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3D for the first time


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I'm a 3D virgin, but I'm gonna pop my cherry next week on a test shoot with an SI2K/Element Technica rig. I'll prep on Monday and shoot on Tuesday. Is there any pre-prep I should do in the meantime? Anything to look out for or anything I need to know? I've yet to see the rig, but from what I understand it's quite reasonable weight wise, although I'm guessing it will have a pretty high profile and may be a bit unwieldy. It's a beam splitter rig and not side by side.

Any thoughts about this rig in particular or 3D in general would be appreciated. And don't worry, I'll have a healthy supply of Lisigav on the day and reservations at Jumbos Tues. night.

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Can you give any more information about which ET rig it is? If your lucky it will be one of the prototypes or even one of the working models of the Neutron rig (very similar to the ParadiseFX rig). If it is one of the prototypes then be prepared to allow the Stereographers plenty of time to tinker because the motorization of the various cameras it at various stages of development.

 

Otherwise it may be the Quasar rig. This is really built for full sized cameras so will be heavily over engineered for two little si-2k heads in there. Don't let them start wanting to put two full blown si-2k cameras in there. This is a very heavy rig without any cameras in there. I don't even know if it could go on a Steadicam.

 

On this Imax feature I am currently working on I am with a very competent team of Stereographers: Vision3 , here in the UK. But my previous experience with Stereographers has not been that good. Many have not come up through the camera departments and lack a lot of real common sense. Keep a very close eye on the camera system as it is being built from scratch. Make sure that the same quantity of accessories are placed onto each camera or preferably no accessories on each camera and all placed somewhere "static" on the rig. They are used to dealing with stable setups on tripods/remote heads. This should be less of an issue with two little si-2k heads but keep a keen eye as to what is going on.

 

They are going to want to do lots of chart work and quite often. If you have a magliner that you can dock into then use it. Your going to have people crawling all over your rig all day. If you can help them out and use a magic arm on the bottom of your sled so that you can dock it and have it level/static that will help them out.

 

Use some kind of quick release plate (Romford snap plate) on your dovetail plate. Cameras go out of alinement the more the rig is manhandled. Especially if it is a Netron rig as that is so tiny.

 

Operating wise: No whip pans, stable frame, let things happen within the frame. Lenses are wide anyway but the audience can feel sick with too much movement.

 

You'll be cabled up. Enjoy it.

 

Attached is an image of the neutron prototype. It should be this unit as there are plenty of them floating about. Its tiny. The top camera is static so balance up with the camera-system at zero IO (interoccular or interaxial) as you may find it is quite side heavy and may require a non central Steadicam dovetail plate positioning.

 

Where do I get this Lisigav stuff and is it legal here in the UK?

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I haven't flown the rig you are talking about but I hear it is a pretty good weight for steadi. Yea the cabled up thing kinda blows unless you can do it with fiber cable. I just flew the Pace 3D fusion rig and it was a heavy beast. I had a fiber cable so the cable issue was no big problem. Yep no whip pans. The cool part is watching playback at video village in 3D. Slap on some glasses and check out yer work. Pretty rad stuff. I do like Paradise FX little rig they have for steadi. It is really nice for steadi. It is almost too light. Have fun Brad. I thought you were on that film with Tom Richmond? Hit me up for drinks soon.

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Attached is an image of the neutron prototype. It should be this unit as there are plenty of them floating about. Its tiny.

The neutron has evolved a bit since that picture. Check out: http://www.technica3d.com/gallery/?albumid=5462385061797484849 and http://www.technica3d.com/gallery/?albumid=5462383114711473585

 

The main difference seems to be that it is a bit more modular. Still nice and small though. There seemed to be a number of these floating around NAB.

 

~Jess

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Yea the P1 cameras were what they had on the Pace rig. Im curious though, does the PS technics camera system compensate for the convergence movement on the camera? The pace system I had to use a special made battery system that moved with the camera up top to keep the horizon level. Anyone know if the PS technics rig does that?

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I don't think it does but I would love to be wrong about that. This guy does: http://sp.press.someki.de/bflex.html but I don't think they have any in the US yet. I talked to them at NAB and they said they would make a bracket allowing for flying it inverted which will move the weight lower.

 

~Jess

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I am working quite a bit with the PS Techniks rig. There seems to be no actual "compensation" for convergence; however convergence does not seem to effect it at all. I've not had it with any long bodies on there like Sony900R s. I've only had it with the REDs on there and as yet it is fine. The convergence only effects the top camera and it rotates that top camera from the middle. Maybe that is why it is fine.

 

The other bitch about 3D Steadicam is the shear size of the hoods. Perfect for catching the wind!

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I am working quite a bit with the PS Techniks rig. There seems to be no actual "compensation" for convergence; however convergence does not seem to effect it at all. I've not had it with any long bodies on there like Sony900R s. I've only had it with the REDs on there and as yet it is fine. The convergence only effects the top camera and it rotates that top camera from the middle. Maybe that is why it is fine.

 

The other bitch about 3D Steadicam is the shear size of the hoods. Perfect for catching the wind!

 

I was delaying my post until I got confirmation on the convergence, but you answered that. I flew it a lot at NAB and got quite a walk through from Philippe himself. We had the SI-2K onboard and as you stated, I'm sure a larger and longer mass camera will affect more while pulling the convergence. Other than that, I think its a great rig and very lightweight. I think the only thing that wasn't clear is that the converge is rotated under the axis of IO movement. What that allows is the convergence angle stays at the center of the rig

 

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I also LOVED the Cine Deck that controlled the two SI-2K cameras. Had to get use to windoz dry.gif

 

I love the fact that the Freestyle Rig will allow for regular or goofy operations and looks to be a great handheld unit also.

 

-Alfeo

 

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Thanks for the good info and pictures guys.

 

I'm not sure which rig it is at this point. Someone knows, but I haven't heard yet. We're possibly testing a new rig from Germany as well. I guess I'll find out all the details on Monday.

 

BJ, I'm still on that movie right now but the days have been switched around a bit and I happen to have Mon. and Tues. off.

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I flew a pair of SI-2K's on Element Technica's Neutron rig yesterday. We recorded to the Cinedeck housing a 120GB solid state drive. I was told this holds 40 mins. for both cameras combined. Aside from the Windows OS (yuck),the Cinedeck is great and it meant no tethering.

 

Remote IO and convergence is not yet possible (maybe within two weeks) so we set it manually from shot to shot. I was able to keep my post short and the whole thing is very compact and close to an ideal weight. This is without lens motors.

 

We had 8mm Schneider C-mount lenses. Changing focus on these sucks. We literally had to loosen a clamp to adjust focus which meant a lot of down time.

 

I tried powering the Cinedeck from my rig with a Hytron 50, Trimpac, and Dionic 90. None of them worked because they drained before the deck/computer could fully boot up. We ended up velcro-ing an IDX brick up top. Solutions I'm looking at: Y-cable out of the upper J-box so I can use two batteries, Anton Bauer to IDX adapter, and Anton Bauer's HCX batteries. The Cinedeck has a standard def composite out (perfect!), but I experienced a slight delay (couple frames maybe) and the movement was a bit jittery but it wasn't really a problem. Interesting glitch: The Cinedeck can't boot up with a cable plugged into the composite out. We had to wait for it to boot first before plugging in. Take a wild guess how long it took for us to figure that out!

 

It's not there yet, but this is a very promising rig!

 

Dan

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I tried powering the Cinedeck from my rig with a Hytron 50, Trimpac, and Dionic 90. None of them worked because they drained before the deck/computer could fully boot up. We ended up velcro-ing an IDX brick up top. Solutions I'm looking at: Y-cable out of the upper J-box so I can use two batteries, Anton Bauer to IDX adapter, and Anton Bauer's HCX batteries.

 

I don't think you'll need a y cable unless it's pulling more than 9 or 10 amps. You can just use one of the other jumper blocks (the empty slot is parallel with the camera/monitor) and probably a standard cable?

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Alfeo - cool pic of the REDs on that rig, but have you actually flown it? I'm thinking a pair of REDs is simply too heavy.

No I haven't and not eager too! I would say it would be close to a full on F35+SRW1/Geneside or even BL weight.

 

Composite out connected at bootup makes Windoz think that the main screen is connected instead of the extended desktop... it an OS thing.

 

So the Neutron has no controls for changing the IA (S3D community wants us to use Inner-axial and not Ocular) or they just haven't finished the stereo rig yet?

 

-Alfeo

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