cameras with a filter size under 43mm. Weighing just half of it’s big brother Extreme, the Mini should be able to be used without rods or additional support, though a custom support bracket is available. As with the Extreme, Letus states that this adapter has “absolutely no vignetting” and excellent edge to edge sharpness. Mount options include the Canon FD, Nikon AI, Canon EF (EOS), Pentax K mount, Minolta MD or the optional PL mount and OCT19 mounts. Check out this image for a side-by-side size comparison of the Mini vs. Extreme.

I’m told that a supply of adapters are currently in stock and available to ship in the next 3-5 days, the price is listed at $1,099.00. Just in time for Christmas…you can put it on your shiny new Canon HV20 camcorder. Put those two together and you’ve got a 35mm lens adapter and HD camcorder for under $1900.00. That is incredible. Independent filmmakers rejoice!

We previously mentioned the Extreme here. If you are interested in seeing some beautiful Letus Extreme footage, definitely check out what Phillip Bloom shot recently on the EX1.

2 Responses to “Letus Announces “Mini” 35mm Adapter for Small Camcorders”

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1 Chris Van Patten Dec 2nd, 2007 at 9:35 pm

I just purchased an HV20 and I’m now shopping around for a 35mm lens adapter. This might be the solution.

However, I also noticed this post on DVInfo that had some nice looking stills of a setup using RedRockMicro’s M2. The price point they mentioned ($1295) isn’t too far off from this Letus Mini, so now the question is which one do I go with? (There is also this really sweet picture of the HV20 in a concept shoulder rig with the M2 that is sort of influencing my decision)

I’m fairly new to the world of 35mm adapters, so frankly I am totally lost as to which direction to go. Is there some reading material that I should take a look at that may be able to guide me in the right direction? Do you guys have a suggestion as to which adapter would be best?

Thanks, you guys rock!
2 Matthew Jeppsen Dec 2nd, 2007 at 10:27 pm

Yeah, that Redrock shoulder-mount rig is super-sweet. I’m really hoping we see that available soon.
There have been quite a few shootouts, here are two we linked to previously:

http://www.freshdv.com/2006/12/35mm-lens-adapter-shootout-cinevate.html
http://www.freshdv.com/2007/02/35mm-adapter-shootout-redrock-micro-m2-cinevate-brevis-35-and-sgpro.html

The Letus Extreme (and Mini) are quite new and to my knowledge have not been tested up against other adapters (ala a Shootout). We hope to have a Extreme in hand very soon for testing. As of right now, the best way to learn is to read the forums at DVXuser, DVinfo, as well as the individual forums for each brand. I know, that sucks. We’ll try to pull together more info in the coming weeks on this.

The good news is that the top contenders, Redrock, Brevis, SGPro, and now Letus with the Extreme, are all of sufficient quality and performance to deliver beautiful results with small format HD camcorders. Much of the differences are in design, form factor, certain conveniences, and accessories. It becomes a case of determining which fits your specific needs and wants. And of course Letus has the current advantage of an existing flip solution, as well as an extremely light-efficient design.

-Matt Jeppsen