For interest of any who have looked at recent posts regarding aircraft, here are a couple of pics of the rig which is going to the Red Bull Air Race on the Swan River, Perth, this weekend to image the support displays.

The Red Bull Air Races are jealously protected as to posting stuff on YouTube and the like, so I won't be covering the air races themselves.

The rig is a Mini35 and the stuff on front is a borrow from the Letus Extreme Cine Kit. The Fournier practice aerobatics were shot with the Extreme. I'm giving a Mini35 a try this time round.

The second camera on the rig is a sighting camera and also there to cover a wider view and to save the day when the aircraft flies out of the telephoto frame and is lost.

The scanner is for a radio traffic feed into audio channel 2.

So why the combination of Letus and Mini35 bits and pieces?

The Mini35 just happens to have a forward tripod screw hole which is nicely on the point of balance. The Letus rods are thicker and more robust and the centre tripod mount bridgeplate has the upper threaded holes just in the right place to carry the bridge bar which supports the second camera on one side and a monitor or in this case radio receiver on the other. The support pillar for the Extreme has been seconded to support the Sigma lens.

It is not a case of failing to keep the faith with one product or the other. With the relay zoomed right in to get inside the bright centre area inherent with the Sigma lens plus doubler to a groundglass, there is no advantage to be had by using the larger available groundglass area of the Extreme. At f5.6 to f8 approx, there will be artifacts with either adaptor. My own disk device copes better for artifacts but the colours are not as true as with the Mini35 and the Extreme.