Working with the Brevis depth-of-field adapter

With DOF adapters all the rage these days, we decided to put the Brevis to work on our last shoot.



My main concern during pre-production was how much we would (or would not) be slowed down by using a lens adapter, after all- until this project I had never even touched one. This meant more planning, but in the end, a better image. For us, using the DOF adapter was a return to a more refined shot list that gave us just what we planned to use in the edit. The Directors on this shoot were very good with the shot choices and lenses they wanted, and I'm really thankful that they knew what they were doing- if not, it would have taken forever.

This project was produced strictly for the web, and I was really happy to find out that the premise by which this adapter works (vibrating ground glass) is an ideal pairing to compressed video. The unfortunate noise that often appears within compressed video is reduced somewhat by the use of DOF adapters- awesome!

Now the drawbacks.

On our shoot we experienced a couple things that you might want to be aware of if you plan to use the Brevis. First off, we were using Nikon lenses and an HVX; our AC, Billy MacCartney, quickly noticed that we could not rely on the distance measures of the lenses when attempting to get focus. We were lucky enough to have a large HD video monitor to assist us in this task. I recommend the same to anyone using this adapter or HD video at all for that matter.

The other snag we ran into was with the on/off switch for the brevis. There is a LED next to the toggle switch to indicate if the Brevis is on. During our second set-up we noticed that the light was on but the adapter wasn't vibrating.



Not good. We switched it on and off and on and off but got nothing. Very scary. Apparently there is a rather simple flaw with these switches, because Brevis is offering a free "servicing" (presumably to tweak a few things and fix this glitch).

We ultimately got it going by being steadfast in our fiddling. (We tapped on it while turning it on)- once it was running properly, we dared not turn it off again until absolutely necessary. I don't need to tell you that this is not a good approach to troubleshooting any electronics. That being said, it worked for us when nothing else did.

To summarize: it works for gaining more control over depth of field. It requires fuller, more traditional preparation, and when using with Nikon lenses, the distance measure alone is not sufficient for proper focus. Most importantly for those thinking of using this particular adapter- it gave us quite a scare by not always turning on like a good toy should.