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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

Birger Lens Mount Reservations

Erik,

Would it be possible to just go through the reservations a shoot a bulk email saying something like: "We have received your order and will contact you as soon as we process it."

I'm sure this will put a lot of people at ease at least knowing Birger has received their order. It would also remove a lot of pressure on you from anxious and restless reservation holders.
 
Hey Aqua, how did the shuttle shoot go? Were you able to test the birger?
 
Rfo said:
Hey Aqua, how did the shuttle shoot go? Were you able to test the birger?
Click to expand...

Yep, Aqua do you plan to post some launch footage?
Because NASA TV over web is quite poor quality. How it was to shoot there? :biggrin:
 
Shuttle launch

Shuttle launch

Hawaj said:
Yep, Aqua do you plan to post some launch footage?
Because NASA TV over web is quite poor quality. How it was to shoot there? :biggrin:
Click to expand...

Shoot went fine - we had a beautiful day for launch and it went off just as scheduled. As you may know, my camera has been at Birger so Erik could engineer the changes necessary for the new mount. The final version is not yet ready so Erik mounted a version of the industrial mount which has a USB connection to get control from a computer or PDA so we didn't have control (I knew he was sending that - the idea was just to get a couple weeks jump on trying some lenses, before he gets the real thing done.)

Erik actually had to ship to the fedex office outside the launch complex and we picked it up about 2 hours before the launch so not much time to play with it - just set it up and shot.

The mount looks very solid, and we used my manual Zeiss 300mm F4 with Contax/Yashica mount on it using a C/Y to eos adapter - so fully manual iris and focus - essentially with used the Birger as a "dumb".

It worked very well and we got a pretty good shot. I will try to post something but since I just got the camera I am not that familiar with the workflow. Ken Corben suggested I just send it out to Offhollywood and he would do a quick edit/grade for me. So I will pm him about that.

It looked great on the LCD and fine on my buddy's laptop but I don't really know all of the REDalert stuff so haven't output anything yet.

The quality of the image was excellent - the zeiss 300 F/4 was very sharp. We shot at F22 since I didn't have an ND with me, (most people suggest the lens is best at f8 or f11 due to diffraction effects) but it looked good to me.

I bought the lens used from B&H for $400 and it is sharp and very smooth.

My main problem with getting the footage out is that a) I am up to my a.. getting work done on the underwater housings so don't have much time for playing with REDalert/REDcine and really shouldn't have taken the day off to go to the cape but it was too good of an opportunity. 2) I started running a few minutes before the launch and just let it roll and don't know how to cut it down. However, the main shot seems to be all in one 2 gigabyte file (red breaks all shots down into a series of 2 gig files) and I wonder if people would like to play with the RAW R3D file. Even if somebody hosted it, 2 gigs would be a long download and if it is allowable I thought of just offering to people that they could Paypal me $5 or so for postage/DVD and I would burn the raw to a data dvd and mail it to them (first ones priority mail since I would like to see what people come up with from the RAW files). I guess I would maintain the copyright, with any use for demo purposes allowed - but I'm not really that worried about it - it was more of an experiment anyway.

If anybody/moderator can tell me if that is okay I will post my email/paypal ID otherwise PM me.


edit: Here is a still from the RED .r3d file. I used the linear light setting - need to play with all those settings - looks a lot different in various settings.
 
Perhaps you can just trim the clip in Redcine when you get a few moments and then someone can host that. I'd love to check it out and play around with it. Just got the Silverado footage and will be playing with that too. I'll probably post some grades to RedRelay or my own site at some point. And of course, some of my own footage will be coming as soon as the camera arrives.

Steve
 
AquaVideoRed206 said:
The mount looks very solid, and we used my manual Zeiss 300mm F4 with Contax/Yashica mount on it using a C/Y to eos adapter - so fully manual iris and focus - essentially with used the Birger as a "dumb".

It worked very well and we got a pretty good shot. I will try to post something but since I just got the camera I am not that familiar with the workflow. Ken Corben suggested I just send it out to Offhollywood and he would do a quick edit/grade for me. So I will pm him about that.

It looked great on the LCD and fine on my buddy's laptop but I don't really know all of the REDalert stuff so haven't output anything yet.

The quality of the image was excellent - the zeiss 300 F/4 was very sharp. We shot at F22 since I didn't have an ND with me, (most people suggest the lens is best at f8 or f11 due to diffraction effects) but it looked good to me.

I bought the lens used from B&H for $400 and it is sharp and very smooth.
Click to expand...

AquaVideoRed206 thanks for the report.

{so fully manual iris and focus - essentially with used the Birger as a "dumb".}

That's exactly what I wanted to hear.

I will sent you PM with my request for DVD.
 
added a pic to the previous post.

added a pic to the previous post.

Hawaj said:
Yep, Aqua do you plan to post some launch footage?
Because NASA TV over web is quite poor quality. How it was to shoot there? :biggrin:
Click to expand...

I've done the shoot before. The press site is 3 miles away since theoretically a blow up on the pad could go that far. It is a pretty straightforward shoot, they have lots of room for everybody - about 20 trucks were there and they have a press room with 30 or so desks for the newspapers and such. You basically set up, then stand around talking and waiting and checking for updates on weather. It was a beautiful day and went off right on time.

We set it up so that the shot was locked down for the liftoff to have the shuttle go out of frame and then track upward because a lot of times a full tracking shot doesn't look as good (hard to beat the NASA tracking cameras) and the shuttle gets lost in clouds pretty quickly, but I wish I had tweaked the balance on the tripod a little better, as it turned out we had a good view of the shuttle for a long way. The lockdown shot is fine and I got the tilt portion too, but not as smoothly as I would have liked.
 
AquaVideoRed206 said:
edit: Here is a still from the RED .r3d file. I used the linear light setting - need to play with all those settings - looks a lot different in various settings.
Click to expand...

Holy Crap! That looks amazing. This is historic! You have to put this footage up--it looks too good!

I will certainly paypal you with some cash to send me the file--i'd love to play with this.
 
AquaVideoRed206 said:
Shoot went fine - we had a beautiful day for launch and it went off just as scheduled. As you may know, my camera has been at Birger so Erik could engineer the changes necessary for the new mount. The final version is not yet ready so Erik mounted a version of the industrial mount which has a USB connection to get control from a computer or PDA so we didn't have control (I knew he was sending that - the idea was just to get a couple weeks jump on trying some lenses, before he gets the real thing done.)

Erik actually had to ship to the fedex office outside the launch complex and we picked it up about 2 hours before the launch so not much time to play with it - just set it up and shot.

The mount looks very solid, and we used my manual Zeiss 300mm F4 with Contax/Yashica mount on it using a C/Y to eos adapter - so fully manual iris and focus - essentially with used the Birger as a "dumb".

It worked very well and we got a pretty good shot. I will try to post something but since I just got the camera I am not that familiar with the workflow. Ken Corben suggested I just send it out to Offhollywood and he would do a quick edit/grade for me. So I will pm him about that.

It looked great on the LCD and fine on my buddy's laptop but I don't really know all of the REDalert stuff so haven't output anything yet.

The quality of the image was excellent - the zeiss 300 F/4 was very sharp. We shot at F22 since I didn't have an ND with me, (most people suggest the lens is best at f8 or f11 due to diffraction effects) but it looked good to me.

I bought the lens used from B&H for $400 and it is sharp and very smooth.

My main problem with getting the footage out is that a) I am up to my a.. getting work done on the underwater housings so don't have much time for playing with REDalert/REDcine and really shouldn't have taken the day off to go to the cape but it was too good of an opportunity. 2) I started running a few minutes before the launch and just let it roll and don't know how to cut it down. However, the main shot seems to be all in one 2 gigabyte file (red breaks all shots down into a series of 2 gig files) and I wonder if people would like to play with the RAW R3D file. Even if somebody hosted it, 2 gigs would be a long download and if it is allowable I thought of just offering to people that they could Paypal me $5 or so for postage/DVD and I would burn the raw to a data dvd and mail it to them (first ones priority mail since I would like to see what people come up with from the RAW files). I guess I would maintain the copyright, with any use for demo purposes allowed - but I'm not really that worried about it - it was more of an experiment anyway.

If anybody/moderator can tell me if that is okay I will post my email/paypal ID otherwise PM me.


edit: Here is a still from the RED .r3d file. I used the linear light setting - need to play with all those settings - looks a lot different in various settings.
Click to expand...

that looks reallllly sweet.
________
Cloudy Trichomes
 
dot in sts122 and they found my charger/battery

dot in sts122 and they found my charger/battery

Adam Levins said:
Thanks for doing this test.

I see a blurred dot on the upper right hand corner. Is it noticeable in the footage? Looks like dust amplified due to the 300m?
Click to expand...

It is noticeable but not as bad since things are happening. I haven't even had time to check if it is on the lens or on the sensor.

Good news is I left my charger and a battery plugged into an outlet up there, but somebody found it and is holding so no $1000 bummer.
 
Credit paid

Credit paid

twlim said:
Eric, I do not have a fax machine as I am travelling. Is there a way to order on-line? I do not want to email my credit card detail either.
Click to expand...

Eric,

I fax the order and my credit card statement showed a deduction for Birger Engineering Inc. I have not received any email update on my order. Please advise

Thanks

Lim
 
At this point I've given up worrying about Birger.

I sent them my reservations, they haven't been processed. Maybe one day they will be.

I still very much want two of their mounts, but in the short term I think I'll just have to look else where until they get their customer support up and working.
 
Conformation

Conformation

Yes, I received mine on Feb. 4th. I ordered the mount Dec. 3rd.
 
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