Feedback on using Scarlet (or Epic) in Helicopters for an upcoming project?

[Carelton Holt]

We have three aerial projects in mid to late January and are looking to get some feedback from someone who has shot on Scarlet (or Epic) with any or all of the following helicopter mounts: Aerial Exposures, Tyler MiniGyro, Tyler Nose Mount.

We have considerable experience using other cameras on these mounts, but are looking to see if there are any issues, concerns or comments relative to shooting with Scarlet or Epic in these situations. Different cameras have varying "sweet spot" settings for aerial work, so any feedback, conversation (and possible a little sample footage) would be greatly appreciated.

We might not even have either of our Scarlet orders in time, but would like to be ready in the event we receive one in prior to the scheduled flights. Thanks to all of the generous members who share their experience on the Red forum! Happy New Year to all!!! :thumbup1:

 

[Jon Nash]

The Tyler mini gyro is a compromise as you well know. I have had good results with it in both choppers and tracking cars. For shots that can allow it i.e short takes I sometimes choose to go handheld and forgo the telescopic mount that comes with the mount. Longer takes will require you use the telescopic mount unless you are superman. Its certainly a good workaround tool for its cost but you will find yourself having to adapt to its compromises.

 

[Carelton Holt]

Hey Jon,
Thanks for the reply... I have used it a bunch and agree... better than nothing, but certainly limitations. I will use a Canon mount for the lowest possible weight, so the gyros have a little more "influence" on motion. We get slightly better results with the Aerial Exposures mount... the one available to us has 4 KS-8s but the mass of the mount is higher, so it is only slightly better than the Tyler. They have one with 4 KS-12s (4X the KS-8s) that I hear is awesome, but i don't know anyone who has actually used it to confirm.

Is there a shutter speed that has worked well for you? I usually up the shutter slightly to around 1/60th or 1/90th to get slightly sharper individual frames for detail, but still long enough for slight motion blur and to accomodate the remaining low frequency vibrations of the copter that need to be "blended" a bit to reduce "jutter." What settings have you used with good results on the Red?.

 

[Carelton Holt]

Oh, and a quick FYI, the latest version of Mercalli is doing a WONDERFUL job in post of significant motion smoothing with very little softening of the footage! Much better than any previous motion software we have ever used!

 

[Jon Nash]

Iv'e not had any problems at 1/50th on landscapes and wide shots and usually stick to that unless i'm shooting something like boats and want to get a bit more detail in spray and splashes then I'll up it a bit just to give me a little edge in the detail. I'm also keen to try the Arial Exposure unit please do get back if you get to play with it and tell us your thoughts. if anyone wants to share the cost of a chopper and rental id be happy to jump on a plane to N.Y which is where arial exposures is based i believe. or any other rental facility . I'd want to test over the water with yachts.

 

[Paul Russell]

Oh, and a quick FYI, the latest version of Mercalli is doing a WONDERFUL job in post of significant motion smoothing with very little softening of the footage! Much better than any previous motion software we have ever used!

Does Mercalli support 4K? The demo keeps falling over when I try it.

 

[Carelton Holt]

I have shot with the Aerial Exposures mount with the 4 KS-8s about 40 or so flights and have overall pretty good results, but only slightly to moderately better than the Tyler Minigyro. We have used Sony EX1 & EX3s, JVC HD250s, as well as 5D Mark IIs on this configuration and make the best effort to "strip" the cameras as light as possible to allow the gyros to have the most influence on the camera possible. The problem (and benefit) of the Aerial Exposures mount is that it is very robust and therefore pretty heavy... I love how sturdy it is, but the mass of the mount eats up a lot of the gyro influence. Other than the additional weight of the KS-12s, the mount weighs the same, but each KS-12 is 4X power to a KS-8, so two or more KS-12s should really work well!

The mount when handled gently works better at following moving vessels like boats and cars from the side or circling around a stationary object like a building or mountain scene. There are a lot of technical reasons for this (you probably already know) that have to do with rotor RPM, engine vibration frequency, load, etc. The helicopter has to fly sideways for POV (as with the Tyler Minigyro) and the smoothness of the shot becomes largely a measure of the pilot experience and wind conditions. Sudden "kicks" from the wind result in noticeable motion in the footage. In this flight pttern, the helicopter is more prone to getting kicked around than in traditional "forward" flight so even an experienced pilot is prone to this.

In pretty much everything we shoot on the 4 KS-8 model, we have to do considerable motion smoothing in post. Again, Mercalli does a really nice job of that, but you still have to compromise between smoothness and sharpness to some degree. But, if shooting in 4K and outputting to 2K or 1080, then all you would have to do is set to "crop and smooth" and then there would be no loss in sharpness at all once downsampled to the lower resolution. When we get our Scarlet, we plan to frame slightly wide as we shoot and the stabilized footage (even after the crop) would be completely sharp and easily downsize to 2K or 1080 and omit the crop lines. (output for the vast majority of our projects currently).

The Aerial Exposures mount does nicely in a Robinson R44 which rents for about $600 US per hour in most areas in the US. The bungie cords do very well isolating the 60Hz rotor vibration of the Robinson, but pretty much on wide angle views only. With a long zoon lens, we see noticable "jutter." Arnie (the owner of Aerial Exposures) is a really nice guy and would dfinitely help you connect with a pilot in the NY area.

I will be shooting with the 4 KS-8 model in mid to late January in South Florida with the mount paid in full by my client. You would be welcome to come for testing and only pay the $600 per hour for helicopter time (mount is on me). The pilot we are using is very gifted and experienced in aerial video/photography. They do quite a bit of Racing Boat work down there in S FL... also the weather is a hell of a lot better!!!

Feel free to contact me to discuss our experience with the mount or co-ordinating a trip to Florida!

Iv'e not had any problems at 1/50th on landscapes and wide shots and usually stick to that unless i'm shooting something like boats and want to get a bit more detail in spray and splashes then I'll up it a bit just to give me a little edge in the detail. I'm also keen to try the Arial Exposure unit please do get back if you get to play with it and tell us your thoughts. if anyone wants to share the cost of a chopper and rental id be happy to jump on a plane to N.Y which is where arial exposures is based i believe. or any other rental facility . I'd want to test over the water with yachts.

 

[Carelton Holt]

Hey Paul,
Yes, it works perfectly on our machine. We are on a pretty solid PC with Quadcore i7, 24 GB RAM, Raid 0 operating drives and data drives with a Quadro 4000 GPU card. I just tested a R3D aerial clip we downloaded from the forum and though it was already very smooth, Mercalli improved it noticably! There was a little jutter in the original footage and it completely removed it with virtually no hint of softness.

Does Mercalli support 4K? The demo keeps falling over when I try it.

 

[Jon Nash]

[QUOTE Feel free to contact me to discuss our experience with the mount or co-ordinating a trip to Florida![/QUOTE]
Hey thanks Carelton, Where will you be shooting? If your anywhere near the keys in-between the 15th -20th I could be interested

 

[Carelton Holt]

Jon, We are going to be filming in Boca Raton, FL and tentative shoot dates are Monday January 16th and another day between January 19th - 21st in Boynton Beach ( a few miles north of Boca) These locations are about 100 miles north (two hours drive) of Key Largo (the northern most of the Florida Keys)

[QUOTE Feel free to contact me to discuss our experience with the mount or co-ordinating a trip to Florida!

Hey thanks Carelton, Where will you be shooting? If your anywhere near the keys in-between the 15th -20th I could be interested [/QUOTE]

 

[Tom Hamilton]

With a long zoon lens, we see noticable "jutter."

Carelton, at what approximate focal length do you begin seeing those happen?

Would it be possible to obtain a 10 second or so clip from you, I'd like to run it through the CS5.5 Warp Stabilizer, see if that helps?

 

[Jon Nash]

Jon, We are going to be filming in Boca Raton, FL

What are you planning to shoot? The ideal test for me would be over water with fast racing sailboats doing 20 knots + Im not sure if Boca has a big sailboat racing community I'll have to check it out.

 

[Carelton Holt]

Hey Tom,
50mm and up on a Canon 5d seems to begin showing signs of jutter. We do a lot of golf "tee to green" and scenic or architectual stuff, so we shoot mostly a 28mm prime on the 5D. A 35mm lens is pretty happy on the rig as well. I have seen footage from the Aerial Exposures mount from a car with much longer focal lengths, but cars do not have the low frequency "rotor" vibration problem. If shooting from a copter with three or four rotors, the vibration is much lower, but those are expensive rigs per hour.


I only have 1080P footage from either Sony EX1, EX3 or Canon 5D, but would be glad to post some "problem footage" up that has some jutter or motion from the wind kicking us around (stuff we usually hide from client eyes... they only get to see the smooth stuff). Let me know if that would be helpful. It's interesting shooting on the Aerial Exposures Mount, there are "bungee" cords that suspend the camera gimbal and you have a choice between one or two bungees per side to match your load. Scarlet and lower payloads probably perform best with the single bungee, but it just looks really weird as the camera looks like it is bouncing all over the place. If you put on the second bungee, it bounces much less, but that is actually a bad thing since the bouncing is counter to the low frequency vibrations from the copter. On the Tyler minigyro, the spring suspension "shock" actually needs a little more weight than a 5D (Scarlet probably nearly perfect) as almost everything I have shot with it using a 5D has some jutter in it. It smooths out fine in post.

We are on CS5.5 and haven't compared the Warp Stabilizer to Mercalli in a side by side comparison. Earlier versions of AE just never compared to Mercalli, so we have just stuck with what works. I'll probably try later this week though and post up my findings.

Carelton, at what approximate focal length do you begin seeing those happen?

Would it be possible to obtain a 10 second or so clip from you, I'd like to run it through the CS5.5 Warp Stabilizer, see if that helps?

 

[Tom Hamilton]

Thanks very much for the detailed reply Carelton, somewhere around 50mm seems to be the limit for mechanically stabilized systems on aircraft, beyond that, it's a huge leap in cost to Cineflex-style mounts.

I'm in Florida regularly if you'd like to test an Epic with your rig, I'd very much like to see the results myself. Have been hearing good things about the AE Warp, let me know if you get better results than Mercalli.

 

[Carelton Holt]

Hey Tom,
Ok, sorry in advance for being a little verbose, but here we go. We did two side by side tests of AE Warp and Mercalli with interesting results.

First we used a POV shot traveling down a golf fairway towards a clubhouse that exhibited the typical slow pan, tilt and roll motion that comes from using mechanical stabilizers. Good news, both did an amazing job in motion smoothing and detail preservation. Warp did a tiny bit better in motion smoothing, but Mercalli retained a tiny bit more resolution. The difference was probably in the zoom factor: in order to make the clip smoother, it has to be zoomed up slightly more. Both zoomed up about 7% or so and made the clip look like it was shot on a Wescam or similar.... very smooth! I would generally say the difference was negligible, but Mercalli analyzes and corrects WAY faster. In fact it took about 4 times longer for Warp to correct the clip. Mercalli does the job faster than real time, so if you have a lot of this type of footage to do, Mercalli would be the winner in my opinion. But, on the good news front for Warp, you can set Warp to work in the background and move on to something else in AE while it does its job.

The second clip we tried was just a clip we were shooting of the same clubhouse that was stationary while we adjusted exposure for the next shot. It was moving around quite a bit since I was focused on camera settings and not paying attention at all to the actual shot, so it was pretty wavy. The clip really shows the underwear of working with a 5D as the more abrupt side to side motion really generated some Jell-O shutter effect on the clip. In this instance, Warp was vastly superior in that it not only adjusted for the camera motion; it also corrected the Jell-O shutter concurrently! Mercalli did really well on the motion of the camera (somewhat better than Warp), but even with “Correct for Rolling Shutter” selected, it still had some Jell-O remaining.

In summary, I am glad to have both tools, but if I only could have one, it would probably be Warp (even though we will still probably use Mercalli more for POV and the overall speed). For “hovering” shots or shots circling around a stationary object, we will most likely use Warp. Thanks so much for prompting us to run the test. I will gladly post up a couple of clips if you like to run tests of your own.

Note: We used the Mosaic Engineering Moiré’ filter with fantastic results on the 5D. Without it the barrel tile roof of the Mediterranean architecture would have looked horrible and rendered the project almost unusable (spoken from experience!)

Thanks very much for the detailed reply Carelton, somewhere around 50mm seems to be the limit for mechanically stabilized systems on aircraft, beyond that, it's a huge leap in cost to Cineflex-style mounts.

I'm in Florida regularly if you'd like to test an Epic with your rig, I'd very much like to see the results myself. Have been hearing good things about the AE Warp, let me know if you get better results than Mercalli.

 

[Tom Hamilton]

Thanks Carelton,

That's very encouraging news about Warp. We will be shortly pouring the composites into molds for our new strut-mounted Epic rig, nice to know that good tools are available in post to correct for the unknowns.

And yes please, if you could post a couple of clips, that would be great.

 

[Paul Russell]

Hi Carelton, thanks for your detailed answers. You've convinced me to drop the dollar on Mercalli

 

[Carelton Holt]

Hey Tom,
I will post a couple of clips up either tomorrow or Monday. We are scrambling to get a project out the door! I'll post a YouSendt link here when they are up.

Thanks Carelton,

That's very encouraging news about Warp. We will be shortly pouring the composites into molds for our new strut-mounted Epic rig, nice to know that good tools are available in post to correct for the unknowns.

And yes please, if you could post a couple of clips, that would be great.

 

[Carelton Holt]

Hey Paul,
I definitely think it is worth the $$$ Earlier versions did really well at smoothing, but left the footage pretty soft. The new version is just terrific! Hey, check Digital Juice, I see it there for a pretty good discounted price! Between Warp & Mercalli, you can definitely do some amazing stuff.

We have a decent steadycam rig here, but are nowhere near "guru" status in operation since we only use it a few hours of shooting per project. Often it is not cost effective for us to hire a "Real" steadycam operator, but I really love the shots. Mercalli (and probably Warp also) makes that footage look like it came from a much more experienced operator. Not trying to take away the value of a professional when it is warranted, but for the right application, we have a lot more confidence when we pull out the rig than before! Some of the stuff that was pretty good right out of the camera looks like it is on a wire it is so smooth!

Cheers,

Hi Carelton, thanks for your detailed answers. You've convinced me to drop the dollar on Mercalli

 

[Tom Hamilton]

Yu da man!