Welcome to our community

Be a part of something great, join today!

Log in
  • 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 :)

Let's talk ergonomics...

Status
Not open for further replies.
I thought about this issue yesterday as I ran through an abandoned hospital being shot at by stunt men wielding full-load blanks, myself wielding a 235 with Ultraprime onboard (it wasn't exactly a fair battle). This was like a mini-"Children of Men" type shot, complete with blood hit being squirted at the lens (requiring me to don a plastic garbage bag for the shot, very sexy). As little and lovely as the 235 is, it's still front heavy, and a little off balance from side to side to boot. Being such a small mass it's not as hard to compensate for this than a typical sound camera, but I have always maintained that a camera that requires brute force to hold level will always produce less smooth results.

Brook brings up a good point about the confluence of the EVF and the mattebox--building in a hump does allow the finder to have a chance to ride above the mattebox giving you a shot at a truly balanced camera, or one that is even close (given a "sensible" lens on board, there's nothing one can do about balancing out a 15lb zoom short of adding sandbags to the rear, oy vey!) Is it possible to invert the image in the viewfinder? If so, could a 90 degree mirror module be designed to attach to the front element of the viewfinder so that it mounts vertically? In which case it could be driven forward substantially...
 
Sure hope the Red team is paying close attention. If Reduser is their tool for community feedback, then they should go out of their way to incorporate this design feedback and make Epic just that... a giant step forward not just in technology and modularity, but in ergonomics as well. Make it a modern camera in every sense of the word.

I just got my EVF and once you bolt that on, even a basic rig gets quite heavy.. and it takes the ET support to make it workable, and that adds weight, etc... An ET breakout box, a little Zacutto quick release spud, the LCD for the AC, top rails to bolt everything on... etc.. And it all sits high on your shoulder.

Collin Fletcher in his book, "The Complete Walker" (a book on backpacking) wisely stated... "pare away the ounces and the pounds will take care of themselves."

When it comes to slinging a camera around all day, those are words to live by. The less stuff we have to bolt on to build a basic system the better.

Let's think of the entire camera system as an integrated whole. Not an Erector set.

M
 
  • Thread starter
  • Moderator
  • #83
Charles brings up an interesting point about the EVF. The funny thing is that the EVF already has a 90˚ mirror/prism inside. The actual LCD in the EVF is on the top of the EVF facing down into a mirror in the body. The LCD is roughly 3/4" past the diopter portion of the camera.

The rest of the EVF is just four boards in a cube shape with one board "capping" them on the panel with the LEMO connector. The metal of the EVF is so heavy to make up for the ~1.5lb optical assembly.

So it would be rather simple to shorten the EVF by 3-4" by moving the boards into a 90 degree orientation like an optical viewfinder.

I know nobody wants to buy a new EVF, but what if RED introduced another EVF to go with the Epic? The EVF is great, but I can think of a list of shortcomings that would be nice to see eliminated. It'd certainly help with making the overall ergonomic statement of the camera a little more logical.

Another good point is that the 235 - being full of motors and a mechanical movement - is not perfectly symmetrical from side to side. Furthermore, the 200' shoulder mags are not really heavy enough to properly balance out a larger lens [I prefer the 400' shoulder mags for balance]. The weight distribution of the camera could be better, but since Epic will just be full of boards... that's something that's very doable.

Great feedback.
 
Where is Red on this thread ? This is an incredibly lucid discussion of camera design, they should be checking in...

Matt Uhry
www.mattuhry.com
 
Mitch Gross said:
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.
Click to expand...

...or a longer leverage arm.

Placing mass away from the axis of rotation also adds to the polar moment of momentum around that axis, making the panning movement more difficult. To me this is a huge plus, as I HATE shoulder mount footage due to the use of long lenses and unintended small panning movements. The slight panning movements make me (and others in the audience) nauseous, so anything that calms those undesired movements down is a welcome addition.

Bob
 
Matt Uhry said:
Where is Red on this thread ? This is an incredibly lucid discussion of camera design, they should be checking in...

Matt Uhry
www.mattuhry.com
Click to expand...
I hope they're just reading it very carefully, and taking notes. Their silence may be because of working on a complete redesign of Epic based on this thread... :matrix:
 
I would agree that I expected RED to be more involved in this discussion.

I hope they chime in soon. The RED ONE design wouldn't be what it is today without the great feedback from the community during it's inception.

There are some great ideas here, and many that really make sense.

But sometimes success has a tendency to blind one from the process that garnered it in the first place. Let's not let that happen here.

I hope to see RED keep the RED philosophy alive throughout each new product development cycle and keep the community closely involved.
 
Eventually we'll either get an ominous Jim "RED is listening..." post, or the more evocative Jarred, "Heh heh heh..."
 
Others are watching

Others are watching

If Red are not listening then you can bet your life that their competitors are so comments on this thread are likely to be seen in a number of products. Ergonomic are hugely important and Red know this as Oakley sunglasses would never of grown the way it did without great industrial design.
Arri have good ergonomic designers as do Panavision (Al Mayer Snr & Jnr are both legend)
 
RE Charles comment.... If you took the overlay and turned the RED upside down it would be about as tall as the Arri 235
The top would come down frm the lens axis about as much as the top of the cutout. Put a one nut tighten slide in plate on the bottom for the shoulder and the outlines would much the same top to bottom. batt and mag to the rear and the balance seems similiar also. This also allows mounting the small body in aerial mounts under water housings and crash boxes rather easily. Small and square is good if their is room to add on to achieve varied purposes.
Just the small sq body with a rod for motors and clip on for a great Steadicam running rig smaller an lighter than a 235 and sync sound blimped. The throad problem can be fixed by burying the changeable mount into the body. I hate trying to get at the arri controls though, and putting them under the lens would be truly worse. would prefer a module that attached to the bare body on the smart side or onto the top or side of the VF for sticks hand held stuff.
my two bits...
TJ
 
They could eliminate having to worry about the placement of the menu control for the ACs benefit, if Epic had a small WIFI control unit that let you change the settings without touching the camera. Obviously they still have to put the controls on the camera, but they could just put them on the smart side so that you can change them yourself easily under most circumstances.
 
Hello Red!

Anyone home? A reply/comment would be encouraging.

M
 
dont worry.. we are still here.
 
Jarred Land said:
dont worry.. we are still here.
Click to expand...

Hi Jarred,

Is that really all you have to say to a thorough and constructive critique of red 1's ( and Epic's in the form shown at NAB 08 ) ergonomics that has a fairly unanimous opinion form many of your most experienced users and early adopters ?

Nothing like "You'll get a shoulder cut out" or "We shot with a 235 for a day and now understand what you guys are talking about" or even "I don't get what you want, we think blocky cameras are badass." ( I hope it's not #3 )

Matt Uhry
www.mattuhry.com
 
ibloom said:
The "hold the mattebox" club thanks you for your shoulder cutout comparison.

I hope that red takes notice.

IBloom
Click to expand...

I too hope for this and watch this thread religiously (Thanks Brook). I have a tremendous amount of respect for everyone here, their divergent skill sets and the thought process behind what has been expressed in this thread. Our ability to operate this camera with precision and skill starts with the human form and how we interact with it efficiently. The ability for the camera to be broken down or built up to fit on anything that sinks, flies, glides or go fast on industry standard gear should be cake after that...

I have a strong feeling that since Red has proven to be less than vaporware, that we have lost that connection to openly contribute to a "camera in progress". Whether they are listening or not. We need the feedback as much as Red.

This would be a great excuse to create a private section for contributing Red Owners and contributing Non Owners to offer serious "from the field" feedback to get us all a much better camera system. I do not see any reason why this cannot happen for all of us with some fore thought.

Be well,

Andrew
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top