Normally in the Legends the pilot sits in the front due to the instrumentation access. This was an unusual situation. That is the first flight of this particular MOAC (after the test flight series) and the first flight with the owner on board. They were going up to begin his check out, but John, the instructor flew the first little bit for my camera. Much to my chagrin, the owner had his phone in the windscreen for most of the photo session...............
FYI, all "MOACS" are licensed in the experimental category and are approved under a builder assist program at the factory. The owner/builder must do 51% of the assembly in order to qualify under the program. Generally it takes 6-7 months for these owner/builders to complete and fly their aircraft and they are extremely proud of it when it's completed. Nothing like the program I built my biplane under, Yellow Freight dropped off a bunch of 4130 aircraft tubing/Sitka Spruce, and waved goodbye....................
Just getting started, and Jim's "drinking from the firehose" analogy is so true. After several weeks before delivery and several days after, I have the equivalent of a 3rd grade education in video capture, processing and delivery when it takes a graduate degree to be proficient...yet I am sooooo excited! This is gonna be fun. I love learning something new. The good news is my wife is as excited as I am. I appreciate Jim's motivation and mentorship, he helps a lot! Still have a few things to add to the rig. I have recharged the R5c battery at least 5 times since Monday evening...gonna fix that too! I have learned that empirical knowledge trumps theoretical knowledge.
Ray Swindle wrote:
Just getting started, and Jim's "drinking from the firehose" analogy is so true. After several weeks before delivery and several days after, I have the equivalent of a 3rd grade education in video capture, processing and delivery when it takes a graduate degree to be proficient...yet I am sooooo excited! This is gonna be fun. I love learning something new. The good news is my wife is as excited as I am. I appreciate Jim's motivation and mentorship, he helps a lot! Still have a few things to add to the rig. I have recharged the R5c battery at least 5 times since Monday evening...gonna fix that too! I have learned that empirical knowledge trumps theoretical knowledge.
Very cool Ray, congratulations! Thank goodness for YouTube huh?! I've got the RS2 charged up and ready to ship off for your experiment. I want to run some function tests with it to make sure everything works. Just give me a day or so to get it to UPS. I'm going to ship you the whole kit with the Raven's Eye, but as I said earlier, I don't know that I would mess with that part of it, it's interesting but just adds weight and complexity without much benefit.
Buckle up, you will love this video thing, and there will be times you'll want to bounce it all off the sidewalk. Batteries, obviously you have learned that the R5c has some limitations when shooting 8K at higher frame rates and 8K RAW. There just isn't enough juice for the camera to process all that data. Even if you don't want to shoot 8K right now (it is a bit of a novelty and fun to tell clients about), the R5 and R5c eats batteries like Tic-Tacs even shooting 4K. I'm going to send you the specs on the SmallRig VMount set up that I decided on and the L-ION lightweight 50 Amp VMount battery. I haven't run it to exhaustion, but I'm thinking that it will give me at least 3 hours of 4K/60 video shooting. Something that I have discovered is that it will discharge if you leave it plugged into the camera in the case. I think that might be because it charges the batteries in the grip, but I can't confirm that at this point. I had not received the fine wire 4K/8K HDMI cable when I took those shots.
Glad to see that you went with Angelbird SSD media, it seems very reliable. I standardized with 2TB units to give me plenty of capability. The NinjaV+ is also a little power hungry so have some extra batteries handy to keep it lit up. You will be doing a lot of outside shooting so you might want to consider one of the SmallRig Matte Boxes, I'll send you a shot of the one that I chose. SmallRig is kind of an amazing company, very high quality products for a fraction of what some of the bigger companies sell their products for.
With all your recent posts, the Xi virus didn't seem to bother you much
Took an unexpected trip to see a sunset show today. First time to see a real Zero flying. They sent the Zero and the Mustang up 10 minutes too late around sunset, there wasn't much light on them. This is my first time to see a real Zero fly. Will check tomorrow if I got any sharp shots at 1/125 of a second.
And you are right, hands on knowledge is so much more valuable than what you get from the manuals, unfortunately, it is so complex one has to glean what one can from the written page. One of the things that terrifies me the most is the number of gremlins that are lurking in the wings to send something south, like ending up with your camera data being recorded on your Ninja screen, so easy to do and no way to remedy that once it's done.
The open heart machine that I shot last week on the XF605 was a good example of how many things are going on at once. The XF605 was recoding to two U90 SDXC cards, and I had the Ninja V+ recording the same scenes in Apple Pro Res. Audio was coming from an Azden VideoMic Pro into the 605 and therefore also into the Ninja V+. I spent the entire day before that assignment trying to make sure that everything was configured properly in order to avoid that panic stricken sensation when something pops up that is unexpected.That brings me to another point, shooting RAW. I ahem read everything that I can, watched dozens of tutorial videos and I've come to the conclusion that, for me, RAW and the extra stop or two of dynamic range that it might give you, is an area of diminishing returns. Post processing RAW, and dealing with the massive amounts of data, I just don't see the upside.If I was shooting a feature film and had a bank of people doing my post and color grading, sure, why not? RAW looks like crud coming from the camera, gray and two to three stops over exposed, and it takes a lot of experience to get the footage to look like it does, or better than what you shoot in .MOV or XAVC, just the way I feel at this point. In the beginning I thought I'd shoot everything in RAW, just like I do in still work, but it's a whole different world in video.
Well, I still have a stuffy head and a miserable sounding cough, but the sore throat (unlike any I have ever experienced) has gone away. I'm a little achey, but I think that might be more from the constant coughing than the virus itself. Everyone gets to make their own decision about the vaccine, personally I think that my case is milder by far than the symptoms that I have seen in unvaccinated folks. Going from the experience of several family member that are just coming out of two weeks of hell, too sick to get up from their beds for most of the time and miserable beyond description, I'm glad I got the jab.
Ray that photograph of your Sweetheart brings tears to my eyes, her beauty, that innocence, it was indeed a different world, a better one and we so Blessed to have found the rock solid little ladies that we did.
I worked with film maker John Waters a few times and there was 1 section in metro Baltimore where, to this day, the women still wear their hair this way. Huge bouffants, beehive "do's" and one of the very last active drive-in theaters! And the dance "The Madison" is still performed there!
Dan
PS I would post a YouTube video but it is a 100% political ad for 30-60seconds! From "trader Joe". You know that "company"!
JWilsonphoto wrote:
Very cool Ray, congratulations! Thank goodness for YouTube huh?! I've got the RS2 charged up and ready to ship off for your experiment. I want to run some function tests with it to make sure everything works. Just give me a day or so to get it to UPS. I'm going to ship you the whole kit with the Raven's Eye, but as I said earlier, I don't know that I would mess with that part of it, it's interesting but just adds weight and complexity without much benefit.
Buckle up, you will love this video thing, and there will be times you'll want to bounce it all off the sidewalk. Batteries, obviously you have learned that the R5c has some limitations when shooting 8K at higher frame rates and 8K RAW. There just isn't enough juice for the camera to process all that data. Even if you don't want to shoot 8K right now (it is a bit of a novelty and fun to tell clients about), the R5 and R5c eats batteries like Tic-Tacs even shooting 4K. I'm going to send you the specs on the SmallRig VMount set up that I decided on and the L-ION lightweight 50 Amp VMount battery. I haven't run it to exhaustion, but I'm thinking that it will give me at least 3 hours of 4K/60 video shooting. Something that I have discovered is that it will discharge if you leave it plugged into the camera in the case. I think that might be because it charges the batteries in the grip, but I can't confirm that at this point. I had not received the fine wire 4K/8K HDMI cable when I took those shots.
Glad to see that you went with Angelbird SSD media, it seems very reliable. I standardized with 2TB units to give me plenty of capability. The NinjaV+ is also a little power hungry so have some extra batteries handy to keep it lit up. You will be doing a lot of outside shooting so you might want to consider one of the SmallRig Matte Boxes, I'll send you a shot of the one that I chose. SmallRig is kind of an amazing company, very high quality products for a fraction of what some of the bigger companies sell their products for. ...Show more →
The battery pack you have is the brand I have been looking at. Does it power the camera and the Ninja V+? I have two Ninja batteries, so that helps, but constantly changing/charging the R5c battery is ridiculous.
JWilsonphoto wrote:
Ray that photograph of your Sweetheart brings tears to my eyes, her beauty, that innocence, it was indeed a different world, a better one and we so Blessed to have found the rock solid little ladies that we did.
That photo means so much to me. It has been on my night stands since she sent it to me when I was in Technical School at Chanute AFB (Rantoul, Il). We had stopped dating for about 2 years while I matured from a guy who woke up every morning with the goal to survive the day to a guy who took control of my life by being responsible and self reliant. While I was in tech school she asked for a photo, so I bought a Kodak Instamatic and had a friend take a photo of me in my fatigues in front of the dorm. At the same time she sent me the photo I posted above along with her sorority formal glamour head portrait. The two photos must have passed each other between Houston and Chanute because we got them at the same time. After seeing what she sent me, I went to the base photography studio to send her a photo of me in my dress uniform.
Oh, and yes, she was/is a sweet innocent lady, and she has been a big part of who I am today!
Let me do some research on the VMount/NinjaV+ question. If I remember correctly, there is a hang up powering the Atomos via Tap, be back to you shortly.
Let me do some research on the VMount/NinjaV+ question. If I remember correctly, there is a hang up powering the Atomos via Tap, be back to you shortly.
I am not sure because the Ninja V+ has a strange connector for constant power.
I found a video showing how to splice that connection with a Dtap cable, but I wouldn't suggest that route because your warranty would vanish I'm sure.
