Face detect with OG Komodo

[Stephen Pruitt]

Hi all. . .

I posted this on a FB forum, but never got a single response, which actually surprised me quite a bit, so I thought I'd try here.

According to the manual, the Komodo-X appears to have three choices for face detection: First face, last face, and pause if no faces.

In looking at my OGK, I see only two choices: First face and last face, but no pause if no faces.

Is this correct? The OGK cannot do "pause if no faces"?

Thanks much for the help.

Stephen

 

[Thomas B.]

Well, Stephen, maybe the FB people thought it was a bad joke.
OGK's latest firmware does not include the face detection beta.
...or did you install a K-X FW update on OGK?

 

[Alex Zeder]

Face detection comes partly with RED Control and it is indeed different for the models. Komodo OG has only two modes, Raptor X has four. The difference is that the cameras that have face detection in firmware will expose their own options in RED Control but Komodo OG has no face detection in firmware, so RED Control takes over all this the processing, but with only two modes. Which in turn might be limited by what Apple's implementation of face detection APIs can deliver to RED Control in the Mac/iOS devices.

 

[Stephen Pruitt]

Well, that is, indeed, unfortunate. I do not want to buy another camera, as I'm quite happy with my two OGs, but I sure would like that feature, as I think it will save me a lot of time. Alas. . . thanks for the information, Alex.

 

[Mikael Lubtchansky]

Hello Stephen

RED CONTROL / PRO will take care of FACE DETECTION like Alex said when using a camera that does not have the feature built-in.

If app detects no face it will also pause AF until a new face is found then will follow either first found or last one when it detect faces again...

Also FWIW on RAPTOR and K-X when multiple faces are detected in-camera the app will let you select which one to focus on via boxes displayed on the live stream.

 

[Stephen Pruitt]

Hello Stephen

RED CONTROL / PRO will take care of FACE DETECTION like Alex said when using a camera that does not have the feature built-in.

If app detects no face it will also pause AF until a new face is found then will follow either first found or last one when it detect faces again...

Also FWIW on RAPTOR and K-X when multiple faces are detected in-camera the app will let you select which one to focus on via boxes displayed on the live stream.

Hi there, Mikael. . . and thanks for your reply.

In my tests, I've found that the FD on my OG is somewhat unpredictable. Sometimes it works, and sometimes when no face is detected, it pauses, but sometimes it focuses on the background (which I really don't want). Is there a set procedure that will have it just look for faces?

Also, is the FD in the K-X demonstrably more reliable than on the OG?

Just to be clear, I think your RED control is simply out of this world. What a system!

Thanks again.

Stephen

 

[Mikael Lubtchansky]

Hi there, Mikael. . . and thanks for your reply.

In my tests, I've found that the FD on my OG is somewhat unpredictable. Sometimes it works, and sometimes when no face is detected, it pauses, but sometimes it focuses on the background (which I really don't want). Is there a set procedure that will have it just look for faces?

Also, is the FD in the K-X demonstrably more reliable than on the OG?

Just to be clear, I think your RED control is simply out of this world. What a system!

Thanks again.

Stephen

Yes in camera face detect is better sas among other things is not affected by wifi limitations like live stream image quality and the latency.

I’ll see if one can improve on pausing but quickly looked at that specific code and when no face is found it simply sends a stop AF command.

 

[Brian Timmons]

This recent video is about Komodo X AF but still relevant.

Always appreciate Mikael's input and glad to see he is still involved with RED Control as it would be a huge mistake for RED/Nikon to do anything close to not including Mikael's input.

For anyone concerned about better AF performance on Komodo and Komodo X (or any RED) consider writing RED at
featurerequests@red.com. As far as I'm aware this is one of the better ways of communicating camera enhancements to the engineering team. I have doubts RED regularly monitors REDuser.

Brian Timmons
BRITIM/MEDIA

 

[Stephen Pruitt]

Yes in camera face detect is better sas among other things is not affected by wifi limitations like live stream image quality and the latency.

I’ll see if one can improve on pausing but quickly looked at that specific code and when no face is found it simply sends a stop AF command.

Well, Mikael, I am springing for an X next week. We'll see.

But here's another question for you.

When using RED control, the box always starts strongly green, but as the shot progresses in time, the box slowly grows dimmer and dimmer until it is no longer visible. That is not the case on the LCD screen on the K. That leads me to two questions:

1. What is causing this phenomenon?

2. Can the box be made not to fade?

I do understand about the different colors, but this fading business is pretty frustrating at times on longer shots.

Super thanks!

Stephen