FS7: Torbay Airshow 218

M

morgan_moore

Major Contributor
Here is a quick turnaround I did for Torbay Airshow.

FS7 nikkor 50-300 in HFR centre crop mode*

(yes that is a 150-800 zoom in FFstills terms!)

Broll grabed on my EX1 - under pressure the acam had to be left on the sticks while I legged it about with the EX1.

Also super handy.. every pilot has a GoPro strapped somewhere - grabbing this footage was really important!

Cudos to the EX1 for having ND and a zoom - fook using a GH4 or BMagic when things go fast!

No audio in HFR sucks for the FS7 - I had to roll the EX1 to get the jet audio - roughly snched using timcode on both cameras set roughly to my iphone.

FInding the audio slowed the edit but with TC on my display in resolve it was not too painful.

Doug who seems to shoot some planes - I wonder if you want to comment on my Miller Arrow 25 head - usually it is the king but I feel at the '800' end its pretty shakey as I yank the camera around trying to follow the fast jets.. maybe comment on your experience of tripods and jets.


*usually I use my speed booster but not on this shoot, I had a problem that my cheap adapter did not give me infinity focus leading to the first two shots being OOF, - luckily I had a spare adapter with me- it fared a little better but I need to check that.
 
Isn't the sigma 150-600 (sports=sharper) an option for you? But I can imagine why you use the Nikkor, I also have the 50-300 and I love it.
 
Well the nikon is small eough to rig direct to the body (with a foot)

bigger lenses need putting on the sticks and become a Pita if you want to lose the lens and go wide.

Also the nikkor has silky manual focus at cinema glass levels - I doubt a stigma does that.
 
Nice video, Sam. I'm debating whether or not to shoot a Blue Angels air show next weekend. I've got a media pass but I don't know if I'll have the time. But I know when I hear those jets practicing just a few hundred meters over my house my blood is going to get pumping.

I consider my O'Connor 1030D to be the bare minimum support I will use for anything longer than 200mm with my F55 or FS7. I shoot with a f/2.8 300mm RED Prime and a f/4 Canon 200-400 with built-in 1.4 extender that makes it an f/5.6 560mm lens. On a typical wildlife, sports, rocket launch, or airshow shoot my camera weight exceeds 14 kg. Nothing I have used below the 1030D would satisfy my needs for pan/tilt smoothness, infinite counterbalancing, anti-torque control, and general steadiness. In fact, now that I am often simultaneously running my Z90 mounted on top of the F55 I'm thinking of upgrading to an Oconnor 2560. I feel like I am just about at the limit of what the 1030D can handle well. Is the 2560 expensive? Yes, but just like my 1030D, it will serve me literally for decades. When you run the numbers it is great ROI. And how can you put a price on the pleasure of shooting with good gear? An extra sale or two of stock footage each month that was made possible by using the right gear is enough to justify it right there. Anyway, since you asked, those are my thoughts.

BTW, I don't think that Nikkor 50-300 looks anywhere near as good as you think it does. It looks too soft and has low-contrast, especially when juxtaposed next to the overly sharp GoPro stuff. You should rent a better lens for a shoot like this sometime and I bet you might not be so happy with that Nikkor anymore. :-)
 
Thanks for the comments.

Judging on price alone the Ocons are a step up from my miller - which I have previously considered to be excellent for 'typical shooting' - ie less than 200mm and no crazy fast moves - it is certainly similar to the sachlers the local broadcast boys put thier ENG cams on. Maybe i need to testdrive an Ocon (in the UK ronford is the usual high end brand).
This shoot got me wondering about what they use with big ENG box lenses at major sports events - maybe those lenses are stabilised or somehow the camera is better isolated from operator input?

The nikkor looks complete shi_t in this video. I agree.

A couple of years ago I tested all my nikkors for sharpness - on my 6k D600 (which obviously has an inbuilt nikon mount and no lens adapter)- and all far outresolve 1080 apart from my very vintage 28/2 at 2. That sharpness test was in my studio with focus set at around 4m. It did not test focus at 500+m

The lens is clearly not working correctly on my FS7 when the subject is 500+ meters distant - I think the problem is that it is not getting infinity focus when fully racked to infinity - as I noted in my OP I changed adapters during the shoot to try and rectify the problem - I think the second adaper was better. Using adapters that are not my speedbooster is not my norm - but I did not want the AOV widened for this situation.

I beleive either my adapter is not shimmed correctly (or at all being very cheap) or the lens foot height/rig setup was slightly off causing the lens to be sagging and off axis compared to the chip. This would turn it into a 'tilt shift' lens.

At '800mm' any problems would become highly apparent and the engineering demands leap to the place where FZ or PL mounting and test bench calibration is really needed.

Previously Ive had some alaising problems with the lens - as I also had when using flawless CN primes - and I put it in the class of 'too sharp for the camera' (my theory being that the AA filter in the camera is not strong enough so the camera is best fed with a 'soft' signal.. ideally about 3.9k)

I clearly need to do a bit more testing of all elements in the chain :)
 
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Good one Mr. Moore! Very nice indeed. My only negative comment would be 'Torbay.' I can remember a time when I came close to freezing my proverbials off down there in the distant past :)

Chris Young
 
cyvideo said:
Good one Mr. Moore! Very nice indeed. My only negative comment would be 'Torbay.' I can remember a time when I came close to freezing my proverbials off down there in the distant past :)

Chris Young
Click to expand...

Torbay would not be on my prime visit list.. hence they put on events like this (and employ the nations finest video promotion teams) to try and boost the, I guess, flagging visitor economy - at least there is a new ring road which means one doesnt have to queue for hours to get to where one doesnt want to go
 
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morgan_moore said:
. . . or the lens foot height/rig setup was slightly off causing the lens to be sagging and off axis compared to the chip. This would turn it into a 'tilt shift' lens.
Click to expand...

That is definitely a legitimate concern that I experienced with my FS7 the first week I owned it. I solved it by adding a Zacuto universal base plate that provides rock solid 15mm rod support for any lens I mount.
 
I just did a quick dirty test between the Nikkor 50-300 and the Sigma sports 150-600 both at 300mm.

f8, 1/50 custom, 4K

https://vimeo.com/273544237


When you want to count the bricks in the house you should use the Sigma. At 600mm the Sigma is soft.

The sigma is on the right
 
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