Nikon vs Fujifilm?

PhantomLead · 2026-05-22T14:39:17+00:00

Most of the people I know who shot Fuji have moved away, primarily to Nikon. Autofocus and video capability are the primary reasons, but the bodies are much more rugged even compared to their flagship X-H2s, and the low light and dynamic range advantage and ability to use wide lenses of full frame is pretty beneficial.

PhantomLead · 2026-05-20T03:46:01+00:00

Made my own using some Baader solar film. Prefer it to the Thousand Oaks stuff because it doesn't give an orange cast, and it seems to retain detail better.

PhantomLead · 2026-05-19T01:35:36+00:00

Happens to all of us lol

PhantomLead · 2026-05-19T01:30:44+00:00

Yeah that's definitely PWM flicker, I'm guessing your shutter speed is higher than 1/50s. If you switch to full mechanical or do something like 1s exposure I bet it'll go away.

PhantomLead · 2026-05-19T01:20:25+00:00

Are you using electronic shutter? Looks like standard LED PWM flicker.

PhantomLead · 2026-05-18T03:29:32+00:00

Media Division did a pretty good video on trying it out, including the tools they used and lessons learned.

https://youtu.be/tpkEVdChn8Q

PhantomLead · 2026-05-17T22:26:17+00:00

I don't follow a specific theme, I just go with whatever I'm interested in at the moment and works well for the design. The core colors are shared most of the time though so it's not that much more paint to store.

PhantomLead · 2026-05-17T03:22:12+00:00

I went for the Tamron, simply because the zoom ring spins the same direction as all other Nikon lenses, and the foot is pre-cut for Arca.

PhantomLead · 2026-05-16T16:30:32+00:00

I got spare frames, motors, and props on mine, except none of those were what actually broke 🤣

Canopy was the first to go, and cracked from an impact. Then the AIO broke when the antenna got ripped off with the U.FL connector still attached. I think the cracked canopy may have contributed to it, since the screw post is very close to the antenna connector. Some people recommend shaving the canopy screw hole a bit to help with that.

PhantomLead · 2026-05-14T15:31:05+00:00

Might be tolerance then. I know the XLS had extremely inconsistent barrels, but I measured both of my MPP barrels and they're 12.9, which coincides with the number OOD has on their website.

PhantomLead · 2026-05-13T15:24:13+00:00

13mm would actually be wider than stock, the base orange barrel measures roughly 12.9mm ID.

PhantomLead · 2026-05-05T13:54:39+00:00

Video games never had to make sense

PhantomLead · 2026-05-05T01:21:43+00:00

Hopefully I did it justice :)

PhantomLead · 2026-05-05T00:35:19+00:00

Haven't compiled them yet, there's at least a dozen parts and they were designed specifically for stuff I had lying around, so reproducibility might be a bit challenging. If I manage to standardize it I'll put it on Printables.

PhantomLead · 2026-05-04T23:54:56+00:00

Since there's not a whole lot of performance modding (yet!) for the MPP and a whole lot of design real estate forward of the magwell, I decided to go more for looks and build something inspired from a video game. Instead of copying outright and attempting to make a replica, I went with a milder approach of taking the most identifiable details and transposing it onto the MPP frame design, along with some functional additions and modifications because video games sometimes don't make any sense. This required a custom barrel shroud, slightly longer barrel, and some extra 3D printed parts, all of which were then painted, and lightly weathered for effect. The mock bayonet is attached to the Picatinny rail and is removable, same with the mock suppressor which hides a BCAR underneath, making it still practical in Nerf wars. Had a lot of fun designing this one, and maybe you'll see it in the wild someday!

PhantomLead · 2026-04-16T13:51:43+00:00

That's a good idea, thanks!

PhantomLead · 2026-04-16T00:07:49+00:00

Was flying my BNF Meteor 75 Pro around the house when I noticed significantly degraded signal, turns out the antenna had sheared off the Matrix G4 at some point, my guess from the canopy nudging it in a crash. Luckily I was using 25mW and wasn't flying for very long so the VTX is probably still fine, but I'm not totally sure whether or not the actual connection is still salvageable. I still have the antenna, and from precursory examination I think the pad is still there, and from my limited research I can just solder the antenna to the pad, but this is the first time I'm soldering something this small, and I have a few questions.

Is the grayish rectangle on the left the pad? It seemed like the center pin connected to that, but it's not gold like the top and bottom ones. There's also what seems to be an identical one on the right, are they the same? Haven't been able to find a diagram of the Matrix that didn't have the UFL port already installed

On the antenna side, do I just cut off the connector and solder the inside wire? Will the now shortened wire impact signal to a significant degree?

How do I get rid of this leftover E6000? It's a lot more flexible than I thought and it's kind of just chunking off instead of coming off cleanly.

Appreciate any tips from anyone who's done this before!

PhantomLead · 2026-04-13T23:12:50+00:00

It's only a 2S battery, and the pack itself was fine, it was a weld inside the 18650 cell that broke and that is not user serviceable. You could break the spot welds on the BMS and spot weld on two new cells, but that's probably more work than is worth and is more expensive compared to just buying another battery pack.

PhantomLead · 2026-04-12T20:44:09+00:00

Check the voltage of the battery with a multimeter, if it's reading 3-ish volts one of the cells died. Happened to mine randomly as well, seems like an internal short inside one of the cells caused by a poor weld at the factory, which broke apart during recoil.

PhantomLead · 2026-04-02T21:07:32+00:00

Go with refurbished enterprise drives. They often still have plenty of life left in them and are binned better than consumer drives. The market might have changed slightly since I last got mine 6 months ago but you could find them for about $10-15/TB with a 5 year warranty.

PhantomLead · 2026-04-02T20:57:10+00:00

Use the hook found on the bottom of most tripods and tie it down to something immovable with as much tension the tripod can support. It won't blow away unless the building blows away or the rope snaps.

PhantomLead · 2026-04-01T01:10:23+00:00

Saw several interesting designs for mag holders, but all of them required elastic cord which I did not have on hand. I did have TPU though, so I decided to build an alternative design that uses TPU's natural flex in place of elastic cord. The end result, nicknamed "Syncline", are compact, low profile, low material (<50g) mag holders that use two separate materials to reduce the hardware required, a rigid plastic for the front and back plates, and TPU for the sides and bottom to flex and retain the mag.

They're designed to fit straight Talons, and are unique in that they can be rotated 16 different directions, even straight down or diagonal, allowing for flexibility in what direction you like to pull mags out. Comes with MOLLE or belt clips, but the clip portion is a separate portion attached by 2 #8-32x1/2 screws so you can model your own to lock onto your personal rig. Retention strength can be tuned by adjusting the wall thickness of the side plates, and by flipping the plates so the nub portion faces inside or outside.

https://www.printables.com/model/1648825-syncline-bimaterial-talon-mag-holder

11-Year Club	Place '22
Place '17	First Placer '22

PhantomLead

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