Once the adapter is set up you will notice that the picture in your LCD screen or viewfinder is upside down and backwards. This makes unassisted handheld shooting (which I tried) rather difficult. (You definitely can do it, but it will take awhile for you to get comfortable shooting upside down.) For most people, you will want to set up an external monitor that you can flip around. There are quite a few options for these on the market and through Red Rock, there’s a new software package called “Red Rock Revolution” that, among other things, will flip your footage automatically on your laptop as you shoot. Additionally, Red Rock is actually working with the manufacturers to load an option into most cameras that will flip the picture in the LCD for you.
If you don’t have much experience with shooting in film, either with a traditional motion camera or an SLR camera, you will want to make sure you do a little reading up on the principles of photography before you start using the adapter.
Depth of Options
The options on the M2 are as endless or as simple as you want them to be. Having the right package of lenses for the look you are shooting for will be where your limitations are. Before you purchase the M2 you need to consider the type of lenses you want to use or have access to. The type of lens mount you choose to get with the M2 is important since various manufactures have different lens mount fittings. You can use both SLR lenses like Nikon or Canon or cinema lenses like Cooke, Panavision, or even Russian made OCT-19. I tested it using a variety of Nikon lenses. This would probably be the most cost effective lens to use since they are a common type of SLR lens which are easy to find in camera stores or on the internet. Canon is also a very common type on SLR lenses, but most of them have the drawback that they have electronics built into their lenses that you won’t be able to take advantage of.
This will help you better understand how the M2 adapter makes the film-look possible and will help you in deciding which type of lenses will be best to get the exact look you want.
The longer the lenses you use (such as a 85mm or 105mm or longer) will give you greater distinction in your depth of field. This is because the more you magnify an image, the farther the various distances become. This is great when you have space to shoot and you want greater options for depth of field; but if you are shooting in close quarters, then a selection of wider-angle lenses will be necessary. This is the point that the use of the f-stop becomes more important in the control of depth of field. The wider the aperture (smaller f-stop), the shallower the depth of field; the smaller the aperture (larger f-stop), the greater the depth of field. This will have the most effect when you are doing close ups or zoomed in tight on your subject. There are a lot of good zoom lenses available which give you some of both.
Performance
This brings me to how well the M2 performs. When I first started shooting on the M2 I was outdoors on a sunny day. Every shot I got was perfect. I had that nice separation of the subject and the background, and got some nice rack focuses. It was a dream come true. Technically, you shouldn’t need to touch the on-camera iris control once you set it up with the M2, because you should be controlling the light through the 35mm lens’ aperture. However when working in extra high or low light situation while trying to increase or decrease your depth of field, it becomes necessary to use the camera’s built in iris control at times.
