RED DSMC Motion Mount has arrived!

[Will Keir]

The best thing to do is to take a normal situation where you would use an IRND. Shoot some images with IR contamination.

Then repeat with the motion mount.

Phil, are you using an Epic or a Dragon Epic?

Will do. Might be a bit later in the day. Couldn't do much IR stuff tonight, but I will first thing tomorrow. I couldn't measure any effective back focus change, meaning I didn't have to adjust it. If there is a difference, it feels very slight.

One thing I haven't planned on testing, although relevant to what you're doing with helicopters, is to expose the Motion Mount to intense micro vibrations. I could theoretically see that interfering a bit. A test will tell the answer though.

I'll be doing some strobe tests for sure. I've got several flash heads lined up. In the manual there's "strobe safe" ranges to pay attention to and I'll likely test within and outside of that range.

 

[D Anderson]

Guys, If you HAD no choice but to choose between a Motion mount or a normal mount what would you keep? I`m not sure I could justify holding on to two Ti PL mounts at present.

 

[Will Keir]

What lenses can't be used?

The MM mounts exactly the same as a regular mount, no issues there, the fact that some lenses can not be used with it, is do to the inner Glass element and the protruding glass element of the lens mounted which cam cause glass breakage.

 

[Will Keir]

Looking forward to the tests John.

Very exciting stuff. Can't wait to break it

I'll try and do my usual IR spectrum tests asap when our Canon and PL motion mounts turn up - just need to mod the rig for it as it currently replaces the lens mount - need to hack a PL on there

 

[Marcos Montenegro]

Phil:

The main question I have is if I can replace my normal mount with this motion mount? In other words, can this motion mount be able to handle most situations out there like a regular mount? skin tones, low light, etc?

 

[Zeke Burgess]

The Optimo DP 30-80 and Optimo DP 16-42 are known to have too long of a throat to fit.

What lenses can't be used?

 

[Burke Doeren]

Hey Phil,

When you adjust your ND level with the side handle rocker and the Motion Mount, is there a way to smoothly move through ND settings so it feels more like a manual aperture pull or a Vari-ND adjustment than hard "clicking" through 1/3rd ND increments?

Also, I would love to know if there's a way for you to set specific ND amounts to SH hotkeys, then smoothly adjust from one ND amount to the next over a preset amount of seconds. This could be great for shooting an exterior that moves into an interior space in the same shot, or vice-versa.

I'm guessing that some of these things may be programmable over time if they don't exist yet.

 

[BRANDON JAMESON]

This is extraordinary.

 

[Isaac Marchionna]

Guys, If you HAD no choice but to choose between a Motion mount or a normal mount what would you keep? I`m not sure I could justify holding on to two Ti PL mounts at present.

Normal mount. I don't think the rolling shutter issue is such a deal breaker that it's ruined some amazing movies ALREADY shot with the standard PL mount.

And losing even 1.6 stops of light by default would cause almost all DPs I know to go apoplectic!

 

[Phil Holland]

Dropping in to answer a few questions.

The best thing to do is to take a normal situation where you would use an IRND. Shoot some images with IR contamination.

Then repeat with the motion mount.

Phil, are you using an Epic or a Dragon Epic?

I don't have my Epic Dragon yet, so at the moment I'm testing on Epic w/ Mysterium-X on the inside. Heh. I am counting the seconds before that Dragon release though.

Guys, If you HAD no choice but to choose between a Motion mount or a normal mount what would you keep? I`m not sure I could justify holding on to two Ti PL mounts at present.

Honestly this depends on the type of work you do. I'm holding on to my "static" PL mount of course just in case I need that extra 1.60 stops of light. Although I'd say based on my brief shooting experiences thus far I can see it "replacing" the need for a static PL mount if losing that 1.60 stops isn't a huge deal for you.

Pulling focus with an 7 and 8 stop ND applied does create the out of focus distortion mentioned in the manual on my particular set of lenses when wide open at T2. It's sort of a diagonal growth when you pull focus, and it's noticeable on a static shot as well. I'll make a video of this at some point. However, I will say it's pretty much not noticeable at 6 stops and lower. Again this is only when wide open like between T1.3-T2 (still experimenting) and each lens will perform differently. If you aren't doing elaborate focus pulls you might not even notice it, so for a standard sort of shot I'd say 8 stops is entirely usable.

I typically use up to a 1.8 ND outdoors which is 6 stops and the fact I can get there is actually what's making me happy at the moment.

What lenses can't be used?

As mentioned certain Optimos protrude further and would indeed damage the Motion Mount. However, I'd say most PL glass will work just fine.

Phil:

The main question I have is if I can replace my normal mount with this motion mount? In other words, can this motion mount be able to handle most situations out there like a regular mount? skin tones, low light, etc?

Can you? Yes. Personally I see reasons for having both types of mounts around. You do lose 1.60 stops of light straight away with the Motion Mount attached, so low light is your only real concern.

In terms of color rendering I don't see any distortion at all. It appears that the motion mount goes through warm and cool phases and then applies some sort of calibration to each level of ND adjustment to maintain color accuracy. Honestly from my early tests it's better than physical IRNDs in this way as there's a great deal of variation among those. This seems to remain "neutral" which is nice.

Actually, for a guy like me this is SUPER nice.

Hey Phil,

When you adjust your ND level with the side handle rocker and the Motion Mount, is there a way to smoothly move through ND settings so it feels more like a manual aperture pull or a Vari-ND adjustment than hard "clicking" through 1/3rd ND increments?

Also, I would love to know if there's a way for you to set specific ND amounts to SH hotkeys, then smoothly adjust from one ND amount to the next over a preset amount of seconds. This could be great for shooting an exterior that moves into an interior space in the same shot, or vice-versa.

I'm guessing that some of these things may be programmable over time if they don't exist yet.

Anything is possible in the future. Right now the most minute adjustment you can make is .10 stops. Which is a really slight.

Yes you can actually set specific amounts of ND adjustment to the hot keys, like 2 stops or whatever.

In terms of it ramping, I think it's possible perhaps with a future firmware update.

 

[Patrick Grossien]

If you can't afford the motion mount, don't get it. It's an add on to me. If you have to choose between the two, keep the standard.
This of course doesn't apply if you are absolutely sure that the loss of light works for all! your applications, which could be true for some. But I wouldn't rely on it for myself. (Then again I don't own one yet ...)

EDIT: what Phil said! I believe it's good to leave on for a lot of the standard shooting. Just think about when you didn't need to use an ND or how often you need low light capabilities. Maybe with the Dragon this turns out even more in favor for the motion mount.

Phil: awesome, congrats ! I played a lot with that thing and I absolutely love it. But I only got to play with it and not really use it. So I have no idea how it compares image wise. I could only see the preview on the 9" screen. I'm really looking forward to your thorough testing and findings! The global shutter is pretty great from what I could tell so far, and I guess that the soft shutter will really make for some great motion. Please do some "walk-and-run-around-in-front-of-your-camera-testing" with soft on and off optionally a pretty model will suffice for this

 

[Zeke Burgess]

Dropping in to answer a few questions.

...


Anything is possible in the future. Right now the most minute adjustment you can make is .10 stops. Which is a really slight.

Yes you can actually set specific amounts of ND adjustment to the hot keys, like 2 stops or whatever.

In terms of it ramping, I think it's possible perhaps with a future firmware update.

You should be able to set the custom value to 0.01 stops if you really want that fine of control on the rocker. You can also type in the value through the config screen.

 

[Phil Holland]

You should be able to set the custom value to 0.01 stops if you really want that fine of control on the rocker. You can also type in the value through the config screen.

Ah. You are correct sir. In the custom menu you can set it to be rather small at 0.01 stops.

Please do some "walk-and-run-around-in-front-of-your-camera-testing" with soft on and off optionally a pretty model will suffice for this

I'll shoot some living subjects in motion and do rather controlled non living yet repeated moves.

 

[Phil Holland]

Okay, let's get a quick one out of the way.

Deep Filtration IR Contamination Test

We all know what happens when you use regular NDs around 0.9 and up. We get a magenta/reddish tint to the image that crushes color accuracy due to Infrared Contamination.

Previous solutions include:

- Using a Hot Mirrors in combination with regular Neutral Density Filters
- IRND filters, which often yield a greenish tint that must be corrected in post
- Hot Mirror ND or IRND combination filter which produces best image out of straight out of the camera.


That is until today. At least based on these frames.


So, oddly enough one of the reasons I use myself for certain camera tests is because I know what my skin looks like and I can control certain other factors.

Here's a shot of me from May 2013 using a 1.8 (6 stop) IRND, which creates that greenish tint. Also to the right is a color correction to remove some of that chaos.




So that certainly made me wonder what the Motion Mount could do at it's maximum range of 8 stops.

Same location as above, straight out of camera at 5600K white balance, Motion Mount set to 8 stops:




What about skin? Here's a REDCODE RAW and a version with a slight curve applied:




Same shot as above except REDCODE pushed to ISO 2000:




Another one with a quick curve:




One more with more "face in shadow":




Tests were shot in the same area. Only real difference is I have more hair, lost about 12 pounds, and have a Motion Mount. All of these things apparently are making me look better

So keep in mind an 8 stop adjustment via an ND filter would be a density of 2.4. I'd say the performance from the Motion Mount on this front is pretty damn impressive.


On to the next test.

 

[Brandon J.F.]

This thread is going to sell a lot of motion mounts

 

[Gunleik Groven]

Yup. This is about what I hoped to see...

And it seems to demonstrate what I have seen in a few tests, that "normal" IR filters kinda kills off a lot of skintone. (Correct me if you disagree)

 

[Phil Holland]

This thread is going to sell a lot of motion mounts

I don't know if you felt the breeze, but I let out a huge sigh of relief when I saw 8 stops being "color friendly".

Yup. This is about what I hoped to see...

And it seems to demonstrate what I have seen in a few tests, that "normal" IR filters kinda kills off a lot of skintone. (Correct me if you disagree)

Me too.

Filters are a tricky mistress as each one is different. They get baked in batches and you basically hope to have a matched pair. My particular ones are pretty nicely matched, but anything that tampers with color effects the raw footage. IRNDs are the weird ones as it's not a true IR block, it's more of a tint really. So it's changing the incoming color. That's why for a few years I've recommended the Hot Mirror/ND or Hot Mirror/IRND filters.

The Motion Mount however is a different beast and it appears to calibrate at each ND setting. Perhaps this is what they meant by having it's own "new color science" within the manual. Whatever it is, it does look pretty good. I'll take a look at Tungsten in a few days to make sure.

 

[Patrick Grossien]

Yes! This is what I'm talking about! Skintone saviour... Did I say I need that mount?
Phil you're a good seller.

 

[Gunleik Groven]

I have seen people slap in the IR filters almost "by default", and confusing ND tint with IR contamination a lot.

When doing prep for a long series we did a bit of testing on the subject, and took it all the way to grade.
And the moral was basically; Leave it out if you do not see an issue.
Especially under Tungsten the IR filters killed off life in skintones.

Now. This has not been a very popular view, as filter producers sells series of filters "calibrated for each sensor".

I must say that what I have seen in prep tests and from on-set footy does not corelate well to the general paranoia for IR.

That is not to say that IR has not been an issue, but just that I have not have been too fond of the (up until now) proposed solutions, when IR has been a part of the mix.

This seems pretty "right".

Glad to see what I see.

 

[Phil Holland]

One more quicky before I go out to dinner. I'll be doing more elaborate tests, but this sort of show's exactly what's up with the different shutter versions:

Quick and Dirty Whip Pan Test

Very interesting variety to the looks you can get with the Motion Mount.

This was a 1 second 180 horizontal left to right pan on a 35mm prime:




Normal shutter is applied in the ND Only Mode and gives us what we all know about straight from camera. It exhibits a similar rolling shutter effect that S35 with 180 degree shutter creates, although just a bit more skew.

Square (Global) Shutter does indeed work as advertised. Vertical lines stay vertical. Great news for those who desire that look.

Soft Shutter is rather interesting. In this case I went against the manuals recommendation of a 194.4 degree shutter and just did a straight up 180 degree shutter quick comparison. I like the look. I can see it being used in both natural and surreal ways for narrative work. I'm also thinking about commercial use with say fast moving vehicles. Lots of energy here and smooth. It's a different look. A unique look.

Time for some grub.