Let's talk ergonomics...

[Harry Clark]

This is a great thread.
I hope the boys on the Red Team are watching from the sidelines...

Cheers,
Harry

 

[ericyoung]

Haven't got time to wade in at the moment - while film style ergonomics as described are good, they aren't necessarily perfect. Still think there's room to incorporate other ideas too.

How can we keep it very modular, yet improve the fit to the body when handholding or in other non-tripod mounted configurations?

Haven't seen Gibby's input on this yet!

 

[Brook Willard]

There's nothing ergonomic about a film mag. It shifts the weight back but that's about it. I don't see why epic has to be like a film camera when it doesn't need a big mag stuck on it. There are functional reasons why film cameras are shaped in certain ways. It's because they have constraints to work with like movement, motor, spinning shutter etc. The rest is just molded around that to make it reasonably ergonomic. Why do you think the D20 is practically a box? Because electronics fits to box better and doesn't need to have funky shapes inside it.

I like EPIC because it's small and it's a black slate to mold the camera into what you want with accessories. Hard to believe you all want a more restrictive form factor than one that's more customizable.

My point isn't so much that it needs to match a film body shape to the letter... just that it should match the balanced, nodal, low-CG design concept. I focused on the 235 with a 200' shoulder mag as it is the lowest-profile and most integrated magazine I've used. The 400' may balance better in the real world, but the 200' shoulder mag is definitely a great design place to dream about.

As for ENG/EFP guys... they already have 10 cameras to choose from. If the Epic was an ENG camera, that design would be paramount. But it's not. We cinema guys have one camera... and it's not the right shape.

I definitely don't want a big honkin' mag stuck on the back. I want the battery/storage far back enough to create a counterbalance for the lens/matte box/follow focus up front... but that doesn't mean the butt of the camera has to be gigantic.

Modularity should still be a key concern, but as I stated in the original post... it needs to be modularity with a goal in mind. Specific setups.

I'm in Texas on a shoot now, but when I get back in town I'll head to a rental house and build a 235 into a few configurations just for the sake of argument. When built with the 200' shoulder mag you're left with a very balanced/low-profile handheld camera that is just as rock-solid on sticks, in an underwater housing, on a helicopter mount or on a Steadicam. There are certainly "better" configurations for that particular camera for certain setups [a 200' mag is too short of a run time, for example. Also, most Steadicam operators would prefer the 400' Steadicam mag]. The thing is, the 235 is ultimately stuck with a film magazine that has to go somewhere... and that somewhere is on the back.

In the same way that an ArriCam ST doesn't work in every configuration with a 1,000' magazine stuck on the top, the 235 doesn't always work perfectly with a 200' shoulder mag on the back. For the Epic, we're talking about circuit boards and hard-drives. If a proper shape is adopted that is not too long, too short, too tall or too short [...], the problem is solved. Because the Epic's design is not tethered by a film magazine and movement, it can be whatever shape it needs to be.

That shape can be a terrible awkward little box... or it can be a smooth, ergonomic, balanced, thoughtful camera that is just right. Boards can be shaped to fit, electronics can be relocated to function properly... all to fit into whatever shape box is necessary.

To me, handheld is paramount. Any camera can fit on sticks well. Any camera [if it's short enough] can work well on a Steadicam. Any camera [if it's short enough] can fit into an underwater housing. Any camera can fit on a hot head. If it works well as a handheld camera, it will work well in all of these other situations by default.

And that should be the primary design goal.

 

[David Mullen ASC]

The relative placement of the human eye and shoulder isn't going to change in the near future, so it isn't "old fashioned" to at least consider this physical relationship when designing any camera, digital or film. Unless the camera is so tiny & lightweight that it fits into your palm...

And it's probably going to get a PL-mount lens on the front of it, and most of the modern ones are fairly large.

So a good handheld camera would have the center of gravity, with a lens and typical accessories, over the top of the shoulder and have the eyepiece forward enough for the eye. That's just a simple reality that someone is going to have to address in a camera design, and it's not going to go away by wishing or talking about "thinking out of the box".

Whether it is done with accessories or body design or modularity, I don't know, but if you want to keep the square shape of the EPIC and pile batteries and drives on the back end to counterbalance, fine, but perhaps that's not the best place for the LCD menu then.

Maybe the LCD menu screen and controls should be on a detachable little flat box that can be snapped into a port on either the back or on either side, etc.

 

[Rob Sweeney]

Let's talk ergonomics

Let's talk ergonomics

"Handheld is paramount". Well said, Brook. Congratulations on a well-thought out, beautifully illustrated thread.

The Red Team will have succeeded when we can grab the camera with a Prime, Drive, Battery and an EVF and drop it on the shoulder without any special "handheld package". An ergonomic shoulder cutout should be an imperative for the Epic. Holding a front heavy lunch box for hours on end is just too awkward.

The Epic designers should also try to protect the operator side of the lens so the focus puller has a clear view. An EVF 2, lighter and more compact than the first, could help alleviate the problem of the finder sliding so far forward for balance that it obscures the lens barrel.

The French New Wave changed our cinematic vocabulary. Arriflex and Panavision responded with the 35BL and the Panaflex. They built those workhorse cameras from a foundation of handhold-ability. Both cameras are great hand-held but equally at home on a gear head. The Epic should have the same design goal.

The RED ONE is such an auspicious debut. The fact that it incorporated a PL mount was sheer genius, enabling a host of optical choices. The Epic can be just as audacious by not compromising and not trying to be all things for all users. Start with a camera with a fantastic sensor and great optics that in its basic form rests comfortably on the shoulder, and build from there.

I've waited almost a year for my RED ONE. I am wiling to wait an extra year or two for the EPIC to be the all around brilliant next generation movie camera that it can and should be.

Nice work, Brook. Go EPIC team!

Rob Sweeney

 

[CJ Roy]

Great work, Brook. Agree 100%. I hope RED is listening.

-CJ

 

[P Andersson]

this image says it all, good work brook,

let the shape evolve, just like oakley shades follows the ergonomic needs of a face, RED can mold itself to the human body

looks like you could almost flip the RED upside down

 

[Steve Sanacore]

Excellent evaluation Brook. The diagrams are terrific. I never did understand why the lens mount was on the top rather than the bottom (front) of the body, that way making room for various viewfinder placement on top and in front of the hand held operator.

 

[James Brundige]

The relative placement of the human eye and shoulder isn't going to change in the near future, so it isn't "old fashioned" to at least consider this physical relationship when designing any camera, digital or film.

So a good handheld camera would have the center of gravity, with a lens and typical accessories, over the top of the shoulder and have the eyepiece forward enough for the eye.

Maybe the LCD menu screen and controls should be on a detachable little flat box that can be snapped into a port on either the back or on either side, etc.

Thats the key - the relationship of shoulder and eyecup. If the Epic is small and light enough, we might be able to accomplish this with accessories. The new ET EVF mount can put the eyepiece about anywhere, and I've found a good set up for hand held. You need to counterbalance the EVF with battery on the dumb side. (Pix of my home made set up later)

But the controls! Get them off the back. I love David's idea of a moveable box. Integrate the full controls with the LCD, with a cable connection to camera, that can be mounted anywhere. Just leave on-off and start-stop on the camera.

 

[Fergus Meiklejohn]

My point is that the battery/drive can go anywhere. Why overdesign it so that's the ONLY place you could put it.

But I think that while the modularity of the RED One and current Epic design are a great strength they are also a great weakness. When nothing is built into the design of the body we end up having to add a lot of extra ungainly and ergonomically uncomfortable bulk and weight to the camera:

the EVF is long and heavy.. so it needs a big strong arm to attach it to heavy metal fixings on the camera body..

the camera is just a box so to mount it onto your shoulder you need to attach another big and heavy padded shoulder mount, which may be great for shoulder work but will create new problems when you want to mount it on a tripod, or sling it in a bag.

The weight is very far forward so to balance it you need to mount the battery far back, hanging off rails which are attached to heavy metal mounts .. etc

Also, I know this is an Epic thread, but the same philosophy applies to Scarlet.. the design we have seen so far looks great before you have to attach a million things to actually make it work. Then it becomes heavy, quite large, and curiously resembling a piece of military hardware :blink:


Every ounce and millimetre counts! And I am looking for a camera that I can just pull out of a bag, switch on and start filming with; not because I'm lazy.. lol, but because, often, as you all well know, getting the shot is as much about perfect timing as advanced microchip design

I think Brook is quite right in insisting that Epic should make no compromises for EFP use, but I suspect that a camera that is beautifully designed to sit balanced on your shoulder and is ready to go the minute you pick it up would work great for EFP/ENG anyway :biggrin:

 

[Brook Willard]

There will never be a way to eliminate the rods, lenses, follow focus, matte boxes, battery, body-mounted storage, etc. There will always be some level of "modularity," no matter how you look at it. Yes, you can have a case built to keep all of those accessories on your camera if you'd like... but having the ability to pull it out of the case and shoot [like a video camera] is not high on my list.

I expect the same level of camera build time as I have with a film camera. Put the camera body on sticks and start attaching accessories. That said, I should never need a tool to build the camera in the morning... and I shouldn't need one to adjust between setups [from handheld on primes to living on a BFZ].

Don't give me a video camera and don't give me an erector set. Give me a 235.

That said, fergus, your concept is good. Building the RED is too much of a tool-enabled chore. People will eventually build a very nice personal system that may not require tools... but when every accessory needs two other accessories to mount, things get too heavy.

No matter how many accessories you bolt to the RED, the lens mount, control interface and lack of a shoulder cutout will always be wrong. It's irreparable. That is the sort of stuff that needs to be prevented with Epic. Even if RED screws the pooch on Epic's accessories, other companies will pick up the slack. Nobody will ever be able to properly fix a poorly designed body, though... and that cube-with-a-lens-mount thing won't work.

 

[Aron Cohen]

This thing about shoulder-mounting...

I think element technica is about to introduce a new, small shoulder mount for the RED ONE. With a pad, a dovetail attachment, like their oconnor dovetails (so you don't have to take off the arri-style baseplate to go from sticks to handheld) and the thing has two forward stretching handles.

I think you can find pictures on the REDmodz site.

I think not having things built into the body can be frustrating because of all the extras you need, but it also allows for many different configuration options which in my opinion is the most important feature of a camera - comfortable modularity. But this can only be achieved if the extras aren't compromises. For instance I agree that the battery and drive/SSD shouldn't be so uneasily attached. We need a better way to do those.

I also think that the moveable control panel would be quite useful and a solution for different opinions about where to have the controls. I wrote about this in a different post (reasonable requests for the EPIC) but I think I made up my mind. It IS better if you don't move around both the controls and the cable connectors. Just move the controls. It would be amazing if RED could implement this idea into EPIC.

But the idea of EPIC being very similar to the arri 235 is sort of frightening to me. I think it should be more like a small box unit that you can configure for use LIKE the 235 shoulder setup or anything else. I'm saying you should be able to do almost ANYTHING with the small box. Make it into a 235 or an LT or a camera optimized for tripod use/car or helicopter mounted use/steadicam use/jib use. Of course, this needs configuration modules that are a lot bigger than current accessories, but finish the job of many of the rest.

Oh, and yes. The viewfinder...
Just a bit too... enormous.

 

[Mitch Gross]

So has anybody tried shooting with a RED upside down for handheld? Used to do it all the time in 16mm on the old Arri S with a 400' mag (I'm showing my age).

Just askin'. Have fun with that extra render step in post.

 

[David Mullen ASC]

I've heard all the heat radiates from the top, so I don't know what operating it upside-down would do for air flow / cooling.

 

[Bob Gruen]

I think I might be out in left field here but the answer to the shoulder mount ergonomics seems to be the modularity.

The camera is pretty short, so why would it be so hard to position a shoulder mount such that the mount positions the camera just in front of the operator's shoulder? Hang the battery and drive off of the back for counter balance. Getting to the setup buttons might be tough, so the shoulder mount should swing away or clip off easily.

Is having the film plane an additional 5" forward of the panning rotational axis an issue for shoulder mount work?

Bob

 

[Mitch Gross]

Is having the film plane an additional 5" forward of the panning rotational axis an issue for shoulder mount work?

No, but shoving all that weight up there will be. When rigged out the camera is already significantly front heavy. Why push it forward even more? You'd need a monster battery block in back to balance it this way.

 

[Brook Willard]

This thing about shoulder-mounting...

I think element technica is about to introduce a new, small shoulder mount for the RED ONE. With a pad, a dovetail attachment, like their oconnor dovetails (so you don't have to take off the arri-style baseplate to go from sticks to handheld) and the thing has two forward stretching handles.

I think you can find pictures on the REDmodz site.

I think not having things built into the body can be frustrating because of all the extras you need, but it also allows for many different configuration options which in my opinion is the most important feature of a camera - comfortable modularity. But this can only be achieved if the extras aren't compromises. For instance I agree that the battery and drive/SSD shouldn't be so uneasily attached. We need a better way to do those.

I also think that the moveable control panel would be quite useful and a solution for different opinions about where to have the controls. I wrote about this in a different post (reasonable requests for the EPIC) but I think I made up my mind. It IS better if you don't move around both the controls and the cable connectors. Just move the controls. It would be amazing if RED could implement this idea into EPIC.

But the idea of EPIC being very similar to the arri 235 is sort of frightening to me. I think it should be more like a small box unit that you can configure for use LIKE the 235 shoulder setup or anything else. I'm saying you should be able to do almost ANYTHING with the small box. Make it into a 235 or an LT or a camera optimized for tripod use/car or helicopter mounted use/steadicam use/jib use. Of course, this needs configuration modules that are a lot bigger than current accessories, but finish the job of many of the rest.

Oh, and yes. The viewfinder...
Just a bit too... enormous.

Even if you mount the ET handheld system onto the RED, the optical axis will be roughly 6" higher than it should be... and the camera will still be out of balance. Because the optical axis is so high, the EVF will interfere with the follow focus and mattebox... etc.

I disagree with your thoughts that it should be a small box, particularly since the 235 shape and size is already proven for tripods, cars, helicopters, steadicams and jibs]. If the camera is the current "box" shape, the optical axis will be too high and the weight distribution will be too far forwards to ever balance out with any lens... be it a small prime for handheld or a gigantic zoom.

On a point unrelated to your post, there is one very important thing to note here. While people have come up with solutions for the RED [the ET handheld system, for example], that doesn't mean the problem is gone. People will always find a way to make something work in the way it needs to work... we're natural problem solvers.

I just think that pre-planning accessories to make up for dramatic engineering flaws that can still be fixed is nonsense. If we're already trying to come up with solutions for problems we see with the design... the design needs to go. Sure, we could shift the camera forward and throw a bunch of weight out back. Sure we could make guards for the plugs to keep them from snapping off. Sure we could put a cap over the controls to make up for the lack of a lock switch... but why? If we see the problems now - when the camera is still in development and the problems can still be fixed - why not bloody fix them?

[shrug]

That's where I stand. I'll gladly pay more for my Epic to make it a well designed camera.

 

[Mike Prevette]

I can't second what Brook is saying here enough. Don't fix the problem, design it out from the beginning. There is no disadvantage to a well designed camera.

 

[reality]

Everything in something as complex as camera design is a compromise or trade off. The perfect thing for one problem causes problems for another problem. What one person thinks is a good design is another person's bad design. I've seen happen with every camera I've used for the last 30 years.

Great, they finally put the X in the right place.
Arrgh, why did they move X, I hate it.

 

[Lachlan Ward]

Leave the BOLEX OUT OF THIS! What did it ever do to you, Brook!

AKS....a digital 235 for $45,000...

I'm in total agreement. Get CG lower and get the sensor down and back. I always wind up doing hand held shots, lots of them. So for me hand hold-ability is 100% importanto! In film school I had to suffer under the pain of BL16 a big old noisy Vietnam era monster (that coped a bullet and then got put together, which I find kind of amazing). When you put on of those bricks on your shoulder it tells you were to go and not the other way around. And its that point, that the Epic looks like it may will be a hinderer in hand held that concerns me.

I also want to reiterate the point about lockable bays for the HDDs and CF port. Also will Epic be striping to multiple CF cards?

It would be fantastic (and I'm going to go out on a very sturdy limb and assume Jim & the Red Team have already thought of this) if the Wifi control deck could connect up to any Epic you point it at and that you could save a setting and walk from camera to camera just pushing a button and making that camera change its settings to match camera A. Its not amazingly useful but it would have its benefits. (oh oh oh and that it was like an Iphone with a touch screen and internet access, and GPS :>)