Beginning around noon tomorrow we're supposed to get rain, lots of rain. They are guessing between 2.5" and 5" Tuesday/Wednesday/Thursday. Good Photoshopping weather.

Hey Jay, remember in Vegas a few years ago when the guy from Lockheed had his 5DII on sticks with every video goodie attached? I took one look at that and thought why in the world would someone want to surround their gear with that tinker toy monstrosity? Course I didn't have anything that captured video at that point. I think he said he spent 10 or 12K ....or Lockheed did. You could drop that easily if you went Zacuto, with follow focus, a monitor and an audio pack. RedRock Micro isn't far behind.

If I ever did get a set up like that, I think I'd dedicate a body to it and leave it all configured in a big Storm Case. Putting that all together every time you feel the urge to shoot video would be a major pain.

My dear Shooter, that's the second time in about three pages that you have a top-of-page post with no image. As the resident "usual suspect" for not having an image to post for TOP, I notice these things.

And as one who would most certainly like to see more images from you... wouldja fix that for this page, please?

JWilsonphoto wrote:
Anyone else notice we just eased on through 3.7 million views?

Yes, and we're only 9 pages away from 3500 too.

I do recall that rig Jim. Usually, the body/lens can be extracted fairly easily via QR Plate but being able to leave it built would be ideal.

I have a Hoodman VF right now and while suitable for dabbling, it's not optimal. Looking at other solutions along with follow focus devices. 200mm @ f/2.8 leaves little wiggle room for focus.

JWilsonphoto wrote:
Beginning around noon tomorrow we're supposed to get rain, lots of rain. They are guessing between 2.5" and 5" Tuesday/Wednesday/Thursday. Good Photoshopping weather.

With a little Stevie Ray playing, you know the song

Howdy Folks!
New to this forum...member of bunches of others though!
I'm trying to learn as much about aviation photography as I can.
I come from the video world and own my own production company serving corporate and commercial clients all over the country. Owned DSLR's since they became popular for video and finally decided to use the "still mode" feature!
Here's a few of my fav pics...

Rob, welcome to MA2A. You are now in the best thread on the internet. It looks like you are off to a great start, so post more when you can. Otherwise, sit down, hold on, and enjoy the ride. You are now boarding at Gate #1, and the flight leaves in 5 minutes.

Regards, Colin

Glad you decided to join us Rob.

Thanks for the invite Jay!

Nice shots Rob, welcome aboard!

Wings Over Houston 2012

At Midnight, your RV turns back into a pumpkin...

Notice anything unusual about this one? It was shot using a variable ND filter which allowed me, for the first time ever, to shoot 1/125 @ f/2.8 in broad daylight! Gonna investigate .9 or even 1.2 ND (3 stops and 4 stops respectively) for my 300 and 500. I'd really like to get down closer to the sweet spot of those lenses instead if always up at f/16 and smaller!



Imagine the orange RV above at f/4 which would throw all the background junk into a nice, creamy blur.
(I did not have my mitts on the filter yet when I shot the RV)

Jay,

Are these the drop in filters in the back of the 300,f2.8
Can you tell me where you get the Variable ones from ??

Al

Al,
if you have the screwin filterholder, I believe any 52mm threaded filter will work on this. The challenge is that you can't adjust the ND settings without pulling the filter holder out of the lens, and then you're just inviting dust and other cr$p into the lens. I would recommend getting fixed ND filters as Jay has mentioned, and developing a sense for when to use which one.

The other drawback to the variable ND filters is that if you really crank them up, you get an "X" pattern in the image with the outsides being darker, and it happens even with the good filters (I bought a Heliopan variable ND this summer and had this issue). Effectively, the variable ND is two polarizers stacked, which I understand causes this issue as the ND value increases.

I think the cost of two ND filters will also be significantly less than the variable NDs.

just my $0.02,

Gero

Just spent a very pleasant couple of hours editing an old shoot with the new iMac setup. Very fast: it's a screamer. We're heading for the airport for a week of R&R on a tropical island so I'll leave you with a couple from this editing session, shot at Wanaka, NZ. Ta-ta for now.

Angry wrote:
Jay,

Are these the drop in filters in the back of the 300,f2.8
Can you tell me where you get the Variable ones from ??

Al

The shot above was with a 77mm front-mounted filter Al on my 70-200.

I'm gonna go out on a limb and say you probably won't find a 52mm version that will work with the large prime drop-in carrier for two reasons:
1) The drop in carrier needs a low-profile, "thin" 52mm filter and a variable ND isn't thin by any means
2) Aside from the purpose-built drop-in CPL, you'd have no way to adjust the filter once it got dropped in

I'm sure the usual suspects carry Variable ND filters. The one in my possession happens to be a Singh-Ray model.

I have a 52mm variable nd and it doesn't fit the drop in carrier for the big lenses. Confirmed!

Coming from the video end of things, the variable is extremely necessary for shooting outdoors. Since we're locked into 1/30 or 1/60 (shooting 30fps) to get proper motion blur, that only leaves iSO and aperture to control light. The variable ND acts like an iris.
I found a Tiffen 52mm kit with .6, .9, and 1.2 for $40 at Amazon.
This is probably the best solution for the big lenses.
As for the variable, Singh Ray and Heliopan are the two "players" in high quality nd. The Singh Ray doesn't exhibit the "X" pattern as early as the Heliopan and is actually 2 stops stronger. They are not cheap but do exactly what they need to without degrading IQ. Wider than 24mm lenses on full frame will vignette a bit with the nd closed down. On crop sensor, I only saw issues at the wide end of my Tokina 11-16. This was with the 77mm thin Singh Ray.
I will be getting the 82 soon which unfortunately costs a arm and a leg and doesn't come in a thin version. I'll report back how it behaves on the 24-70 v2 and my Zeiss 21mm.

And a quick comment on stacking filters to get the same effect...this has a few negative effects...vignetting will show up much worse on WA lenses as the thickness is greater, even compared to the standard variable ND's. And it's not continuously adjustable. The chances of dust and dirt getting between the filters is greatly increased since you will be changing them for each situation. Sure it's much cheaper but the drawbacks to me aren't worth the savings. And for video it would be useless. Just my experiences using them.

Has anyone managed to get the whole team in the shot when they all cross? So far this is as close as I've gotten.

Erich