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Messages - Roman

#101
Quote from: ilguercio on October 06, 2012, 02:08:12 PM
I always thought the side handlebars were a bit uncomfortable and in fact you're proving me right on that.
What about a follow focus directly above the left handlebar? This whay you could both hold the rig and focus.

The way I've got mine made means that I'm at the mercy of how long the lense is for the position of that.
As where the focus ring is relative to the base of the camera changes between lenses.
However it isnt much of a big deal since when filming so far I seem to favour using either:

55-250mm lense for zoom, which is impossible to keep steady enough without a tripod
8mm fisheye, which has a massive depth of field which you never really need to adjust.

I think the usual shoulder rig design with two offset bars is designed for maximum stability when you're not fiddling with anything else, or moving toooo much.

Using with an apeture of say F12 or F16 or something and auto iso adjust or iris pull would be fine, but manually adjusting everything while trying to hold it steady is just too hard. 5 different kinds of impossible to use a super narrow depth of field effectively anyway...

Unless you have a second person with a field monitor and a follow focus or something, but then it's getting a bit complicated again.


Hoganmw, do you ever use yours detached from the tripod?
#102
Hey Nice work there Hoganmw!

How have you found it to use so far?

Having that long slidey quick release plate looks handy.

#103
I'm back to square one with this a bit, after a bit of a rethink about how I use my camera.

The thing is, I find that with a shoulder setup it's unacceptably wobbly with any lense much narrower than my 8mm fisheye if you're walking around or whatever...

And if you're just reasonably stationary then carrying and setting up a tripod isnt much more cumbersome.

Things that I've found useful:

-Focus/zoom sticks:
These are great when you are concentrating on the viewfinder or the LCD screen, you know exactly where to go to adjust either of these things without looking or fumbling around. Gives great fine control too, works great. I find myself sticking these on when taking pics too, quite handy.

I've found the following things not so useful:

-Mattebox:
Currently it's cumbersome compared to just a lense hood for seemingly minimal gains.
Also I've got the problem where my lenses rotate the front section which also moves forward to zoom, so it's difficult to acheive a worthwhile seal to the matte box.
Later on I may remake a matte box to fit 4x4 sized rectangle filters, then with a rear section that allows the camera lense to move forward or backwards as necessary behind that. So nice and easy to change ND filters etc that slide in from the top, and easy to change lenses or whatever too. For the moment though, ND filter behind a lense hood, or just a lense hood works well.

-Handlebars:
This has worked out GREAT for using one of the bars as a left hand brace when mounted on a tripod with a fluid head, but not very well when trying to use it on a shoulder setup. As when you need to adjust the focus or zoom or camera settings or whatever, you need one hand off.
So you're trying to prop up the camera with an arm that isnt under the weight, it's awkwardly off to the side.
Not just for the fact that it's a bit of a strain, but you can forget about filming anything worthwhile while doing this as it causes a lot of wobble.
Having the right hand side directly under the camera would work infinitely better, so your left hand can be free to do whatever... Might make a pistol grip type thing that sits under the camera, see how that goes.

-Shade for the LCD screen:
Didnt really work out that great... Still get a lot of problems because you're generally aiming the screen up slightly, so hard to shade sunlight etc.
However I bought a cheap Loupe with 3x magnification that works brilliantly! In all lighting conditions.
Shooting with the loupe in place with a few options turned on like Zebras, focus peaking and the 'crosshairs' cropmark works awesomely in a lot of situations. In conjunction with the 10x digital zoom in liveview it is fantastic for taking pics as well as video.
This is starting to become my preference over using the optical viewfinder, thanks to the ML additions.
Well worth the very little money it cost.

My next iteration will likely be a lot simpler and only for use on a tripod, as the video quality is miles ahead when it's so much more stable that way. Either way, I'm glad I had a bit of an experiment with this for minimal cost, rather than spending $$$ on a setup that I would later find not suitable for me.

Just a 'handlebar' for my left hand, a long rear bar to rest my right arm under for long panning shots on the tripod will cover 99% of what I'm planning to film in the next while I think.
#104
Hey,

The Auckland Harbour bridge is a bit of a local icon, and cliche for aspiring photographers ;D

However ML helped out heaps to get a great shot!

Rather than the viewfinder I used Liveview, with a cheap 3x magnifying loupe so I could make use of some ML features to help out.

This way I could use Zebras, Focus peaking, and 10x digital zoom to get a really nice clear picture.

Since it's a stitch of about 20 photos it's important to have the tripod level, and I dont have a levelling bubble.
So I used the ML crop mark 'crosshairs', to setup my tripod with a few quick test pans, which worked great.

Preview:


Picture below, warning is just under 5mb:
http://iforce.co.nz/i/ejxyz5il.rx1.tif

Thanks to the ML team for the hard work towards these great features to make nice photos easier to take.

Also used Hugin for the stitching which I highly reccomend, it's great.

Taken with 600D and 55-250mm kit lense, ISO 100, F7.1, 8sec exposure.
#105
Okay thanks guys, that makes sense.
#106
If you shoot a (for example) 12 second long exposure at F8 in RAW,

My understanding is that whether you shoot at ISO 100 or ISO 800, all of the same information is captured in the file, as ISO is a digital gain/amplification that is applied some time after the RAW data is captured... So can be done in post.

Although, I probably need to read up on it a bit more to get a better understanding.
#107
Hey 1% I noticed in another thread you mentioned that taking a pic while in video mode ends up cutting out 3 frames from the video.

Any way of perhaps taking a dummy picture or activating the shutter or something?

Although, increasing shutter count would probably not be a very popular solution.
#108
One question.

My understanding of RAW format is that it effectively captures all ISO levels.

However when you are setting up your shot and previewing it, the ISO you've selected adjusts the brightness of the preview shot at least.

So if you were shooting a RAW picture at ISO 100 it'll show you that you need a longer exposure than if you were at ISO 800 (And the bramp jumps ISO too in order to pick a shorter exposure again)

Is it better to aim for exposure time etc to suit ISO 800 (for example) as your end result, to give you more room to move it 'up or down' in post or are you always better off aiming for as lower an ISO as possible?

And if so, is it possible to lock it to say ISO 100 if you're shooting a timelapse in RAW so it adjusts exposure time only?
#109
Yep for sure.

I'm sure there'll be some software kicking around that can do a batch crop of RAW files. :)

I might take a timelapse where this scenario is likely, and then try run your program against a set of full and cropped RAW files and compare results to see if it would give useful results.
#110
I had a play with this the other night, worked nicely but my footage was a little shoddy, need to give it another run. :)

Just some general thoughts about bulb ramping/post process correction...

In my mind it seems that how your eye/brain expects to perceive brightness transitions isnt (necesarily) consistent with having the whole scene sampled.

For example,

Lets say you are shooting a timelapse that has 50% foreground items, 50% background hills and sky.

Lets say that where you are standing, there is no cloud cover overhead, consistent lighting conditions of foreground items.
The only change to foreground item brightness occurs with the reducing natural sunlight or whatever.
However in the background of what you are shooting, there are rolling clouds causing rapid variations in brightness to the sky in that portion of your shot.

When the clouds dissapear and it's bright sky, the brightness of the sky causes exposure compensation to the foreground, despite no fluctuating lighting changes actually occuring there.
And vice versa.

The visual impact is an exposure 'wobble' to foreground items which was not present in reality, and a single foreground items flicker event across many frames that is impossible to compensate for when sampling the whole frame.

What I think would work well to eliminate this would to have two groups of RAW files to work from initially.

Folder A contains images to sample from
Folder B contains images to apply correction to
Folder C contains output images

In folder A, you edit the images so that they no longer contain the 'unstable' portions, for example you could crop out the sky, or mask out areas perhaps so it only samples from the foreground or areas where you want the stability in ramping.
Then you run the script, so something like:

FolderA\Image1.CR2 - checks exposure etc of cropped image (foreground items only)
FolderB\Image1.CR2 - applies brightness settings across to the whole scene contained in this file
FolderC\Image1.JPG - the output file

So you should be able to eliminate the 'long' flicker events quite easily I'd imagine.

The video thats a few posts above with the mountain with the clouds rolling overhead is an example of where I think the above methodology would perhaps work great, if you sampled from only the bottom half of the shot for exposure correction.
#111
Yeah I thought maxing out ISO for a few frames might be a good idea just because the bulk of the code would already be there for HDR mode. (At a guess, I'm not a programmer)
#112
Currently if you record with sound on, the buffer gets full, on account of something presumably to do with how it stitches the video and audio together.

For example with 600D and particular SD card I've got, can record at 1.2x bitrate with audio on, 1.7x bitrate with audio off.

Recording them seperately (both in camera) seems to alleviate this problem as best I understand it, and allows recording at a higher bitrate while still having sound recorded internally.
#113
Feature Requests / Re: [brainstorm] Digital clapper board
September 30, 2012, 07:49:12 PM
Thanks for replies.

I went out and took some more video at the track last weekend.

Turned out to be about 80 individual clips recorded.

With this volume of material to match up, I dont think it's worth doing anything apart from keeping audio enabled and using pluraleyes to match it all.

Otherwise I'll be spending 3 weeks editing 1 days footage just to match the audio :)

However I still think some digital equivilent of a clapper board would be handy in some circumstances.

That last pic makes it a bit clearer Tin2tin, seems like it could be reasonably easy to match up that way without actually having to understand morse code. :)
I guess the only challenge would be how to automate a unique sequence for start of each shot.
#114
I've been analysing some of my footage a bit more, to try and find out why it looked a bit 'soft' at times.

I didnt realise that beyond a certain point, an Fstop number of like say F18-F20 actually softens the image again, because of the diffraction of the light passing through the tiny hole.

Pretty happy to now know that, as it was annoying me a bit that I couldnt quite put my finger on what wasnt right!

I think I'll be having a rethink of my whole rig setup based on what I got today...

While down country, my Dad came across this sweet Velbon tripod in a second hand store, $45 later its mine!

It's a beast :D



Not sure how old it is, but the panning etc on it is freaken sweet, and its rediculously stable compared to my other one.
Looking forward to shooting some more video soon with a reciculously more stable setup!
#115
Feature Requests / Re: [brainstorm] Digital clapper board
September 27, 2012, 03:37:16 AM
I havent tried recording any WAV files yet to be honest!

I'll give that a go, and test the sync tonight.

Even in its simplest implementation burning a red dot on the start of the shot, and making a beep would be pretty damn awesome.

It would be preferential to not eat up SD card space with 'throw away' wav files if I could help it. But if it makes for a much easier solution then cant complain. :)

I could possibly look at using the headphones output on my external mic as an input to the camera, it's the only output apart from USB.

Assuming they are compatible voltages etc of course, not sure.

The issue is that I'd shoot maybe say 30-40 clips in a day to match up with 1 audio track, so having some sort of numbering or reference between the two would make things a lot easier than a generic single beep or dot.

The WAV file solution might work out well though, assuming pluraleyes can yank the video along with the wav file when it matches up to the main audio clip.
#116
It doesnt sound like a technically complicated request, but a very tedious and time consuming one if someone would be expected to compile massive list of this information.

How is the greatest sharpness determined, regardless?

Is it a subjective opinion to some extent, or is it possible to be quantified?

Is there a list of all of this information available on the internet somewhere?

I'd certainly be interested just for sake of reference, what these apetures are for the lenses I've got if this information is floating around on the net somewhere, in an easy to read format.
#117
Feature Requests / Re: [brainstorm] Digital clapper board
September 27, 2012, 12:33:36 AM
Hi Al3x, I'll have to have a dig through the menus and test the beep at start.
Is there a volume setting on it?.

It would still be difficult to know how to sync many small vids though if it's the same beep each time. However if it's audible on the mic then it would certainly help!

Generally however I'd use cardioid pattern on the mic with the 'dead' zone where the camera is, so it doesnt pick up camera noise so would have to try it and see.

#118
Feature Requests / [brainstorm] Digital clapper board
September 26, 2012, 10:16:15 PM
Hey guys,

While filming at a race track I can leave audio recording for a long time without worries, but start and stop a lot of short clips as particular cars etc come past, for maybe 20-30 secs per shot.

If I leave the in camera audio turned on, with current SD cards I can shoot at 1.2x bitrate, turned off 1.7x bitrate.

I've got an external audio setup that works well, but have been thinking about how to sync a lot of small clips to the audio if I had sound disabled to enjoy the benefit of increased bitrate.

So obviously what's required is a way to leave a 'mark' on both the audio and video to denote the start of each shot. Using an actual clapper board would be inconvenient for a lot of short shots.
Especially so if the Mic is intentionally mounted away from the camera to avoid camera noise or cameraman farts etc. :)

So I was thinking of a few ways to implement this for the video portion:

1. Have the ISO cranked right up for a set amount of frames that increases with each 'take'
e.h. shot 1, first 5 frames are cranked to max ISO, next shot first 6 frames, next shot first 7 frames, etc. Similar to how HDR mode works, but only adjusting ISO right at start of clip in a predetermined way.

2. Have ML overlay some text onto the video at the start, if that's possible? Take 1, take 2 etc? I guess just relating back to the .mov filename could work just as well.

3. Have an LED or laser pointer that is out of the shot, but visible when turned on, that flashes x amount of times to denote which take it is (will require a basic circuit board to activate, generate beeps as well, totally external to ML)


And some audio trigger ideas:


1. Wire up an external flash trigger as a trigger for a small speaker/beeper when starting a vid?
Not sure how these work, might not be cost effective to butcher a flash trigger for this.

2. When monitoring Audio, people cut up the AV cable, would it be possible to blip something down through one of the other video monitoring wires to trigger a speaker to make a beep? Or just use the unmodified AV cable audio output to trigger a small beeper speaker perhaps? Since headphone monitoring on camera isnt required if synching to external mic.

3. Use a wired remote trigger, that when starting to record video has a split cable that runs off to a basic circuit that does a simple (last amount of beeps+1) output near the mic that could somehow correspond to the video.

I'm beyond useless with electronics and what not, but my Dad is pretty handy with these kind of things if I can salespitch him with a well thought out plan. :)

Anyone got any thoughts on the above?

Although this is in the 'new features' forum it could potentially be a hardware solution that works well, just wondering what other ideas people had which could help.

Thanks.
#119
Hardware and Accessories / Re: TSCAM DR-40 Noise
September 26, 2012, 08:26:37 PM
The one I bought gets pretty good reviews, although some people complain that it's too sensitive and picks up a lot of background noise as well as what they're intending to record.

Tis this:

http://www.bluemic.com/yeti/#/specs/

It's quite bulky, but I can forgive that considering it's got gain control etc integrated rather than just a mic. Obviously designed for sitting on a desk or whatever, but without the stand it's quite light so isnt an issue to carry around. Cardioid pattern is handy if having it close to camera.

Ideally I'd need to make a stand or boom or something for it, and some sort of wind filter if using outdoors I guess.

I can record uncompressed WAV files to the laptop forever and a day, I think its about 100 megs per minute but the laptop battery would go flat before I get through ~300gigs :)

Bit of a double edged sword having the gain control and headphone monitoring on the mic though.
As to adjust anything you need to do so on the mic directly which obviously means you cant if you had it placed remotely or on a boom or whatever.
I guess another downside is that you might hear your fingers etc touch the mic when you turn the dial if you did so mid recording. Seems great for the price though.

Woops sorry getting a bit off topic :)
#120
Thanks Z.U.G. that's a great answer and makes sense to me, cheers.

1% I'm just learning as I go, so thought I'd consult some others with more experience than me, hope that's not too much a problem.
#121
Hi Stephen, sorry for late reply.

I'm not sure what kind of hoseclamps they are, presumably automotive ones since I pinched them from some intercooler piping, haha.

The main idea though is to get one that tightens by having a nut that runs along a thread that sticks out, so you can wind on the sticks which have threaded inserts. (a ground down nut bashed into the end)

I can take some more pictures later of it in seperate parts if that doesnt make sense.
#122
Hardware and Accessories / Re: TSCAM DR-40 Noise
September 24, 2012, 08:17:37 PM
What do you guys think about USB mics?

If the desired end result is a digital signal, to me it makes sense to have the analog signal go through as fewer conversions/plugs/wires/etc as it can to retain quality.

So being converted and transmitted as a digital signal right 'at the start' seems like a great idea.

I'm no audiophile but the sound quality with mine seems freaken amazing compared to anything else I've used before. No hiss even when cranked up really loud. (Blue Yeti USB Mic)

Works great when out and about, as it just needs the mic, a netbook and some headphones which all fits in a laptop bag slung over the shoulder, batteries last for ages and is quite light.

Anyone else used one before? I ended up coming across the idea while looking at options for a decent on camera mic.
#123
General Help Q&A / Re: Lantern vs driftwood GH2 hack
September 21, 2012, 10:45:11 AM
Quote from: nanomad on September 21, 2012, 09:50:40 AM
The best video quality you can get, for now, is ALL-I on 600D crop mode.

How come the 5D mk2 is so revered for video work etc?

As in, is this because historically it was comparatively good, or in this day and age is still a good option?
Does it still have some benefits over cheaper cameras like a 600D?

I pretty much by chance bought a 600D, and I'm super happy with it...

But I'm struggling to see the benefits of spending $$$ on the likes of a 7D, 5D mk2 or mk3, etc at this stage.
#124
Hey guys.

Just something I've been pondering. What are some examples of actual use of live audio monitoring, in a way that you find doing so useful?

When you're listening to the live sounds, you cant hear if it's clipping, you can only see that via tha bars on screen anyway so seems more worthwhile to monitor that.

I can see the benefit of using it to set up initially, I just dont understand the benefits of continuously monitoring through a shot.

I can understand if you're using a narrow focus shotgun mic or something, but I cant see the benefit of sitting there with headphones on listening to... whatever?

I've got an external audio setup, I'm incredibly novice admittedly, but I've found once it's set up initially there's not much more that needs doing.

Perhaps as per above it's a lot more useful with a shotgun mic compared to cardioid pattern or 360 degree pickup.

Can anyone here can give some examples of their process for continual monitoring audio, and how it benefits them.

As I feel there might be something I'm missing!

Thanks.
#125
Reverse Engineering / Re: Real Video Sizes
September 20, 2012, 10:36:09 AM
This would be freaken awesome.

When I learned that it goes from an 18mp sensor, scales it down to lower than 1080p then upscales it back again...
My mind = blown at how retarded that seems.