L. Kingston's Custom A1U

Alex Thames · April 7th, 2006, 06:02 PM

How do you order from Cavision via email? I filled everything out except for the shipping charges and total cost (because I don't know the shipping charges). How do I find out how much they charge for shipping and handling and what carrier and service they will use? I put in a special request for the cheapest carrier and cheapest service, but still, how do I fill out the form and send it to them?

Also, how do I sign the email order form? Do I just type my name in and have it act as an electronic signature, rather than signing it with an actual pen and somehow scanning the image of my actual signature in/pasting it into the form?

Is the LH77 hood a 16:9 hood? What are other hoods? 4:3? What if I want to be able to shoot both 16:9 and 4:3, depending on my mood and use the same lens hood with the Sony Wideangle Y lens? When I'm downconverting to SD from HD, I usually want a 4:3 aspect ratio, so would my lens hood affect that?

Tom, could you explain what an aspect ratio hood is, and what petals are? And what you mean by getting a hood that just avoids vignetting the full frame image? Is the LH77 an aspect ratio hood? And/or does it just barely avoid vignetting?

Alex Thames · April 7th, 2006, 11:49 PM

Also, how does the Rode SM3 shockmount differ/compare to the Rode SM5 shockmount? How does the SM5 clamp onto the A1?

Tom Hardwick · April 8th, 2006, 06:21 AM

I bought my Cavision 0.5x wide-angle converter and the matching 4:3 LH-100P hood from a dealer, not from Cavision direct.

Back to basics. Why do I need a lens hood?

OK, try this. Get an old UV filter. It doesn't have to screw in, holding it up in front of your camera is ok for this test. Make sure the filter is a bit dusty and includes a fingerprint or two. Now go out into the sunshine and make sure sunlight is falling on the filter. Zoom to wide-angle and aim at the shadows. See all those blurry spots and nasties in your v'finder? Now simply shield the filter from the sun. Use your hand as a flag or hood, or step back into the shadow of a tree or building. Aim at the same spot as before. See how - using the same dusty filter, the image is miracuously cleaned up?

So simple, so effective. There's no accessory you can buy that offers as much bang for the buck as a simple and effective lens hood. The best ones are 'shadowed' hoods. Look at the Sony VX2000 hood to see what I mean. Even with sunlight hitting the inside of the hood the in-built mask keeps it dark in there. Excellent!

A lens hood is designed to do one thing only, and that is to shadow the front element in its entirety. If at the same time it keeps the rain off the glass and lets you bump gently into trees as you track forward, all well and good.

So to keep the front element in shadow you need the deepest hood possible. Of course with wide-angle lenses this is difficult - to be deep would mean they would be huge as the lens is seeing so wide. So a 'petal' hood is used, and this is really a cylindrical hood with the corners cut away, so making the hood look somewhat like a tulip with four petals.

To efficiently hood the front element you should use a hood that matches your filming format - so use a 16:9 hood with 16:9 filming. Of course you don't have to, but if you use a 4:3 hood and film 16:9 you're not shielding the front element as much as you could do.

Lots of camcorders these days actually mask the front element. Have a look at the DVX100 Panasonic to see what I mean. I apply black insulating tape to my UV filter in the same way - it cuts down on the amount of 'non image-forming light' that gets into your zoom lens, bounces around unchecked and dilutes the image with flare.

If you have a hood that's too long, when you zoom back to full wide the chips might 'see' inside the hood. This will vignette the image (gives black edges to your picture) but you might not see this on TV or in the cam's v'finder, which is why I say check for vignetting on your computer monitor, which will show you the entire frame as recorded, and not the masked4TV image you see in the v'finder.

Hope this clears things up. Always worth asking questions.

tom.

Alex Thames · April 8th, 2006, 06:30 PM

I've seen pics of the VX2000 hood, but still don't understand what makes it a shadowed hoods as opposed to non-shadowed hoods. Could you link to some pics of a non-shadowed hood and explain the differences? Also, a link to a pic of a petal hood would be helpful.

So from what I'm understanding, you're saying that a 16:9 hood shields the front element best when filming in 16:9 format, and a 4:3 hood shields it best for filming 4:3 format - but what is the reason behind this? Why wouldn't a 4:3 hood work at its full potential when filming 16:9 or vise versa?

I'm also unsure what you mean by "mask" the front element? I've checked out the lens hood on the DVX100, but I still don't understand what you mean.

Lastly, why does the viewfinder and/or LCD screen not show the entire frame you are recording, and why a TV screen will show everything? Wouldn't you want to see everythign you're recording in the viewfinder/LCD screen, or how can you frame your shots correctly?

Sorry for all these n00b questions. I only started getting into this stuff not too long ago.

Still wondering how to order from Cavision via email directly too, and what the difference between the Rode SM3 and SM5 are.

Tom Hardwick · April 9th, 2006, 01:22 AM

Lots of questions Alex. Here's tom's take.

TV's have always masked down the broadcast picture. It's historical really - early TVs used to 'shrink' the picture if the start of scene B was a lot brighter than the end of scene A. It was due to the CRT taking more than the feeble power supplies could muster. Masking meant you didn't see scene B as smaller than your TV's screen.

TVs nowadays don't need to mask the image, but they still do. Your editing program should show clearly the title safe and TV safe areas as rectangular marks within your DV frame. Camcorders still mask the image, and pretty drastically sometimes. I hate this picture masking as it robs me of the expensive wide-angle I've paid for. Some projectors don't mask and the Z1 can be switched to show the entire frame as you shoot - an excellent idea.

Look at the lens hood on the Canon GL1 or XL1s. These are rectangular, aspect ratio, black and internally ribbed. Good. Now if you shoot in sunlight, light will fall onto this inner surface of the hood, illuminating it quite brightly. This bright surface (ribbed and black to try and avoid reflections) sure does reflect light back, and this can be 'seen' by the front element. It causes flare - i.e. it dilutes the image contrast.

Now look at the VX2000's shadowed hood. A rectangular mask attempts to block sunlight from even entering the hood, such that even in bright sunlight, the interior surfaces of the hood are pretty dark. Result - much less flare. Downside? Much higher build cost. The Sony aperture mask alone is comprised of 6 parts, the hood adding a further four. This is money Canon don't bother to spend.

Go back and look at the DVX100 - or any of the Panasonic cams for that matter. Take a look at the circular front element - notice how there's a straight edged mask in front of the glass that stops you seeing the entire element? This is very often ribbed and black to keep out non image-forming light.

This is getting long-winded, but take it from me Alex, you should hood your camera to match your aspect ratio. And remember this - the lens hoods on our camcorders are only designed to work efficiently at the wide-angle end of the zoom. The more telephoto work you do, the less efficient is the stock hood. That's why Hoya's collapsible hood is such a good idea - you can make it a long black cylinder in front of your lens when you're on safari and using long focal lengths all the time.

tom.

Adam La Prade · April 9th, 2006, 08:41 PM

Question: Does anyone (or can anyone) have a picture of the Sony Y lens with the Cavision LH77 on it? I was hoping to see what it looked like. Also, the LH77 is a 16:9 lens hood, isnt it?

Alexander Karol · April 9th, 2006, 10:59 PM

Hey Adam,

I'll have it soon. It should be arriving today (04/10) or tomorrow.

My setup is almost complete. All I need is my LH77 lens hood and the ME64 or NTG1 microphone. I have pretty much the same setup as Laurence with some modifications. I have a much cheaper (and worse) wireless set. I got the AT 88W PRO set, which is perfect for my needs. I find the quality of the sound quite amazing.

By the way Laurence, I purchased the same adapter to attach the wireless set like yours, but I don't quite understand how you got it to hook like that. Do you think you could explain how you got it to attach like you did on the SpiderBrace?

Ron Little · April 13th, 2006, 03:24 PM

Where did you order your Cavision hood from? I can’t find it at B&H.

Alex Thames · April 13th, 2006, 03:31 PM

Probably directly from cavision, but I have no idea how to fill out the email form. I've asked about this before, but no one answered, so let's try again.

The email form has three parts that I don't know how to fill out:
1. Shipping cost/method: how should I know? I don't know the cost, the exact location they are shipping from, or the shipping carrier/method. How do I fill this field in if I don't know such information? Shouldn't they send me a full quote with shipping and handling and any other fees along with the price of just the product itself?

2. Total cost: because I don't know the shipping cost, I can't enter in a total cost.

3. Signature: Do they expect me to print it out, sign it by hand, scan my signature in and photoshop it back onto the form, then email the form to them? Or will simply typing in my full name act as a signature in electronic form with all the validity of a real signature?

Marc Ries · April 13th, 2006, 03:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tom Hardwick

... you should hood your camera to match your aspect ratio.

While I think the Cavision hood will look "cool" on the HC1 Wide-Angle lens, I've also found out the the hood provided with the Sony Telephoto lens fits the Sony WA lens and did not, in my tests, cause any vignetting of the video even when not zoomed.

The plus is, if you have both lenses, you only need one common hood.

Alex Thames · April 13th, 2006, 04:14 PM

You mentioned there was no vignetting when zoomed out, but is there any vignetting with the Sony Telephoto included lens hood when using the Sony Y Wideangle zoomed all the way in?

What about vignetting zoomed in and zoomed out with the Sony Y Wideangle and Cavision LH77 lens hood?

Maximo Salaberry · April 13th, 2006, 04:39 PM

marc:

can you post a photo of the SONY telephoto hood?

thank you

Alexander Karol · April 13th, 2006, 06:26 PM

I recommend you guys call them directly to order the lens hood. They were very helpful when I called.

Laurence Kingston · April 13th, 2006, 08:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Alexander Karol

By the way Laurence, I purchased the same adapter to attach the wireless set like yours, but I don't quite understand how you got it to hook like that. Do you think you could explain how you got it to attach like you did on the SpiderBrace?

Yeah, the adapter is theaded for a standard sized thread. I just got a bolt from the local hardware store and some lock washers to make up the extra length. I put it in a position where it would neither get in the way of changing tapes (with the bottom loading solution adapter) or be in the way of my hands and arms for shooting. The bolt head is on the inside with a lockwasher or two and it extends through the center box of the spiderbrace and gets threaded into the hotshoe adapter. I had to remove the front mounting screw from the Spiderbrace to do this, but I always use it in the rear position (so as to be closer to my eye) anyway.

Marc Ries · April 15th, 2006, 04:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Marc Ries

...I've also found out the the hood provided with the Sony Telephoto lens fits the Sony WA lens and did not, in my tests, cause any vignetting of the video even when not zoomed...

Since I didn't see an "Edit" option for this (my) post, I will "Quote" it and make a correction, since the above info. is, sadly, not quite correct.

I spoke too soon based on the feedback from looking at the LCD while filming. The LCD does NOT appear to show all of the HD video being captured, as I finally downloaded the scenes I shot with the Tele hood on the WA lens and did get some minor vignetting in the 4 corners when viewing on my HD monitor.

Now the vignetting was minimal, but enough to ruin the non-zoomed shot. It might be possible to solve this by moving the hood further back on the lens or even cutting some material from the front of the hood, either reducing the total length or notching four corners, which would then require some form of registration marking to always get the hood back on in the same position.

Not having a spare and not knowing how much it would cost to replace it, I'm not quite ready to start butchering the Sony hood just yet. I will see if I can set the hood further back on the lens and avoid the vignetting. If it only cost $20 +/- to get a replacement and hack on it, I may do that route. Any more than that and the new Cavision "Y" hood would be the better choice, although it would still be nice if there was a single-solution hood for both Sony lens (WA and Tele).

April 13th, 2006, 04:39 PM	#102
Maximo Salaberry Regular Crew Join Date: May 2005 Posts: 66	photo of the SONY telephoto hood? marc: can you post a photo of the SONY telephoto hood? thank you

April 7th, 2006, 06:02 PM	#91
Alex Thames Major Player Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: New York Posts: 508	How do you order from Cavision via email? I filled everything out except for the shipping charges and total cost (because I don't know the shipping charges). How do I find out how much they charge for shipping and handling and what carrier and service they will use? I put in a special request for the cheapest carrier and cheapest service, but still, how do I fill out the form and send it to them? Also, how do I sign the email order form? Do I just type my name in and have it act as an electronic signature, rather than signing it with an actual pen and somehow scanning the image of my actual signature in/pasting it into the form? Is the LH77 hood a 16:9 hood? What are other hoods? 4:3? What if I want to be able to shoot both 16:9 and 4:3, depending on my mood and use the same lens hood with the Sony Wideangle Y lens? When I'm downconverting to SD from HD, I usually want a 4:3 aspect ratio, so would my lens hood affect that? Tom, could you explain what an aspect ratio hood is, and what petals are? And what you mean by getting a hood that just avoids vignetting the full frame image? Is the LH77 an aspect ratio hood? And/or does it just barely avoid vignetting?

April 7th, 2006, 11:49 PM	#92
Alex Thames Major Player Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: New York Posts: 508	Also, how does the Rode SM3 shockmount differ/compare to the Rode SM5 shockmount? How does the SM5 clamp onto the A1?

April 8th, 2006, 06:21 AM	#93
Tom Hardwick Inner Circle Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: Billericay, England UK Posts: 4,711	I bought my Cavision 0.5x wide-angle converter and the matching 4:3 LH-100P hood from a dealer, not from Cavision direct. Back to basics. Why do I need a lens hood? OK, try this. Get an old UV filter. It doesn't have to screw in, holding it up in front of your camera is ok for this test. Make sure the filter is a bit dusty and includes a fingerprint or two. Now go out into the sunshine and make sure sunlight is falling on the filter. Zoom to wide-angle and aim at the shadows. See all those blurry spots and nasties in your v'finder? Now simply shield the filter from the sun. Use your hand as a flag or hood, or step back into the shadow of a tree or building. Aim at the same spot as before. See how - using the same dusty filter, the image is miracuously cleaned up? So simple, so effective. There's no accessory you can buy that offers as much bang for the buck as a simple and effective lens hood. The best ones are 'shadowed' hoods. Look at the Sony VX2000 hood to see what I mean. Even with sunlight hitting the inside of the hood the in-built mask keeps it dark in there. Excellent! A lens hood is designed to do one thing only, and that is to shadow the front element in its entirety. If at the same time it keeps the rain off the glass and lets you bump gently into trees as you track forward, all well and good. So to keep the front element in shadow you need the deepest hood possible. Of course with wide-angle lenses this is difficult - to be deep would mean they would be huge as the lens is seeing so wide. So a 'petal' hood is used, and this is really a cylindrical hood with the corners cut away, so making the hood look somewhat like a tulip with four petals. To efficiently hood the front element you should use a hood that matches your filming format - so use a 16:9 hood with 16:9 filming. Of course you don't have to, but if you use a 4:3 hood and film 16:9 you're not shielding the front element as much as you could do. Lots of camcorders these days actually mask the front element. Have a look at the DVX100 Panasonic to see what I mean. I apply black insulating tape to my UV filter in the same way - it cuts down on the amount of 'non image-forming light' that gets into your zoom lens, bounces around unchecked and dilutes the image with flare. If you have a hood that's too long, when you zoom back to full wide the chips might 'see' inside the hood. This will vignette the image (gives black edges to your picture) but you might not see this on TV or in the cam's v'finder, which is why I say check for vignetting on your computer monitor, which will show you the entire frame as recorded, and not the masked4TV image you see in the v'finder. Hope this clears things up. Always worth asking questions. tom.

April 8th, 2006, 06:30 PM	#94
Alex Thames Major Player Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: New York Posts: 508	I've seen pics of the VX2000 hood, but still don't understand what makes it a shadowed hoods as opposed to non-shadowed hoods. Could you link to some pics of a non-shadowed hood and explain the differences? Also, a link to a pic of a petal hood would be helpful. So from what I'm understanding, you're saying that a 16:9 hood shields the front element best when filming in 16:9 format, and a 4:3 hood shields it best for filming 4:3 format - but what is the reason behind this? Why wouldn't a 4:3 hood work at its full potential when filming 16:9 or vise versa? I'm also unsure what you mean by "mask" the front element? I've checked out the lens hood on the DVX100, but I still don't understand what you mean. Lastly, why does the viewfinder and/or LCD screen not show the entire frame you are recording, and why a TV screen will show everything? Wouldn't you want to see everythign you're recording in the viewfinder/LCD screen, or how can you frame your shots correctly? Sorry for all these n00b questions. I only started getting into this stuff not too long ago. Still wondering how to order from Cavision via email directly too, and what the difference between the Rode SM3 and SM5 are.

April 9th, 2006, 01:22 AM	#95
Tom Hardwick Inner Circle Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: Billericay, England UK Posts: 4,711	Lots of questions Alex. Here's tom's take. TV's have always masked down the broadcast picture. It's historical really - early TVs used to 'shrink' the picture if the start of scene B was a lot brighter than the end of scene A. It was due to the CRT taking more than the feeble power supplies could muster. Masking meant you didn't see scene B as smaller than your TV's screen. TVs nowadays don't need to mask the image, but they still do. Your editing program should show clearly the title safe and TV safe areas as rectangular marks within your DV frame. Camcorders still mask the image, and pretty drastically sometimes. I hate this picture masking as it robs me of the expensive wide-angle I've paid for. Some projectors don't mask and the Z1 can be switched to show the entire frame as you shoot - an excellent idea. Look at the lens hood on the Canon GL1 or XL1s. These are rectangular, aspect ratio, black and internally ribbed. Good. Now if you shoot in sunlight, light will fall onto this inner surface of the hood, illuminating it quite brightly. This bright surface (ribbed and black to try and avoid reflections) sure does reflect light back, and this can be 'seen' by the front element. It causes flare - i.e. it dilutes the image contrast. Now look at the VX2000's shadowed hood. A rectangular mask attempts to block sunlight from even entering the hood, such that even in bright sunlight, the interior surfaces of the hood are pretty dark. Result - much less flare. Downside? Much higher build cost. The Sony aperture mask alone is comprised of 6 parts, the hood adding a further four. This is money Canon don't bother to spend. Go back and look at the DVX100 - or any of the Panasonic cams for that matter. Take a look at the circular front element - notice how there's a straight edged mask in front of the glass that stops you seeing the entire element? This is very often ribbed and black to keep out non image-forming light. This is getting long-winded, but take it from me Alex, you should hood your camera to match your aspect ratio. And remember this - the lens hoods on our camcorders are only designed to work efficiently at the wide-angle end of the zoom. The more telephoto work you do, the less efficient is the stock hood. That's why Hoya's collapsible hood is such a good idea - you can make it a long black cylinder in front of your lens when you're on safari and using long focal lengths all the time. tom.

April 9th, 2006, 08:41 PM	#96
Adam La Prade Regular Crew Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: Orlando, FL Posts: 77	Question: Does anyone (or can anyone) have a picture of the Sony Y lens with the Cavision LH77 on it? I was hoping to see what it looked like. Also, the LH77 is a 16:9 lens hood, isnt it?

April 9th, 2006, 10:59 PM	#97
Alexander Karol Regular Crew Join Date: Aug 2005 Location: Orlando, FL Posts: 198	Hey Adam, I'll have it soon. It should be arriving today (04/10) or tomorrow. My setup is almost complete. All I need is my LH77 lens hood and the ME64 or NTG1 microphone. I have pretty much the same setup as Laurence with some modifications. I have a much cheaper (and worse) wireless set. I got the AT 88W PRO set, which is perfect for my needs. I find the quality of the sound quite amazing. By the way Laurence, I purchased the same adapter to attach the wireless set like yours, but I don't quite understand how you got it to hook like that. Do you think you could explain how you got it to attach like you did on the SpiderBrace?

April 13th, 2006, 03:24 PM	#98
Ron Little Major Player Join Date: Feb 2003 Location: Pensacola Fl. Posts: 627	Where did you order your Cavision hood from? I can’t find it at B&H.

April 13th, 2006, 03:31 PM	#99
Alex Thames Major Player Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: New York Posts: 508	Probably directly from cavision, but I have no idea how to fill out the email form. I've asked about this before, but no one answered, so let's try again. The email form has three parts that I don't know how to fill out: 1. Shipping cost/method: how should I know? I don't know the cost, the exact location they are shipping from, or the shipping carrier/method. How do I fill this field in if I don't know such information? Shouldn't they send me a full quote with shipping and handling and any other fees along with the price of just the product itself? 2. Total cost: because I don't know the shipping cost, I can't enter in a total cost. 3. Signature: Do they expect me to print it out, sign it by hand, scan my signature in and photoshop it back onto the form, then email the form to them? Or will simply typing in my full name act as a signature in electronic form with all the validity of a real signature?

April 13th, 2006, 04:14 PM	#101
Alex Thames Major Player Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: New York Posts: 508	You mentioned there was no vignetting when zoomed out, but is there any vignetting with the Sony Telephoto included lens hood when using the Sony Y Wideangle zoomed all the way in? What about vignetting zoomed in and zoomed out with the Sony Y Wideangle and Cavision LH77 lens hood?

April 13th, 2006, 06:26 PM	#103
Alexander Karol Regular Crew Join Date: Aug 2005 Location: Orlando, FL Posts: 198	I recommend you guys call them directly to order the lens hood. They were very helpful when I called.