I can't offer any help with the telephoto, except to acknowledge the unique long range challenge shooting surfing would represent.

But I will relate my knowledge to a 35mm SLR with a 400mm lens, is quite a challenge to use successfully, and that only represents an 8x magnification. The HD1/10 includes 10x optical magnification. A tripod is very important at long range (which you already acknowledged you will be using). If you are to add even more magnification, it's inherent that each additional piece of glass you put in front of the imaging sensor is incrementally going to have adverse consequences that again, only you can be the judge of. If you have to, you have to do what you have to do to get the shot, which sometimes means breaking the rules or thinking outside the box, so I'm not lecturing you.

You're going to have to experiment. For shutter speed, I would make an exception to the 1/60 second rule, and accept up to 1/125 second to try and capture some water droplets as opposed to having the wave droplets smearing at slower shutter speeds.

If you stack too many filters on, you'll get vignetting (darkening) at the corners of the image. The filters need to go on last, and the polarizer is always the last one on, because to use it, you have to rotate it so that it blocks incident light at 90 degrees. You just look through the viewfinder or LCD and rotate it until it gets darkest. You may find it helpful to lock the exposure while doing this to make the polarizing effect most obvious (because it's otherwise subtle and hard to notice through a viewfinder), and afterward unlock the exposure before shooting.

With so much glass, I'd avoid stacking ND, opting instead to choose the right value for just one, filter.

.3 = 1 f-stop
.6 = 2 f-stop
.9 = 3 f-stop

Each f-stop reduces the light admitted by 1/2, so a .9 ND is only admitting 1/8 the light, for example.

The polarizer also reduces light transmitted, so I'd carry (1) .3 ND, (1) .6 ND, using only one or the other at a time, in combination with the polarizer.

Clouds, time of day all affect which combination will be the best, but the object is to get the light filtered and polarized so that the total exposure will be around 1/125 second shutter at F-5.6-8.0.

If the aperture gets too small, (i.e. f-16-22) then diffraction will cause the image to get grainy and lose resolution, too large (i.e. f-2.0-4.0) causes a shallow depth of field. Either of those effects can sometimes be desired for special effects, or to control depth of field.

If too fast a shutter speed is used, (i.e. 1/250-1/500), the 30 fps video will lose fluidity, but can be desired again, for a special effect.

Use quality filters! Cheap glass is a mistake.

The GR-HD1/10 has very good quality aspherical glass lens by the way. It's popular to criticize this camera for it's small failings, but the fundamentals are good. And the glass is very good. Barrel distortion and pincushion is virtually non-existent. And the lens speed (f-2.0) is the same at maximum or minimum magnification. That is the hallmark of great zoom lens performance.

Tom, you just made me smarter and I thank you for it. Saving me money in knowledge is always a good thing and I always learn a lot from this forums. Your last msg will remain in my documents for review down the road. Right now I have no further question as you have answer my questions on the set up. I, however, posted a different forum under Mac editing asking about the WM9 conversion from Quicktime via a program called "Flip4mac". With the introduction of wm9 supporting DVD players, such as the Bravo D3, it has created a tool for distribution, limited, but alvailable nevertheless. PC users might have it easier.

PS. I guess I do have a question. For my objectives, sound is not important. Are there differences in optics between the HD1 and the HD10. I would prefer to save money with the HD1.

I don't know if this will help deciding if the HD1 will be good for shooting surfing or not, but I threw together some footage I had of waves/water/etc. Most of this footage was obtained from hand holding my HD10U, not tripod mounted (except for the Post Hurricane Ivan waves). I am sure much better footage can be obtained with proper setup and practice. The footage of the kite surfer was heavily color corrected (and unfortanetly not very sharp), as I accidentally had a red filter on when shooting the short clip. Anyways, for what it's worth, I hope this helps..

http://s2.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=31...V29LISHUJKW29C

I have two HD10's, and I think I have some handheld shots from Sunset and Waimea from about a week before The Eddie Aikau. They were shot without any filters as we were doing some underwater shooting that day and didn't have them with us. I will see if I can find them and post them to let you see what some crappy footage looks like. As for in the water, the Gates HD1 housing gives you full control of all of the settings so you can adjust on the fly. But the housing is about $5000 so that may be a deterrent. I will be in Hau'ula next December, and we plan on shooting some Surfing following the advise I am getting on this forum I am confident it will look awsome! That shark diving footage was from an HD10, we have gone out with those Guys in Hale'iwa .

The Bravo D3 never happened, however the I-O Data AVeL LinkPlayer2 did arrive, and sports the Sigma EM8620L WMV media processor, TCP/IP networking via ethernet, Xvid, WMV9, Divx, DVD-Video etc.

I-O Data Website


Windows Media 9 Player is available for Mac OSX operating system

Microsoft WMV Downloads

Thanks
 

Bobby, that's good enough for me. I can always exercise color correction but I'll never be able to reproduce resolution. Thank you.

David, I live in Honolulu, by Nimitz and the base. I would love to see your footage. If you ever need any help while in Oahu don't hesitate to drop me a note.

Tom, thank you for the update ton the Bravo D3. The Avel Link Player 2 is a most have for any HD enthusiast. Thanks you.

Thanks you all and keep the footage comming. High times for JVC with the new release due in April. Finally all the 24p junkies will get thiers. Can't wait to see some footage. I might sell my car and take the bus for one of them. j/k.

Jaime,
I found the footage on one of my DVHS tapes and will try to encode it and post it this week. I am sorry for the delay but I was in Hot Springs Arkansas visiting my Grandmother.

RGR
 

Roger David.
Stding by 4 footage.
Out.