The Coming "Highspeed Revolution"?

[Michael Hastings]

Speaking of high-speed, Gizmodo has a piece and video today about BBC's new "Life" series using 2000fps cameras to capture lizards walking on water. Very cool stuff:

http://gizmodo.com/5383301/life-think-of-it-as-planet-earth-part-ii

The key to these digital cameras vs high-speed film is that the digital cams can pre-record on a loop, meaning that you can push the record button even after a split-second event suddenly happens.

we had this - selectable up to 300 seconds constant caching - on my ikegami editcams (2.5" harddrives) 10 years ago. WE have some kind of prerecord on R1 but it doesn't seem to work the same way.

 

[Chad Lancaster]

Tom,

have you seen "the fall" the beginning scene in high speed is amazing.

 

[Mitch Gross]

Many of our clients use the Casio EX to do pre-viz for their Phantom shoots.

 

[Mitch Gross]

Speaking of high-speed, Gizmodo has a piece and video today about BBC's new "Life" series using 2000fps cameras to capture lizards walking on water. Very cool stuff:

http://gizmodo.com/5383301/life-think-of-it-as-planet-earth-part-ii

The key to these digital cameras vs high-speed film is that the digital cams can pre-record on a loop, meaning that you can push the record button even after a split-second event suddenly happens.

Shot on a Phantom camera.

 

[Mitch Gross]

don't forget about weisscam too, it's a major competitor to the phantom. workflow might be a bit tougher, haven't worked with it personally, but it can give u 1,500 fps at 2k. and 2,000 fps at 1080p. u can get dual raw and HD recording on it, and global shutter. lot of people might opt it over phantom cause it offers more, once they work out all the workflow kinks of course

The Phantom is a Digital Cinema camera and it has a look and quality to the image that is unmatched. It also has the CineMag flash memory which allows for a shot to be offloaded from the camera's internal memory in a few seconds instead of several minutes like other cameras. Phantom is also a 14-bit camera, not 12-bit.

If you want to compare the Weisscam HS-2 to a Phantom model, perhaps the v640 would be more appropriate. That camera is also a global shutter 12-bit model. It has a higher top resolution (2560x1600) and can shoot at higher frame rates at similar resolutions (2700fps at 1920x1080) compared to the Weisscam HS-2. The v640 also has something unique to only a couple of Phantom models: Live In & Out. This means that it can capture one shot while playing out another over HD-SDI, so you never need miss a shot again. The v640 can work with CineMags as well.

Coming out soon is a remote hand controller unit that will work with all Phantom cameras to allow full control of the camera without the use of a laptop controller. It works cabled or via Bluetooth, and it also has a monitor display so that one can view the shot. Kinda reminds me of the REDmote.

 

[Jason Murphy]

Speaking of high-speed, Gizmodo has a piece and video today about BBC's new "Life" series using 2000fps cameras to capture lizards walking on water. Very cool stuff:

http://gizmodo.com/5383301/life-think-of-it-as-planet-earth-part-ii

The key to these digital cameras vs high-speed film is that the digital cams can pre-record on a loop, meaning that you can push the record button even after a split-second event suddenly happens.

Assuming of course, that the event happens in the camera's field of view. Otherwise, at 500+ FPS it's going to be a REALLY slow whip pan over to the aftermath of the cool thing that seriously just happened right over there.

 

[Joe G.]

"I am not saying that high speed itself is a gimmick that will go away after the novelty wears off. Just that - currently - it is being overused."

Finally!

I thought I was going to have to go on a rampage.

Like the shallow depth of field, it's everywhere simply because it's become available. So, everyone does it. (Yawn.)

It needs to be broken up. Putting 2 or 3 super slow motion sequences back to back is really annoying.

 

[Tom Lowe]

Assuming of course, that the event happens in the camera's field of view. Otherwise, at 500+ FPS it's going to be a REALLY slow whip pan over to the aftermath of the cool thing that seriously just happened right over there.

Well the beauty of the Phantom HD Gold, for example, is that you can actually either delete or crop the best parts of each take before "saving" the shots from the buffer to the high-capacity storage magazine.

Speaking of that Lizard, unless he is a member of SAG, I really cannot imagine how they were able to line up that underwater shot of him running across the water. :eek6:

 

[Vince Doran]

.. I really cannot imagine how they were able to line up that underwater shot of him running across the water. :eek6:

Maybe put him in a long perspex "race" like a fish tank and let him run from one end to the other, repeat, whilst dolly shooting from underneath?

Have been thinking about these cameras recently for wildlife.....got a quote of: AUS $150 000 for body only and AUS $25 000 for 128G Cinemag ..not cheap

 

[albert rudnicki]

To lazy to look for it, but I remember Jim admitting a possibility of making a high speed camera... just saying

 

[Steve G]

Speaking of that Lizard, unless he is a member of SAG, I really cannot imagine how they were able to line up that underwater shot of him running across the water. :eek6:

Used to know an old school nature cameraman who told me how they did one cool shot a few years ago. Shot was of a water vole ( i think), and the camera tracked with the beast as it ran along a tunnel. What they did was put the 16mm camera in the middle of a "heath robinson" type set up with an old car tyre, which they filled with mud, sticks and foliage etc. The vole was actually just running on the spot, a bit like a hamster wheel. He said you could see the same bit of foliage passing the vole again and again in the finished shot.

I think they are less keen on shooting animals in unnatural habitats now. They just spend a crazy amount of time (and money) to get the shots.

 

[Michael Totten]

Old steel cabinet being smashed into the concrete @ 2000 FPS.

Here's a fun high speed shot that I did for discovery on the phantom a couple months back. We destroyed all kinds of stuff with enormous machines and captured it all on the Phantom and the new Varicam 3700's (I tried to get them to shoot on RED but they had just purchased the Varicam's).
http://vimeo.com/5234370

 

[Johan Malmsten]

Yeah, the superslowmo was new and cool... back in the days of the first matrix. Then everyone started doing bullettime (which coincidentally is older than regular motion picture itself if you think about it as the Muybridge-technique). Nowadays though. I watched Watchmen and thought that even John Woo and Sam Peckinpah would be complaining over the slowness of the action. It's one thing to spice an action scene or two with slow mo. But to rely on that gimmick through a whole movie?

No, I'm not exactly confusing bullet-time and slow-mo, but they are basically two similar ways of getting the same result. That "savoring the moment"-want that applies to images like blowing stuff up or lovers kissing.

So yes, I believe we're in the age of over-use. The latest flavor of it is speed ramping as in Zack Snyder-pictures.

And one of you linked to something commenting on it being "before the age of Phantom". Well. One of my favorite little unknown Swedish films, called Thriller: A Cruel Picture did do extreme slow-mo for almost all of its action sequences. Shot on super16 back in the good old days of 1974. The first link, to the warehouse fight really does get the poetry of violence right with squirts of blood dancing slowly through the air. But since the rest of the film is very gritty and dark, the slow-mo gives a great deal of contrast and dreaming-away feel to the revenge violence portrayal.

[Warehouse fight]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evEQGiYKkRQ

[Various other fights and combats]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OhZscOQXIHE

I don't think they shot them at thousands of frames per second. But at least a hundred I suspect. And if I can get 120 out of the scarlet, I'm sure I could do something like that. So I'm happy with those numbers. And 300fps at VGA-resolution from the Casio? I do think I could work with something like that too until I get my hands on the scarlet. By the way. Any news on the possibility to window the sensor to boost the framerate a bit more on the 2/3 scarlet? I'm guessing that a crop from the 16:9 sensor to 2.4:1 output should enable at least above 150 fps? And perhaps 1280x720 raw-windowing could get at least 300 fps or above in redcode raw? With quite an crop-factor on the lens of course.

 

[I Bloom]

Sometimes too slow is too slow. 1052 fps on the phantom HD is already too slow for most subject matters involving human movement. I recently operated a piece down in Florida on a Phantom prototype that does 2700 fps at 1080p. Beautiful camera. Amazing sensor with a global shutter as well. Pointlessly high framerates for the stuff we were doing.

Part of the art of it, is getting the right rate for a particular subject matter. Sometimes faster and faster isn't the answer. Kind of a shame to spend so much on slow motion just to have an editor speed it up and make it look terrible in the process.

IBloom

 

[Sanjin Jukic]

What about to start experiments with Bonita?

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[Stephen Williams]

Imagine if the only way someone could shoot timelapse is by purchasing or renting $200,000 timelapse cameras?
.

Hi Tom,

The B & H standard 8 camera I was playing aged 8 could shoot timelapse, it was never difficult for anyone who wanted to have access to the kit.
High Speed was not very difficult either, that standard 8 camera also did 64 fps. Mitchel HS from the 1920's could shoot upto 144 fps (35mm), 500 fps was always pretty been easy with 16mm, thanks to Uncle Sam's requirements.

Stephen

 

[Tom Lowe]

Hi Tom,

The B & H standard 8 camera I was playing aged 8 could shoot timelapse, it was never difficult for anyone who wanted to have access to the kit.

High Speed was not very difficult either, that standard 8 camera also did 64 fps. Mitchel HS from the 1920's could shoot upto 144 fps (35mm), 500 fps was always pretty been easy with 16mm, thanks to Uncle Sam's requirements.

Stephen

Of course, timelapse has a lower cost and equipment threshold than highspeed. My point about "what if timelapse cameras cost $200K" was to illustrate how few hobbyists and beginners there would be if that were the case.

Right now, to produce quality, professional-level 1080p highspeed shots at 1,000fps, you need hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of equipment, right? I don't know how much professional 35mm highspeed cine cameras cost, but I doubt they are cheap. Not to mention film stock, processing, etc. A Phantom HD Gold package is $200K USD. Not cheap.

But you can buy a $600 Canon DSLR with about $800 for lens and accessories and create beautiful 1080p masters.

See the difference?

 

[Stephen Williams]

Of course, timelapse has a lower cost and equipment threshold than highspeed. My point about "what if timelapse cameras cost $200K" was to illustrate how few hobbyists and beginners there would be if that were the case.

Right now, to produce quality, professional-level 1080p highspeed shots at 1,000fps, you need hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of equipment, right? I don't know how much professional 35mm highspeed cine cameras, but I doubt they are cheap. Not to mention film stock, processing, etc. A Phantom HD Gold package is $200K USD. Not cheap.

But you can buy a $600 Canon DSLR with about $800 for lens and accessories and create beautiful 1080p masters.

See the difference?

Some High Speed shots such as water drops falling can be simulated by triggered time lapse using the same DSLR.

 

[Tom Lowe]

Have you shot much highspeed stuff, Stephen? 600fps +?

A friend was telling me yesterday, that back in his ski film days, he shot a lot of highspeed stuff up to like 200fps, but that only about 10% of his shots were in the neighborhood of 600fps. It was just too slow.

But then again, once you're talking about 1000fps+, it's kind of a new ballgame. You are going after entirely different types of sequences. New types of shots open up.

I think getting that Casio with 600fps, 1200fps, etc, would be a good way to dream up and test shots without risking the test on a Phantom.

 

[David (dudi) Namir]

I think getting that Casio with 600fps, 1200fps, etc, would be a good way to dream up and test shots without risking the test on a Phantom.

Shooting with a Photosonics 4B and 4C 35mm cameras at 200 fps up to 2000 fps (I am in the 50Htz zone), using the Casio as a video assist through the viewfinder and it gives a very good reference.
I made a special snap on attachment for the Casio on the viewfinder.
Shooting 35mm film slow motion and getting the film quality when you still can't get it at liquids (no details), dark hair and more.