I wasn't ready to buy a mattebox just yet... besides, at this point they won't work with the .6 Century wide angle adapter.

I just needed to use a Black Diffusion FX for interviews or perhaps a gradient or other 4X4 filter.

Something about our lens hood kept saying that it was the right size for the job. The problem was how to make the slit paralell to the film plane.

Attached are two illustrations... for those who like simple


http://www.2pff.com/cgi-bin/more.cgi?110

http://www.2pff.com/cgi-bin/more.cgi?111

That's looking interesting! Nice work!

I made this extension hood by placing a large card at the distance from the lens where I wanted the hood to end. (at the end of the Steadycam JR) Then zoomed all the way out and traced the edges onto the card where they were just out of frame (plus a little safe area). This gave me the outside dimension. The inside dimension is, of course the hood (plus the thickness of velcro around it. The hood is made of illustrator board and grey tape and painted with wrinkle black from an auto parts store. It looks pretty good and works great. The thickness of the board comes just flush with the filter... I was planning to add a velcro strip to hold the filter in at the top but it isn't necessary. The filter is much closer to the lens than the matteboxes put it (it just clears the mic).

http://www.2pff.com/cgi-bin/more.cgi?118

pics of the original retrofit:

http://www.2pff.com/cgi-bin/more.cgi?110

http://www.2pff.com/cgi-bin/more.cgi?111