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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 :)

Look through the Glass

nima

nima

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Think about a Scarlet provided of an automatic moving mirror system and physical rotating shutter, like an old fashion reflex camera.

New optical loupes will be able to provide various informations along with a splendid pixel/resolution free image.
The act of filming would drastically change, and we would still be able to use LCDs and ext Monitors.
 
GPSchnyder said:
Bigger Cam, Moveable parts that are willing to break, no Information how the recorded (RGB anyone?) Image would look like.
Click to expand...

Damn fine points.
I've never really understood the attraction (or perceived benefit) to optical viewfinders. Then again, it's probably because I never had enough time to get used to them.
 
I think you would be shocked at the cost of of making a film style optical viewfinder ( such as found on the arri D21 ). It would probably triple the price of the higher end scarlet ( if not more ) There are definitely some nice things about optical finders , but It's not a good choice for a compact medium cost electronic camera.

The Red EVF is pretty freaking nice too...

Matt Uhry
www.mattuhry.com
 
I agree with both of you, nice to have something so affordable!
Although digital viewfinder are not a reference for sure (see ARRI choices), and the RGB signal would be displayed through the other outputs.
 
A good well calibrated EVF is a precise visual reference of what the camera sensor is picking up. An optical finder only gives an approximation of the composition. While essential for film cameras, they are not particularly useful on a digital camera when you can see a much closer approximation of the actual image you are recording with an EVF along with a lot of useful technical info if you want it. Personally I prefer a good EVF over both optical finders and LCD monitors.
 
DIY viewfinder

DIY viewfinder

hi there, if u dare , always can make a viewfinder urself.
put a small beamsplitter 45 degrees between lens and CMos
and a focusing screen +magnifier and eyepiece( the foam around the magnifier)
take a look of old SLR like mamya rb67, just th e mirror becomes beam splitter.

the benefit of optical viewfinder - only if u have try it.
LCD and any sort of EVF viewfinder might be give u the real picture.

K.M.LO
 
nima said:
Think about a Scarlet provided of an automatic moving mirror system and physical rotating shutter, like an old fashion reflex camera.
Click to expand...

I can imagine a world where all the cameras have moving mirrors, physical shutters, and people live in the harmony of world peace.

And I can imagine RED conquering that world, because they'd never expect it.

[--Jack Handy]
 
Reflex Scarlet -two easy low cost ways...

Reflex Scarlet -two easy low cost ways...

nima said:
Think about a Scarlet provided of an automatic moving mirror system and physical rotating shutter, like an old fashion reflex camera.
Click to expand...

If you get a Scarlet with a C mount you can use an old 16mm reflex zoom lens since the sensor is less wide than 16mm regular lens image size, that would give you a no flicker reflex lens that is corrected for the reflex optics.

I mentioned before (in another post for Scarlet lens issues) you could take apart a reflex bolex and reuse those optics with the bolex RX lenses, normal lenses would not work wide open.

So you have two low cost options using existing parts.

Reflex viewfinders that work behind the lens iris are hard to use with the lens stopped down, and very dark if they have a ground glass to judge the DOF on. A video finder works much better at stops smaller than about f/5.6.

You could use the shutter out of an arri 16mm camera maybe, but the sensor is not set up for the shutter to block the light, so the Bolex parts or reflex zoom see the only real option, unless you want to use a Pellicle mirror for normal lenses, but the Pellicle mirror is hard to clean if it gets any dust on it...
 
reflex mirror and rotating shutter

reflex mirror and rotating shutter

I think the old design of rotating shutter cum reflex mirror should work
any guru can tell me how it co-ordinate with CMOS rolling shutter??
, if using 35mm still camera lenses, this should have enough space to insert a 45degree shutter.

in simple way, a beam splitter and a focus screen provides enough picture.
alternatively even just for a critical focus check is fine.

about the follow focus, i think like most camera crew, should have a focus puller. for this i think human eye and a LCD monitor is easier.

I did a night shoot with HD and what's bugging me is needs to take care of a HD monitor and really tons of cables wrap around me as DOP

may be some gneious should make a wireless /Blue tooth viewing system for HD.

cheers
K.M.Lo
 
BTW
DAN HUGDINS, i try 1hour to figure out where to download your program DANCAD87.EXE
can u kindly give the link?
i wish to be a beta tester, but seems the web site has no info on how to become beta tester

thanks
K.M.Lo
 
yep Dan`s webpage layout is slightly confusing :umm:
 
RED has been pretty clear that they're not interested in optical finders. I (much as I like my old optical finders) tend to agree.

It's pretty hard to justify an optical finder when compared to the benefits of EVFs.

Advantages of an optical finder:
Uses no battery power, and is therefore always on

Advantages of EVF:
Exposure preview
Menu Access
Critical focus check w/ 1:1 or Zoom modes
Unaffected by aperture changes (optical finders can get quite dim)

It goes on and on... EVFs are really totally superior, and I can't see why an electronic camera should have a mirror shutter, or, god forbid, a back-focus-messing-up beamsplitter.
 
I'm not sure Redcode is storing RGB data, its looking increasingly like a variant of jpeg2000, though a good one.
 
RGB vs. R-Y/B-Y

RGB vs. R-Y/B-Y

ronx said:
I'm not sure Redcode is storing RGB data, its looking increasingly like a variant of jpeg2000, though a good one.
Click to expand...

So far as I can make out REDCODE stores the image as one big image for Green (or two small green?) and two small ones for red and blue in monochrome JPEG2000 like compression adjusted for 12bit data. The color seperations are needed so that the de-bayer (de-mosaic) can be done after the compression (if normal JPEG2000 was used the camera would need to de-mosaic before compression). Any blur in the RGB images caused by the compression does not have a major effect on the look of the images except for some extra problems with the chroma moire caused by high frequency artifacts from the wavelets, which get low passed and filtered out. The OLPF helps reduce the high frequency information that the wavelets need to record, so helps reduce the extra chroma moire and aliasing that the wavelets might introduce.

==

As to the comments above, at the top of each page in my web site is a link called "get main zip" next to "downloads" those lead to the pages for the programs. The link to download is near the bottom of those pages where it says "By clicking on..." .To become a "Beta Tester" you need to read the EULA and be in agreement with it, then report any issues you find by e-mail. Although my system might be quite useful to someone who wants to make a feature on a tight budget, the sync playback is at low res, if you use a very fast solid state hard drive to hold the "proxy" frames you might be able to get better res modes to run without dropped frames. Aside from that, you can output DVD res in 24bpp color graded frames and use VirtualDub to make a AVI to watch uncompressed in media player etc. to get a better idea of what the filmout will look like at sync speed. I would advise not pushing the grading to too extreme limits if you are going to filmout since if you reduce the highlight detail too much you will loose even more on the filmout, I am working on some changes to DANCINEL.EXE (tm) to try to deal with the S curve issues in printstock, but if you hold back some extra detail you will have more to work with later...

==

About viewfinders, an optical viewfinder that lets you see the whole frame is not large enough for you to see the detail you will record in a 3K or 4K image. The old Mitchel cameras had a zoom on the optical viewfinder so you could zoom in to get the focus right on, and 35mm film is not 3K in the final print in the bright and dark areas of the frame, 35mm film is closer to SD or maybe 1280x720 in a 4th generation print as seen on the screen slightly out of focus. In other words, the zoom on the viewfinder would need to show 1/4 the frame height filling the eyepiece to let you see enough detail to get the focus right in poor light at 3K-4K resolution...

If you make the optical viewfinder wide angle so you can view full frame at high enough magnification to be sure of the focus, people who wear glasses would not be able to get their eye close enough to the eyepiece to see the whole frame. Even with that the viewfinder optics could cost more than the Scarlet body...
 
Charles Angus said:
RED has been pretty clear that they're not interested in optical finders. .
Click to expand...

Red just announced that they are working on a optical viewfinder... but iI guess we all received the news by email.
 
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