The book has been published!

I am pleased to announce the final stages of getting to publication are now over. I wrote briefly concerning the process of getting my first Theological text written (see here. The new book is completed, edited, published, and now available for purchase in paper and Kindle editions.

If you are interested, there are sample chapters available here and the Facebook site is here.

Needless to say, it was an interesting experience. I opted to go with the self-publication route and used CreateSpace as my host. Self-publication puts all the work in your hands so I was able to be creative as well as to ensure my text was not hacked. This latter aspect is very important in a book of this type.

As soon as I can, I hope to digest the process into one or more blog articles. First, let me give my poor fingers a break!

What in the world has Flickr done?

It has been a long time since I have posted a rant. Sure, there have been many things that have crawled under my skin recently, but nothing that even begins to equal what Flickr has done to its site. They have taken a rather nice “museum wall” feel and converted it into a garish graffiti-splattered nightclub wall that detracts from the images there. The thousands who clung to Flickr because it kept a moderate and clean standard for photo presentation were smacked in the face this morning!

The fact that, as a developer, I can write all sorts of software and use all kinds of tricks doesn’t mean that I have to trot out all my skills at once. This is the feel one gets from the new website, a heavyweight behemoth that is more a front for technological ability than as a resting-place for showcased photos. One wonders if the folks at Flickr/Yahoo even convened focus groups and if they did, who were invited? Ugh! I am still shuddering at the thought of the site.

Dearest Flickr: What were you thinking? Please understand the clientele that uses you over all the umpteen other sharing sites like Photobucket, Picasa, and Shutterfly. Most of your Pro users have chosen Flickr because they want to share their photos in a clean environment, comment and read comments easily, interact with their contacts, and do everything simply even while on the run. Many of us did not particularly like the heavyweight “new Uploadr” but we appreciated the fact that when we needed lightweight, we could use the simpler, earlier design. I believe that you are seeing a massive backlash against the junk you unleashed today. While most of us, for years past, have never even considered looking for the names of other photo sharing sites – today, our search pages are cranked up as we look for something better….

Ok, that is out of my system now…well, not really. Hey, here is an idea! The photo sharing site that creates a reasonable (former) Flickr-like feel and can create an importer tool that will connect to Flickr and suck down photos, comments, sets, and so on and cross post them will have a solid chance to get tens or hundreds of thousands of customers in short order.

Announcing my new book!

I am so excited. I have been working on finalizing the text for a new book, one that has been in the works on and off for the past 15 years or so! I have completed writing and design and it is currently in proofing, Yay and PTL. The book is entitled, “Why I Believe What I Believe: The Foundations of our Christian Faith.” The basic premise is to outline our Theological stances and to tie these to the Biblical texts. It has been my observation that those who are called by the Name of Jesus, namely Christians, many times do not have a solid grasp of the underpinnings of faith and thus can easily be misled or misdirected. The basic plan is for a release around the end of April or first of May through Amazon and on Kindle devices.

The following two segments are excerpts from my forthcoming book. Both are from the chapter entitled “The Person of Jesus.” I hope that you enjoy them.

Section One

A sob pierces the air and He bows His head.  In this one moment of time we capture a poignant visible snapshot of the heart of God.  A large, hot tear of grief courses down His cheek.  It reflects His long-lived sadness at the human condition that was introduced by the Fall.  Jesus’ heart is tugged by the pathos of the moment, the outpouring of love by Lazarus’ sisters and friends, their sense of loss underscored by the gulf of death.  He knows that the human problems of pain, separation, hatred, and death all originate from man’s rejection of God’s lordship.  The rebellion dates back to the Garden of Eden.

Jesus wept.[i]  The warm tears flowed in sequence, streaking the face of the One Who had chosen to be the perfect sacrifice for all mankind’s sin, from even before the foundation of the world.  He Himself had created us for eternal fellowship with Him.  Yet, mankind had become nothing more than fuel for the fires of Hell.  He Who is “God with us”[ii] weeps with us over our human condition, and then moves heaven and earth to save us all.

What makes Jesus so wonderful is that He makes the invisible and intangible God visible to our limited vision.  Before the dawning of the days of the New Testament, God’s Person and His character was conceptual, but when the Word, Who is God, “became flesh and made his dwelling among us,” (John 1:1;14) we could finally know God in a new and intimate way.   We could now literally see, hear, and touch Him. (1 John 1:1-3)  It is through Jesus that we can finally have the depth of God’s love register, not only in our mind’s eye, but through our God-created senses.  From Jesus, we can hear the voice of the Great “I Am” proclaim God’s judgment and declared God’s love and grace.  Jesus is the God-Man, flesh and blood, who “too shared in [our] humanity so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death–that is the devil–and free [us] who all [our] lives were held in slavery by [our] fear of death.”  (Hebrews 2:14,15)

His tears and anguished cries of pain cannot be hidden from our eyes  (Hebrews 5:7-10).  Jesus is completely authentic in every way.  His heart is God’s heart. His desires are God’s desires.  His anguish is God’s anguish.  His love is God’s love.  He is the Second Person of the eternal Trinity;  God made flesh; Immanuel;  God with us; the Suffering Servant; the way, the truth, and the life.  He is our peephole into Heaven itself for it is through Him that we can glimpse all of eternity.  He is the way to Heaven having paved the road of salvation with His body, built the bridge over the gulf that separated man from God with the wood of His Cross, and sealed it all with His precious blood that was spilled for the atonement of mankind’s sins (Romans 3:25).

Who exactly IS this Jesus?  Could He really have been Who He claimed to be?  Many in the world throughout history have accepted Him at His word and have been saved.  Likewise, many have chosen to deny Him and consider Him more a figment of story-telling, or a poor deluded soul, than believing Him to be the Son of the Living God.  How you decide to look at Jesus will have a profound effect on your life, on your worldview, and on your Eternity.

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[i] John 11:35

[ii] Immanuel means “God with us.”

Section Two

Jesus suffered intensely on the Cross, both physically in His full humanity and spiritually in His full divinity.  As He assumed all of mankind’s sin He was increasingly separated from the Father Who could not be in the presence of Sin.  The Godhead which has never been separate for all of eternity was experiencing a separation!   He cried out in agony from the torture of the Crucifixion, “My God, my God, why have your forsaken me?”  (Matthew 27:46)  Max Lucado wrote concerning the poignancy of the moment. “‘Here is the cup, my Son.  Drink it alone.’  God must have wept as he performed his task.  Every lie, every lure, every act done in shadows was in that cup.  Slowly, hideously they were absorbed into the body of the Son.  The final act of incarnation.  The Spotless Lamb was blemished.  Flames began to lick his feet…The undiluted wrath of a sin-hating Father falls upon his sin-filled Son.  The fire envelops him.  The Son looks for his Father, but the Father cannot be seen. ‘My God, my God…why?’”[i]  During the separation from His Father and through the transaction in which He assumed upon Himself all mankind’s sin, Jesus paid the price of eternity in Hell for all men.

How could this separation have happened?  It is important to realize that “[T]he unity of the Father and the Son is not identity. Jesus said indeed that ‘the Father and I are one’ ([John] 10:30), but this is explained in the words: ‘that the Father is in me and I am in the Father’ (10:38). The Father and Son are one, but not the same.”[ii]  They are separate Persons in the Trinity and in the plan of Salvation, they had to separate.  Not only did Jesus have to take sin upon Himself, but He also had to do the unthinkable: God had to taste death!  As His lifeblood ebbed away, Jesus entrusted Himself to His Father.  With His last rasping, dying breath, Jesus quoted Psalm 31:5 as He said in a loud voice, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.”  (Luke 23:46)

Dead.  Jesus’ body hung lifeless on the Cross until it was brutalized by a Roman spear and then brought down for burial.  Joseph of Arimethea petitioned Pontius Pilate for the right to bury Jesus.  After receiving permission, he and his fellow Sanhedrin member, Nicodemus, prepared the body with spices and wrapped it in linen.  A separate cloth was wrapped around Jesus’ head.  Jesus’ rapidly cooling body was then laid in Joseph’s new tomb, the stone was set, seals were affixed to it, and a guard was posted (see, for example, Matthew 27:62-66).  Silence kept vigil in Jesus’ tomb that Friday evening.

That next Sunday morning, the world changed.  In the early hours of that day, something that had never happened before occurred.  Jesus’ grave clothes imploded upon themselves as the body that was there disappeared!  Jesus never had described His death as being final.  His teaching about the coming events always stressed that “he must be killed and after three days rise again.” (Mark 8:31)  His mission was not going to end on the sour discordant note of death but instead with the triumphant trumpet blast of victory!  The Resurrection was always the true destination of His walk on Earth’s surface.  ”He was chosen before the creation of the world, but was revealed in these last times for your sake.  Through him you believe in God, who raised him from the dead and glorified him, and so your faith and hope are in God.” (1 Peter 1:20,21)  The Resurrection kindles our faith because that one event visibly places the stamp of God’s approval on all that Jesus did.   We don’t preach a dead ideologue.  We serve a living Messiah!

In the chapter addressing the Word of God, we concentrated on the passage from 1 Corinthians 15:12-18 in which the Apostle Paul emphasized the importance of the Resurrection event.  The point is well taken that what we do with the raising of Christ from the dead either establishes us a Christians or reduces us to non-believers.  It is impossible, maybe even slightly insane, to claim to believe in the Gospel but to negate the power of the Resurrection!  If Jesus was not raised from the dead then all the gospel accounts only form a fine and wonderful story.  The disciples and early Christians placed their lives on the line for what they knew to be true.  Within literal days of Pentecost, James the brother of John and Stephen were both martyred while remaining true to their witness.  The Christians who formed the early Church were persecuted, beaten, stoned, imprisoned, their lives turned upside down, all because they were certain of the authenticity of Jesus’ message confirmed by the Resurrection.  Throughout the ages since then and until today, the eyewitness accounts still move men and women to put everything on the line in order to follow the risen Lord Jesus Christ!

There are many who ascribe to Jesus the role of a prophet or that of a teacher.  As C. S. Lewis stated in the earlier-quoted passage, this is not what He introduced Himself to be.  His birth announcement, proclaimed to a band of shivering shepherds by the angelic host, stated that “[T]oday in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord.”  (Luke 2:11)  Jesus plainly said concerning His ministry that “the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.” (19:10)  His opponents, ridiculing Him on Golgotha’s cross even recognized this aspect of His ministry.  They said, “He saved others but he can’t save himself!”  (Matthew 27:42a)  In addressing Nicodemus, the member of the Sanhedrin who visited Him by night, Jesus proclaimed that:

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.  For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.  Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son. (John 3:16-18)

It is clear that Jesus always has been and always will be the Savior.  His mission was always clear, to save all mankind by paying the price of sin on the Cross and by drawing all people to Himself (e.g. John 12:32) for His saving grace.  He did not come to become some wise teacher or a religious philosopher or a world leader.  He came to save.  “Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be save.”  (Acts 4:12)  The Gospel narrative makes no sense without Jesus’ soteriological[iii]  role.  He came to call all who had need of salvation.  He said to the Pharisees who were criticizing His being surrounded by what they called “sinners and tax collectors” that “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.” (Mark 2:17)  All mankind is sick.  All of us are filled with the poison of sin.  Thus, Jesus came to call all of us to repentance and to salvation!

 

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[i] Lucado, Max Six Hours One Friday. Sisters, Multnomah Publishers, Inc., 1989. p 101

[ii] Moody, Dale The Word of Truth. Grand Rapids, Wm B. Eerdmans, 1981. p. 406

[iii] Soteriological is a theological term that refers to salvation.  It is derived from the Greek word soteros, which mean savior.

Note: The Biblical quotations are all taken from the New International Version (Biblica).  Apart from quotations, the text is and cover design is all copyright (c) 2013, Chris Laforet.

 

Good Friday – Thoughts

Dürer’s “The Crucifixion” (Woodcut)

Happy Easter to all of you! Today is Good Friday, the day we remember the crucifixion and death of the Son of God. Jesus died impaled upon a Roman torture device for the atonement of all mankind’s sin. I just felt led to pen a few words concerning some elements of this day.

Jesus was betrayed and rejected by a cross-section of humanity. His family had rejected Him (Luke 8:19-21), His disciple betrayed Him (Judas), one of His three closest friends denied Him (Peter), His followers high-tailed it when the going got tough, the religious leaders wanted Him dead, the Roman judge Pilate pronounced Him innocent yet turned Him over for scourging and crucifixion, the Jewish crowd demanded His blood, Gentiles mocked Him and pierced His flesh, criminals crucified alongside Him taunted and insulted Him (Matt 27:38), and the world passing by did the same. There are those who attempt to lay His death at the feet of the Romans or the Jews, but we are all complicit in His death!

The Lamb of God chosen before the foundation of the world (1 Peter 1:18-20) had come at just the right time, the fullness of time (Gal 4:4,5), to die for the ungodly (Rom 5:6). “Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed.” (Isa 53:4,5 NIV) Yet, as Jesus stated, no man would have had power over Him if He did not lay His life down (John 19:11). His being staked to the Cross was not a matter of human conspiracy, corruption, and leverage. While such undercurrents surrounded the Good Friday saga, we have to look deeper. All of the power of evil was unleashed against the Son of God. Satan worked diligently to destroy Him by tempting Him to sidestep the Cross and when this did not work, he sought to destroy His life. The Father turned His back on the sin, His holiness unable to bear its presence, as Jesus allowed it to be layered on His scourged and bleeding shoulders (2 Cor 5:21). The whole realm of Eternity itself was righted by His selfless offering. “Yet it was the Lord’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer, and though the Lord makes his life an offering for sin, he will see his offspring and prolong his days, and the will of the Lord will prosper in his hand.” (Isa 53:10)

Thank God on this day, of any other day, for His love. If you ever feel unloved, look at the broken, bleeding body of the Son on the Cross and know that you are loved intensely! For a snapshot of the intensity of God’s love for all of us, let me leave you with the words of the Apostle Paul…

“When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us; he has taken it away, nailing it to the cross. And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.” (Gal 2:13-15 NIV)

Amen!

My Experience with Shooting DSLR Video

In the latter part of last year, I decided to move over to using a DSLR for my video needs. Prior to this move, I used a prosumer Panasonic TM-800 which did a relatively nice job but did have enough quirks that I wanted to do something else and nudge my videography in a new direction.

I have a plethora of Nikkor lenses since I have been shooting Nikon since around 1990 or so. My current still camera is a Nikon D-700 full-frame which has brought me many an hour of enjoyment. It made perfect sense for me to continue where the bulk of my investment lies and purchase a Nikon which would permit me to shoot video. After careful consideration and reading many articles online, I finally opted to go with the D-7000. For one, it shoots 24fps 1080p which is my preferred speed because I am (at least currently) enamored with the “filmic look” it provides. Secondly, the D-7000 body offers a good combination of consumer/prosumer features coupled with the smaller sensor which offers a 50% increase in reach on basic lenses. Finally, as I discovered in my trip to Israel late last year, I could easily choose to leave my D-700 at home and use a single camera body for both stills and video should the need to shed weight and bulk for ease of travel be necessary. (See my article Packing a Camera Bag for a Trip)

The Zacuto mounted on the Nikon D-7000.

The first thing that I must point out is that anyone using a DSLR for video should invest in a good loupe for the back. I would advise factoring the price of a high-quality one into the budget and buying them together. The reason for this is that you really must use full manual control and full manual focus on the camera. Sure, DSLR manufacturers may tout autofocus and auto-exposure in their video modes but they are not up to par with most camcorders out there. In my case, I opted to purchase a Zacuto finder. While a bit pricey, it does a marvelous job and I don’t regret the decision one bit.

The second thing that you should invest in also is one variable neutral density (VND) filter for each lens type that you plan to use in video production. Since they screw on to the front filter threads, you may have different sizes that need to be accommodated. Note that not all of your lenses will actually need this kind of filter, just the ones with the large apertures. I purchased Tiffen VND filters in 52mm (covers my Nikkor 50mm f/1.8, 24mm f/2.8, and 35-70 f/2.8 lenses), 72mm for my Nikkor DX 18-200 f/3.5, and 77mm (covers my Nikkor 70-200 f/2.8). On my trip to Israel, I only had the 52mm and found that the shooting range of the wide-to-medium lenses was perfect (since I did not have a tripod and everything was shot handheld or on a monopod).

Low light video performance is still excellent on the D-7000.

The third recommendation I offer is to purchase the extra battery grip at the same time. The Zacuto mount will vary depending upon if the camera has the grip or not. Purchasing everything at one time is worth it. So, why do I recommend the grip? Video consumes battery power at a much higher rate than still photography. The ability to load additional batteries (and I prefer NiMH AA cells for the battery pack because they are cheap and readily portable) is indispensible! I also am a fan of having the vertical buttons and controls for still photography, a delightful habit I acquired with my first Nikon F-4.

A couple pet peeves have to be mentioned concerning the D-7000. The first is that it is so irritating that Nikon migrates controls all over a camera’s body. Sometimes I am amazed that the shutter button does not move over to the left side underneath some inconvenient cover! Why not be consistent in placing buttons and key controls. Another peeve is the idiotic way that full manual means fixed aperture and shutter speed but the ISO does not remain fixed (see my article, Warning: Manual Exposure Does NOT Disable Auto-ISO)! This should, at the very least, be a Custom setting. Finally, the U1/U2 is ridiculous – the idea is good but the fact that these save ALL settings and restore them means that you can’t use them to keep the configuration of the camera but still be able to move mode to M, A, P, or S! What an idiotic design…obviously there were no use-cases outlined for these in the design phase. One final peeve is that the OK button in the center of the cannot be programmed to zoom to 100% like other Nikons. Of course, these peeves are irritating but not crippling in nature.

Lovely depth of field shot at high-noon with a VND filter.

So, I have produced a couple videos with the new camera and must say that I have been very impressed with it. The stability that the Zacuto lends to the whole rig makes even handheld video very steady. The ability to use lovely large-aperture optics lends a very attractive look with its narrow depth of field and using the VND filters permits keeping lenses wide open even in the brightest of sunlit conditions. I really am pleased with the camera. The ability to shoot high-quality RAW stills makes it a wonderful proposition whenever there is a need to pare down equipment.

A few words of warning are in order, however. This is not a rig to pass around to other members of the family on vacations — remember that it is not the same as a normal camcorder. If you want to capture vacation videos and let everyone participate in handling the camera, take a regular camcorder with you. This is more meant for a serious videographer who is plowing their time into capturing the best video possible with the intent to edit it later. The other caveat is that this rig is not good at capturing sound. Use at least a plug-in external microphone that attaches to the flash mount. Better yet, if on-location sound is important, an external recording system (e.g. a Tascam and proper microphones) works best.

Here are two videos shot using this camera rig:

Carousel!
Jordan and Israel

Why History Channel’s “The Bible” Blew It for Me

[Author's note: It seems like I have posted a large number of Christian posts in succession. I promise to get some "creative" posts soon. I have not really been very creative recently other than in coding for work and have been overwhelmed with it all. We have had really awful weather and so I have also not gone photographing, but this is about to change as nicer weather seems to be coming in and Spring is around the corner. On top of all of that, I have been working on a book which is also on Christianity so it makes sense that my thinking is pretty compartmentalized nowadays. The following is a quick mini-rant that I had to just get off my chest.]

Admittedly, I hate to waste time watching TV productions and documentaries about Biblical subjects. This is because they ultimately either attempt to warp the Word of God into anything but. Face it, most documentaries are more likely to lead most people into secular humanism or even atheism than into understanding the Word and the One who wrote it.

With this in mind, please understand that the new production on History Channel called “The Bible” was on target to just be panned as I would do most others. However, I heard some interviews with the producers that made it seem promising so I opted to give it a quick peek and see if it would be different from the others. I had some hope that it would be pretty accurate. I also liked the proposition of the producers that this might be helpful to introduce young people to the Judeo-Christian underpinnings of our culture.

Sadly, about an hour in, I called it quits. While they did some things pretty nicely, such as Abraham’s bargaining for Sodom’s salvation, they missed some critical points. For one, Abram/Sarai were portrayed way too young and so the miracle of Isaac’s birth made no sense in the miraculous realm. After all, they were approaching 100 years old when Isaac was conceived, well outside of man’s abilities. They also eliminated the covenant God made with Abram (Genesis 15) and moved the promise of his descendents being more numerous that the stars in the sky as part of his call in Genesis 12. They totally messed up with the narrative of the separation of Lot and Abram, and missed the tremendous promise God made to Abram which would have segued nicely after the Abram character’s scripted line.

I dealt with this but threw in the towel at their portrayal of God’s testing of Abraham’s faith. I have written about this critical passage in Genesis 22 previously in this blog (see The Depth of Abraham’s Faith). It totally missed the passage and the level of Abraham’s faith. In fact, it portrayed Abraham in terms of a wishy-washy person who was incredulous that God could ask him to sacrifice Isaac. Additionally, it totally missed the character of Isaac, rendering him into a whining child begging for mercy. This may play in Hollywood but it certainly is inconsistent with the narrative that is provided in the very Bible that the production claimed to be following! I deleted the show and went on my way….

First of all, the Abraham/Isaac narrative was meant to be a foreshadowing of the great sacrifice that took place in Jerusalem one Passover sometime between 30 and 33 AD. By this, of course, I mean the crucifixion of Jesus. The key words that Abraham told Isaac were “God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son.” (Gen 22:8 NIV) I believe this was an inspired statement of the fact that God did provide Himself, the Second Person of the Godhead, as the sacrifice for all mankind’s sins. The Father was not this waffling person saying, “No, not my son” and neither was Abraham. The movie completely missed the resolute man of faith that Abraham had become.

Second, we know from the inspired writer of Hebrews 11:17-19 that Abraham had such a level of faith that he expected to sacrifice Isaac and to receive him back immediately. Abraham knew so much about the Lord who had called him from Haran many decades earlier that he knew that He had power over life and death. A person with an understanding that God has the power to resurrect does not walk up a mountain to offer his son as a sacrifice with a feeling of despondency and a sense of doom!

Finally, Isaac’s character was totally wrong also. I used the word “whiney” earlier. In the movie, he was struggling and presented the character of a victim. Throughout Isaac’s life, it is clear to see that he exhibited a quiet life of expectant faith. As a teenager, he could have overcome his father and made his escape. I believe that he also, like his father Abraham, expected God’s hand of deliverance. His image was that of being obedient, even to the point of death, which is exactly the character that Jesus had when He faced the Cross.

So there you have it. I believe that we must, as the Word of God commands, “demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.” (2 Cor 10:5 NIV) I choose to not allow my thoughts to be manipulated by creative screenwriting and clever editing. When something takes a vital picture of redemption’s plan like this one and totally blows it, it is not worth the time. I think I would rather spend the time reading the real thing….

Jordan and Israel Video Travelogue

As many of you know, my family went on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land at the end of 2012 (see here for an article with photos of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem). Anyway, this was my first major trip taking a single DSLR to shoot photos and video. The video quality was truly amazing on the D-7000 Nikon.

After my quandary of WHAT to pack and how to fit it all in my camera bag (see Packing a Camera Bag for a Trip), I discovered that there were two really critical pieces that helped me capture good video.

First was the use of a Zacuto finder. Without this finder, DSLR video is not a pleasant experience. However, with it, manual focusing and aperture setting becomes a snap. It is a pricey beast, but it is worth its weight in gold. One word of warning…I looped the Zacuto’s strap through a D-ring attached to my Domke jacket. In the rush of moving around on one’s tourist activities, it is easy for it to become dislodged from the camera and then fall crashing to the ground! By attaching it to the jacket, it would fall and then swing (mostly) harmlessly in midair.

Second was the use of a Variable Neutral Density filter. I have standardized on Tiffen VND filters in 77mm, 72mm, and 52mm to accommodate the lenses I use for video. With this in place instead of a skylight filter, I could open the lens all the way (f/1.8 or f/2.8 depending on the lens) for a nice filmicly narrow depth of field, then control up to 8 stops of brightness with a simple twist of the filter. Additionally, the polarizers that are inherent in VND filters rendered beautiful skies. Since I was using the same camera for video and stills, I shot many stills through the filter and controlled the exposure completely manually.

Anyway, I have posted the video online. It is available on my Vimeo site at vimeo.com/57169372 or on YouTube at www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRwB6knXUro. All my video was shot at 1920x1080p 24fps…there are a couple snippets of video shot by another person on the tour also. Of course, the online video sources do not show off the incredible level of quality that exists on my original source video which is amazingly crisp.

Hopefully you will enjoy the video and, if you were wondering if you wanted to move to a DSLR workflow, it provides a view of what this exciting medium offers. If you have any specific questions, feel free to comment here and I will try to address them.