anti-flaring medicine
 

2 pills to be taken at the same time, for each shoot[list=1][*]rubber lens hood[*]avoid pointing the cam towards a bright light source[/list=1]

Doesn't work in Hawaii, Frank. Also, lens hood doesn't work well with a WA - at least I haven't found one yet that does it for my WA. Back to the drawing boards.

wouldn't a Polarizer filter help?

Patricia, have you tried this one:

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthrea...threadid=24563

A polarizer masks glare, not lens flaring; but I could always be proven wrong. :-))

=) not this time =))
sorry thought you were talking about the vertical "smeraing" of bright objects.

I like the lens-flares actually =) cometimes they give a "cool" look

Yup, I've been using a polarizer for awhile now. The salesman at the only really decent camera shop here (at least that I know of) convinced me to try it. One of the expensive ones, too (but it's a thin). The only reason I don't hate myself for spending that kind of money is that it does pretty well outdoors in Hawaii, though you still get some flare. Someone else (the fellow who owns the super mamba) says he uses an ND filter. But then you've seen his setup if you've seen the photo, so you know how he feels about shooting. Being perfectly happy as an amateur, I like it simple. BTW, I've also tried the Tiffen low-contrast (not the ultra contrast you asked about in your other thread). Works to flatten out those big bulgy glares you get outdoors off certain surfaces - but the polarizer is better for people-oriented stuff. Still waiting for someone to come up with a hood that works with my WA.

What's a super mamba? the silver one?

Tame those angry flares with the Flarebuster. Check it out at http://www.digitalprods.com/flare.htm
The best twenty bucks you can spend.

Wayne Orr, SOC

Frank, the super mamba is the one with the big hood glued to the Panasonic WA lens. I think Young Lee posted a link to it earlier asking if it was supposed to be the gs400. It's actually owned (or at least the original was) by a gs100k owner who lives in Hawaii.

Looks good, Wayne, but does it add much weight? I have a small cam for a reason. As I've added a WA lens, a mike, a quick release plate so it will work best with the dvcaddie jr, not too mention the dvcaddie jr itself, I'm beginning to wonder why I bothered searching so hard for a worthy small cam. (Yes, I know, why have a worthy cam if you're not going to do anything worthy with it. But, you see, that's the free pass you get with being a not very devoted amateur.)

Wayne, you mean this http://www.dvfreak.com/consumer.htm ?

Frank, you have everybody's photo on your site. Kind of neat. Let me ask you a question, though, about UV filters - which I don't use anymore. I know people say stick one on to protect your lens if nothing else. But does it make sense to shoot though a $20 piece of green glass when you've gone through all the trouble to take care that your camera lens itself is high quality? I have Hoya thins (which I don't use much anymore), and supposedly they are not green glass. The reason I went to the more expensive filters is that it didn't make sense to me to have paid for a supposedly good lens and then put a coca-cola bottle in front of it (okay, now I'm exaggerating). But does it really matter? And if it doesn't, why not? Is there some magical thing that a good lens does that negates green glass?

Even a cheaper UV filter like a Cokin is about 4X the glass quality of the "best" lens. Something like the Zeiss UV is about 6X the quality and a Leica UV filter is about 8X, or so I am told. With miniDV being such low resolution when compared with film, I don't think you'll see any difference between a Cokin UV and a Leica UV. So "does it really matter?" I don't think so. Not with DV.

So why bother with B&W, Schneider, Hoya pros, etc? Is it just marketing?

Thin filters are closer to the lens for less flaring, but these high end filters are really meant for higher end resolution lenses found on film cams and broadcast cams. In the film world, especially 35mm, you want to get the best results. So if your cam and lenses cost you an arm and a leg, and you know how to operate them for the desired result/effect, you go for the best filters as well. For hand-held DV cams, it doesn't matter on the quality of the filter glass, because even cheep filters are good enough and because these cams have low resolution and low-end built-in lenses---it doesn't matter if the lens has a Zeiss or Leica stamp on it. Yeah, it's just marketing.