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 :)

The Internal Focus Motor Thread

Les Dittert said:
Pardon me Jacek ,

But what is so god damned hard about doing a low cost plastic single knob WIRED focus control knob that talks to the serial port of the Red, using the redlink feature set ?
A Freaking $10 Atmel micro and a pot would be it. Cost of goods would be $75 max, the Lemo connector being the dominating cost !

I'm currently not in the hardware for sale end of the business but I have made plenty of custom hardware in the past for one-off projects such as motion picture film scanners and motion control units.
Don't keep trying to tell the artists and non tech people here stories of how hard it is it make this or that. Some people just want a cheap little plastic box with a knob or linear pot on it and a serial cable hanging out of it to plug into the cam. The user would be happy to tie wrap it to the grip of the rig or gimbal and be delighted because now they can at least move the focus motor in a very basic way that they could not before. The wire would be so light and flexible ( like wires to your stereo ear buds ) that it would have zero effect on a gimbal.
I'll probably do the project for myself ( hand wired no pc board ) , as I have a Helix gimbal on order. Maybe if 10 dudes want it also, I can make a limited run of it, for say $250 or so.
Not for $100 million movie productions. But most Reds shoot little shit indy productions and other low budget stuff anyhow, as most Red users will sheepishly admit.
If you think this is $100K to get rolling you definitely need to take a second look at your engineering resources talent.

Sorry if I'm a bit brash here , I'm not in a particularly P.C. mood right now.
Click to expand...
Again Les- talk is cheap.
There are plenty of talkers on this board. But only the "doers" make the difference.
Anyway- I've been on the manufacturing end of things for a long time. My engineering resources are not the cheapest- but , by far, the best. And, in the end- that's what counts. Period.
If you think different- prepare yourself for a world of pain ;-) but, whatever tickles your fancy...
I'm not into ghetto solutions anyway so we are most likely talking about different markets. My customers would not buy "cheap plastic box" their reputation and time are way too valuable. So are mine.
 
I've had the Optitron 2 for a couple of weeks now and I love it. I had the Birger mount for the Red One and found it to be finicky. I had to constantly reboot and often lost the control of the lens. That has not happened with the Optitron 2. I tested the unit on a number of lenses and it works perfectly in both wired and wireless modes. I can detect no delay or latency. Iris is noisy on all lenses but that's normal for these lenses. Some lenses focus very smoothly and quietly but some showed an intermittent jumpiness when focused too quickly especially the Tokina, but the jumpiness went away as long as I focused slowly. On some lenses the focus motors are a little loud for very quiet scenes with the camera really close to the subject, but for general shooting you would never hear the focus motors. I tested with a number of lenses and they all worked great. I also tested with Kenko 1.4x and 2x Teleconverters, plus the Canon 2x II Teleconverter and the unit focused fine though them as well.

One thing I noticed was that the automatic mapping of the controller that happens when you mount the lens seems to place actual infinity on the very end of the knob travel. I like focusing beyond infinity. I can trick the unit to do this by setting the travel on the knob at the very end, and also setting the lens to the end of travel, beyond infinity, before mounting. Then the end of knob travel gets mated to the end of lens rotation, beyond infinity. Don't ask me why this works, but I'm way more comfortable knowing I'll be able to hit real infinity regardless of back focus and I get the option of focusing beyond infinity for effect.

I shot a quick video of the Optitron 2 working with various lenses.

http://vimeo.com/106192973 Password: optitron2

This is not a complete demonstration of the product features. I just thought it would be helpful to see that the unit actually works. The Optitron 2 with knob, battery, and wireless receiver was around $2,800. IMO worth twice the price.

This is a very slick, professional manufactured and engineered product that makes working with Canon EF lenses a lot easier. I'm elated to have it.


Mark Crabtree
 
Cool. So if the wireless receiver takes up the sync port, we can't use off hollywoods wifi module at the same time correct?
 
Jake Wilganowski said:
Cool. So if the wireless receiver takes up the sync port, we can't use off hollywoods wifi module at the same time correct?
Click to expand...
I'm looking into tiny usb powered wireless routers. I will test a few as soon as they arrive and post here what works. They are cheap- definitely under $100 and should work like a charm. Save you money as well ;-)
 
Trent Lillehaugen said:
The THC does not talk over WiFi, so it will not be compatible with the Hotlink. The REDLINK BRIDGE has two radios in it, a WiFi radio (for talking to iOS, android, PC, Mac applications) and a dedicated radio for talking to the THC.

That being said, there is nothing that would prohibit someone from creating a hand controller that does talk over WiFi using the RCP protocol that could be used with the REDLINK BRIDGE or any other third party solution.
Click to expand...

What type of signal are you using to communicate from the bridge to THC? Is WIFI too slow or not reliable enough for a follow focus?

(You might not know, and I'm just curious)

Do you think Red will ever be able to defeat the Touch's need for a cable and be wireless also?
 
Like at NAB, RED is showing some photo lens + REDLink + THC mini setups at PHOTOKINA and it is a super cool solution via RF that let's you later grow to PL control if you add a WMD and motors.

Hoping the 2 axis mini THC will be released soon.

http://instagram.com/p/tKOuk5gTlm/
Bx9j7MnCIAASeJl.jpg
 
Mikael Lubtchansky said:
Like at NAB, RED is showing some photo lens + REDLink + THC mini setups at PHOTOKINA and it is a super cool solution via RF that let's you later grow to PL control if you add a WMD and motors.

Hoping the 2 axis mini THC will be released soon.

http://instagram.com/p/tKOuk5gTlm/
Bx9j7MnCIAASeJl.jpg
Click to expand...

Two axis from Red would be a dream come true! Thanks Mikael.
 
Optitron 2 ordered and on the way! For the price of one geared 18-35 1.8 Sigma I now have wireless focus control of all my still lenses, plus the RT motion for geared lenses. Can't wait for it to get here!
 
James McLellan said:
Optitron 2 ordered and on the way! For the price of one geared 18-35 1.8 Sigma I now have wireless focus control of all my still lenses, plus the RT motion for geared lenses. Can't wait for it to get here!
Click to expand...

Nice James, Let us know what you think of the Optitron.
 
Mikael Lubtchansky said:
Like at NAB, RED is showing some photo lens + REDLink + THC mini setups at PHOTOKINA and it is a super cool solution via RF that let's you later grow to PL control if you add a WMD and motors.

Hoping the 2 axis mini THC will be released soon.

http://instagram.com/p/tKOuk5gTlm/
Bx9j7MnCIAASeJl.jpg
Click to expand...

Ca tue Mikael ! need to get that mini controller for half the price asap!
 
James McLellan said:
Optitron2 has landed. Charging battery. Shooting with it tomorrow. Now if only I had a sigma 18-35!
Click to expand...

I'm most interested in how soft the focus transitions are compared to regular pulling of focus and the sound level of the lens motors. These are crucial for me so I hope you could report back on those.
 
Mark Crabtree said:
Check out my video of the OPTITRON 2
http://vimeo.com/106192973
Password: optitron2
Click to expand...

Thanks for the video, I only have two questions. You tested the sound level, but how has it performed for you during actual production? And if you turn the focus on the lens by mistake, will it still go to the correct point when going to the mark on the knob?
 
It works flawlessly in real production. Mount the lens and it's ready to focus in less than two seconds. I'm doing some studio testing of other products tomorrow but I'll test what happens to the knob focus position after I change the focus on the lens barrel of all my lenses. I'll get back to you on this.
 
Mark Crabtree said:
I've had the Optitron 2 for a couple of weeks now and I love it. I had the Birger mount for the Red One and found it to be finicky. I had to constantly reboot and often lost the control of the lens. That has not happened with the Optitron 2. I tested the unit on a number of lenses and it works perfectly in both wired and wireless modes. I can detect no delay or latency. Iris is noisy on all lenses but that's normal for these lenses. Some lenses focus very smoothly and quietly but some showed an intermittent jumpiness when focused too quickly especially the Tokina, but the jumpiness went away as long as I focused slowly. On some lenses the focus motors are a little loud for very quiet scenes with the camera really close to the subject, but for general shooting you would never hear the focus motors. I tested with a number of lenses and they all worked great. I also tested with Kenko 1.4x and 2x Teleconverters, plus the Canon 2x II Teleconverter and the unit focused fine though them as well.

One thing I noticed was that the automatic mapping of the controller that happens when you mount the lens seems to place actual infinity on the very end of the knob travel. I like focusing beyond infinity. I can trick the unit to do this by setting the travel on the knob at the very end, and also setting the lens to the end of travel, beyond infinity, before mounting. Then the end of knob travel gets mated to the end of lens rotation, beyond infinity. Don't ask me why this works, but I'm way more comfortable knowing I'll be able to hit real infinity regardless of back focus and I get the option of focusing beyond infinity for effect.

I shot a quick video of the Optitron 2 working with various lenses.

http://vimeo.com/106192973 Password: optitron2

This is not a complete demonstration of the product features. I just thought it would be helpful to see that the unit actually works. The Optitron 2 with knob, battery, and wireless receiver was around $2,800. IMO worth twice the price.

This is a very slick, professional manufactured and engineered product that makes working with Canon EF lenses a lot easier. I'm elated to have it.


Mark Crabtree
Click to expand...

Erik form Birger si a friend of mine, so:

1 - You must have been using old firmware, and never updated it. I have been using Birger mounts on 3 cameras for many years - no issues.

2 - AN Optitron IS a Birger mount. The algorithms and chips are made by Birger.
 
Question.... does the Optitek Epic EF Mount support more lenses than the Red version? I saw somwhere (maybe on this thread actually) that that all EF lenses are supported including image stabilization. With the Red EF Mount, many sigma lenses' image stabilization aren't supported. Is this the same with the Optitek?
 
I'm not sure how many lenses Red supports but there are a lot at this time. Yes our system supports a lot of lenses and we constantly are adding more. This thread is mainly about the RED system OptiTron.
That does NOT include OPtiTek Canon adapter . The OptiTron2 plugs in to the camera and tells the camera what it should do with lens control. The camera still controls the lenses via Red native mounts - just manually as opposed to autofocus that Red provides.
 
OK so my apologies for not posting a detailed review. I teach high school and things have gotten real busy as of late with teaching. After activating the serial port on the Epic we were up and running. The setup and operation is simple enough that my students have been shooting with it the last four days and they have not complained. The focus has a different feel than the RT motion. I am still waiting on the 18-35 Sigma. We are planning on shooting most of our feature with that lens. I will give a more thorough review of the Optitron then. Also looking forward to shooting some exterior scenes with the 70-200 2.8 and the optitron. My apologies folks.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top