JWilsonphoto wrote:
Wow Nick, that women does incredible work! What a place to live and photograph!! I'll be interested in your variable ND experience, I bought a pretty pricey one a few years back and have used it a little bit.
Ah, I think some of what I intended to say about NDs and grads got lost in translation. Trouble is the babel fish keeps getting stuck in my hearing aid......
I have three of the rectangular graduated ND filters. I got them a few years back, along with the slot holder and the fittings for various lenses. I only got them to control the histogram when shooing at sunrise / sunset. I have a hard edge, a soft edge, and a reverse. They are all 3 stops, made of polyester resin, here in the UK by Hitech. IMHO they are poor quality and terrible value. The quality gripe I have is that they have a serious purple colour cast. To some extent that matters less in my typical usage scenario than in normal daylight where the purple is rather obvious. I (mis)used them to try out the blur technique by shooting through two lots of dark bits – giving about 5 ish stops of reduction. Results for the technique where encouraging but the colour cast was monumental. Correcting for a convenient neutral in my test shots was kinda OK (ish) in PS, but the resulting curves showed just how far out my filters are. Now I hate the rectangular slot filter thing and only use it for grads, which are useless without the adjustment that the darn slot holder gives.
Accordingly, I researched 10 stop screw in ND filters. It’s a zoo – I now know why so much of the work I see done with 10 stop filters - is B&W! I ended up getting a Hoya PROND 1000 for my most likely to use lens, plus some step rings for two others. The Hoya was the only half reasonably priced item freely available here in the UK, that was tested as being colour neutral. Tests so far indicate that my example is indeed, colour neutral.
Sorry to hear this Ken. Hoping there aren't any more hiding in there. It's tough enough with two of them, never mind a third. Thankfully when they did my CT Colonography (with barium) and the CT scan with dye, they didn't see any of those creatures hiding in me.
kwbarnes wrote:
Since we are discussing ailments. Friday after couple days of intense pain and discomfort, I passed a kidney stone. Less than an hour ago, after a couple more days of intense pain and discomfort, I passed a second one. Hopefully they don't come in "threes", I've had enough pain and discomfort to last me for quite a while.
I'm going stir crazy "behaving"! Thought about going to the hangar but I'm afraid I'll lift something or bend down and pop a few of the 40 stitches I've got going on, ugh! Stitches out on Thursday, that's a long time to be good.......
JWilsonphoto wrote:
I'm going stir crazy "behaving"! Thought about going to the hangar but I'm afraid I'll lift something or bend down and pop a few of the 40 stitches I've got going on, ugh! Stitches out on Thursday, that's a long time to be good.......
Well OK, we need to give you something to do ......
Next year is the 75th anniversery of the D Day landings. I live about a mile from one of the embarcation beaches - Stokes Bay. I've been trying to get my head around how to photograph that place in a way that will pay some sort of tribute to all those brave souls who went over to Normandy. There is very little left of the wartime installations, and only a few memorials. I'm just not seeing it from the perspective of a person who does not know the area as "home". But I need to do something - all those guys are in their 90s now - so this is kinda the last chance .....
Man that's a tough one Nick. If there was a bunch of landmark locations that would make it easier, without them I'm not sure how you would go about that.
nickjohnson wrote:
Well OK, we need to give you something to do ......
Next year is the 75th anniversery of the D Day landings. I live about a mile from one of the embarcation beaches - Stokes Bay. I've been trying to get my head around how to photograph that place in a way that will pay some sort of tribute to all those brave souls who went over to Normandy. There is very little left of the wartime installations, and only a few memorials. I'm just not seeing it from the perspective of a person who does not know the area as "home". But I need to do something - all those guys are in their 90s now - so this is kinda the last chance .....
Try to find wartime photos of the locations during the invasion preperations and see how close you can get to those same perspectives. A little before/after war/peace blending may do the trick.
JWilsonphoto wrote:
Man that's a tough one Nick. If there was a bunch of landmark locations that would make it easier, without them I'm not sure how you would go about that.
Thanks Jim, I need to widen my scope to include those landmarks.
So the plate arrived yesterday and I mounted it up and we have a proof of concept...kinda. It works (or it would if made out of metal, since I immediately broke the plastic stud) but I’m just not sure it’s the best way to go about it. The mount is just too tall.
Hmmm, nice try though. I think you might be getting into a scenario that is going to compromise your still captures, I haven't found any way to get quality video and maintain what we expect from our still images. Have I seen a guy with a long lens and a GoPro stuck on it at El Centro, Yup, but I doubt that he is getting anything that we would consider noteworthy. Moving up the video camera food chain will continue to make that concept more challenging. That rig Doug Jensen set up worked ok for him, but he was shooting two video cameras and it was a rocket launch, much different than what we shoot typically.
Yes, I believe that this cannot be a all the time solution. I am thinking more for a limited scenarios where the aircraft aren’t necessarily going to come back around 30 seconds later this could be workable. I hope to make something else work for situations like the Mach loop, Star Wars canyon, and arrivals at the Departure days where you might only get one shot at the aircraft going by.
In situations where you are mostly remaining a level with the aircraft, or they are below you, I think the solution would be feasible. As an endgame, I think I will end up with the video camera on a tripod, and the still camera strapped on my shoulder.
Go4Long wrote:
So the plate arrived yesterday and I mounted it up and we have a proof of concept...kinda. It works (or it would if made out of metal, since I immediately broke the plastic stud) but I’m just not sure it’s the best way to go about it. The mount is just too tall.
Is the lens plate long enough that there's an exposed hole underneath you could screw something into it? I wonder if a combination of micro arms would work, and then you could reposition them for balance and angle of view. There's lots of different connectors and clamps for that system. I use mine for everything from remote flash and camera mount to holding LED lights for macro photos.
ELinder wrote:
Is the lens plate long enough that there's an exposed hole underneath you could screw something into it? I wonder if a combination of micro arms would work, and then you could reposition them for balance and angle of view. There's lots of different connectors and clamps for that system. I use mine for everything from remote flash and camera mount to holding LED lights for macro photos.
I'm looking at probably having to buy a lower profile bit that mounts to the ring, then a mounting plate to screw to that, and a normal arca type plate for the bottom of the camera. So not too bad...the concept works I think, just need to work on the execution of it a bit.
I was out playing with camcorders today...the rabbit hole is looming close.
