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Hi, I'm Dustin Abbott
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The Sigma MC11 mount converter has been, in my opinion, one of the best gadgets available
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for the Sony platform when it comes to their mirrorless cameras. And really the MC11 has allowed, I think, some of the very best adapting experiences of lenses
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say from a Canon EF mount onto Sony's mirrorless platform. Sony's mirrorless platform and often given you, particularly if you're using actual Sigma lenses
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giving you the closest to a native performance of an adapted lens that really I have seen before
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at least going from one party, one brand to another like that
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And so it certainly is a great, great tool. But I'm here today to talk to you about something that really expands the flexibility of the MC11 into a whole other level
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It's one of those concepts that as soon as you see how it works, it's like, well, of course
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Why didn't someone think of that sooner? And fortunately, that's exactly what Aurora Aperture has done with their new drop-in filters for the Sigma MC11 mount converter
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There's some really great lenses out there, you know, like one that I've used a lot on a Sony is the, for example, Tamron 15 to 30 millimeter F2.8, a great wide angle lens
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but unfortunately, it does not accept front filters. Or this allow a 12mm F2.8
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It's an amazing lens, and it's one that I like to use because it has such a low distortion
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and an incredibly dramatic angle of view. However, it also takes no front filters
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And so what we have got here is a way to actually use drop-in filters for this
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and the design is really, really straightforward. All you're going to do is take advantage of the fact
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that Sigma has designed the MC11 to where it has almost a natural shelf that is in there
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And so you're using that existing area to just drop in a filter on top of that
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And Aurora Aperture is developing a pretty broad range of filters to go there
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everything from Indy Grad filters to various intensities of neutral density filters
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And then some other things like a dusk filter you know what sometimes called the light pollution filter a few options when it comes to that I actually been testing for a number of months a variety of these I been having discussions with them in regards to this design
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And when I begin to mention it to the distributor of Sigma here in Canada's, we got a little bit closer to them being ready to launch this product
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And he told me that the response of his team was, take our money now
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But a clever idea is only so good if it actually works
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And so I guess the question needs to be asked, are these filters worth using
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Fortunately, the answer is a resounding yes. Now, here is a couple of scenes
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For example, I start off with the, you know, just the base lens, and then I start to layer up through an ND-16
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And so that gives you about four stops of blocking light. I've got an ND-64, and so that gives you six stops of additional
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block light and then all the way up to an ND4,000 filter, which actually is 12 stops of block
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light. And so as you can see, it dramatically allows you to change the look of a particular
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scene. But what's important here is that we see, number one, that there isn't any new color
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cast that has been introduced. Secondly, we also see that detail is still really highly preserved
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The end result of this is that I'm able to get really, really good results for long exposures
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Another great application, you know, when it comes to this, is with, you know, lenses that can take traditional filters
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but, you know, and using them for autofocus with the MC11, perhaps it gives me easier options
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And so in this series, I shot with the Sigma 28mm F1.4 art lens, but in this case, I was wanting to actually shoot video
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And so because I was shooting in a log profile and it was fairly bright and I wanted to shoot at wide maximum mapters
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actually threw in the ND-16 filter to cut down the amount of light reaching the sensor
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And as a by-product of that, I was actually able to autofocus just fine, including video AF in this sequence
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and a by-product of that is able to get the footage that I wanted with no problems
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In fact, I even found that using the Sony A7R Mark 3 and that same Sigma 28mm F1.4
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even with the ND-4,000 filter. So that 12 stops of light that is blocked Even with that in place I was actually able to still auto focus in setting up the shot And so that was something that was unique Now I will note that there are a couple of things to watch for here First of all if you using
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the Indy Grad filters, and I've actually tested both an Indy Grad 50-50 split and then a 60-40 split here
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to see which kind of works better. And you know, which works better depends on how you compose
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truth be told. But one thing, of course, that you're going to have to be able to. to watch for is that unlike a, you know, a front filter system with square filters. I mean
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obviously, this is a much more convenient way. I am carrying in this, a one, two, three, four
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five, six filters with room for a couple of more in this little pouch. That's obviously a lot
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more convenient than my square filter systems. But unlike those square filters, the MC11 only
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mounts in a certain position. The filters only mount in a certain position. So first of all
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you're going to need to do something. It may seem counterintuitive, but it's just the way that, you know
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things the image actually comes through here, you're actually going to need to to mount the graded
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portion, the darker portion of the filter facing down, even when you're one, if you're wanting
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to actually block the sky. And that's because that is a mirror image. It's flipped upside down
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in the actual sensor. And so just, you know, watch out for that because otherwise you're going
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to be darkening the wrong part of the image. Of course, if you wanted to darken the foreground or
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the bottom half of the image, then of course you would mount it the other way. But of course
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you're mounting it in that way. It means that this is only going to work when you should, in a landscape position, at least with a graduated filter, because if you turn it to the side
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obviously the gradient effect is not going to happen in the right way. It's still going to be
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in that horizontal position. So that's certainly a limitation when it comes to that
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The other thing that you also need to watch out for is that if you've kind of pre-focused
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and you add a, particularly a heavy multi-stop, like the 12-stop filter, you may need to watch
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for some focus shift because that can affect focus. So you might want to be just a little bit
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careful about going back and checking your focus after the fact when it comes to that
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You know, beyond that, however, I've been really, really impressed with what's happening here
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And they're going to Kickstarter with this right now, and these filters will range in price
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anywhere from $50 to $100. And so, you know, they're small, but they're really well made
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These are all designed in California by Aurora Aperture and produced to obviously really high standards because light transmission is good color cast seem to be pretty much non unless of course you using the dusk filter
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where having, you know, somewhat of a color cast is part of the whole point. But as you can see
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using that dust filter is really effective for when shooting, for example, you know, either city
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scenes, but it's also I've used it for when shooting Astro. And of course, it's really beneficial
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for that to get a nice, more pleasing tone than some of the kind of muddy
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Sky looks you can sometimes get when shooting Astro but I will throw linkage down below in the description to the Kickstarter if you are interested in this and getting on board
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But it's obviously a fantastic solution for you know those situations when you know either you've got a lens that you you know don't have a front filters for or maybe it takes even if it takes filters for example I've got the IRx 15 millimeter
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F2.4 it can take screw on filters but they're 95 millimeters so really a
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expensive and so and obviously you know it's going to take a serious investment to get a wide range of
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filters for that and so this provides a really convenient solution i believe that they will be selling
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also a case like this that allows you know it's designed for putting multiple filters in
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i recommended that they add a way to label these i just used a labeler myself and so it's easier
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to see what filters are there but another little trick is is that on one side of these filters it
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does have a designation of what the filter is. And I would just always slide that in with that facing up
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because that also might be a way for you to easily identify what filters you're using
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But obviously a really, really great concept and a great way to either filter lenses
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that can't use traditional filters or a way of bringing along multiple filters
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in a really small, convenient package to give you a lot of flexibility at your shoot
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I'll throw a linkage also in the description down below to my image gallery
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of images that I produced, different lenses using different ones of these filters
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and so you can take a look at that. And, of course, as always, there are linkage there
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