New moving ground glass mechanism

[Cosmin Rotaru]

You can also tilt the GG both ways, of course... you should get that spot in focus...

[Dan Diaconu]

Cosmin, thanks for taking it to the next level (both x & Y) but as you say, it would become a spot only IF that would be a static shoot.
But what IF we turn on X from Bokeh-sharp-Bokeh to sharp-all-over and then START the Y turn from where we were ;sharp-all-over to Bokeh-sharp-Bokeh on the vertical?
Further more, what if the inflexion was not centered (on any of the X or Y?) Or, like I said before focus on the lens rolls in sink with the tilting on any of the X or Y to maintain focus on one element as it changes position in the frame? Think "all that" was done in ONE CONTINUOUS SHOOT? Surprise? You pet ;-)< (should I stop writing the way I talk?)
But that would require no more than 6 tiny motors to move the "whole works" on 3 axes...
way to go Dan.... spend a year to do it right and another year to s....it-up.....way to go.. .

[Cosmin Rotaru]

"what if the inflexion was not centered " Of course. I never thought it would be centered.. what would be the use for that?! (when I said it would be centered I talked about the "focus/backfocus check" stuff - I'm to lazy to think about it)

I can't see the use for 6motors. There are three axis but I can only fit 3 motors in there. Or two motors (for X & Y) and an linear actuator to move the GG back and forth. We're talking steppers+microcontrolers (or maybe brushless DCs with feedback...), software... "motion controled GG" :)

Good luck with that Dan! :)

[Dan Diaconu]

>>>I can't see the use for 6motors.<<<<
You can't but I can (sink harder!)
>>>Good luck with that Dan<<<
good luck yourself cuz I aint gonna do it. I may seem cuckoo at times but I am not (is it not what they all say?....;-)< hehehe...

[Cosmin Rotaru]

"good luck yourself cuz I aint gonna do it"

let me finish my drink...


:)

How do they do the OIS prism to move...?



(I'm cracking you down, ain't I? :) )

[Dan Diaconu]

>>How do they do the OIS prism to move...?<<<<
how would I know?....... (i guess is de fly....)
(I'm cracking you down, ain't I? :) )<<<
you pet you do.......)))))
leave that aside..... I have the solution to focus ring gear for any lens..... (brand or diameter) had a dream three days ago but I had o finish it and make sure it works and now is anodized, packed and labeled good for shipping, (in my head of course) it'll come... (it does not look at all like the pics on my site though) hmmm... did I mention a new FF?

[Cosmin Rotaru]

"I have the solution to focus ring gear for any lens"
you're talking about the FF, right? Not the gears on the lens. So the gears on the lens are different diameters and you can drive them all with one FF? Can I take a wild guess? :)

[Dan Diaconu]

b my guest

[Cosmin Rotaru]

:)

aaa... may I ask you: is there a "setting" or will it work right on? Nothing gets changed?

ok, ok, you caught me! I have no ideea! :)

[Dan Diaconu]

ask the... spider.... ;-)<

[Brett Erskine]

Yeah Dan thats what I did. Just tilt the GG. Now you can also move it in and out to place that slice area that is in focus anywhere on the GG and not just in the middle. Anyways this goes back to the earliest years of photography up until today with the MF & LF bellows cameras. I believe you want to make one of these:

This is the one for full sized motion picture cameras
http://www.centuryoptics.com/products/film/swing-shift/index.htm

Anyways its all cool stuff but rarely used and extremely time consuming to make. A rental item for sure. I see this effect in nearly every over dramatic drug commercial. (You see it too?)

Hey I can tell you one easy way to optically get only a center spot in focus on even a fish eye lens. > When you make one of these adapters make it possible to reposition the video cameras lens alot closer to the GG. Zoom out to wide angle on the video camera and reframe properly for a full frame view of the GG again. You'll notice that the DOF of the video cameras lens on the GG itself is SO shallow that only sections of the GG are in focus at any give time. Thats it. Pretty simple. The only minor problem with this idea is at fully wide on the video cameras lens your GG looks the slightest bit distorted (as all things do with wide lenses). However its no big deal because this subtle effect can be well hidden in the distortions present in the films wide angle lens itself anyways. Anyways hope that good enough for what you want to do and saves you from investing another 6 months of your life on a swing/tilt mini35. Hell you can take this project as far as you want to. Throw a anamorphic element in there as well or add a small rotateable gradual ND disk behind the lens mount to dial in the exact f/stop you want no matter what the lighting conditions. Or use it WITH the iris and do a iris/adjustable ND cross pull to have a incamera DOF change during a shot without having the negative effects of the shutter angle change. Toys toys toys. Its fun to think about the possibilities but the appeal of having a actual life keeps me from building all these specialty items. I'll have to at least check out that movie you mentioned though. It was used only on the opening titles?

[Dan Diaconu]

There are some lenses (rare) made by Nikon and others that do that natively:
http://images.google.ca/imgres?imgurl=http://www.hartblei.com/products/images/shift_lens/fullsize/TS-PC-45-S-R-(tilt-shift).jpg&imgrefurl=http://andybatt.blogspot.com/2004_06_14_andybatt_archive.html&h=600&w=642&sz=17&tbnid=a7d2NW5RV18J:&tbnh=126&tbnw=135&start=12&pr ev=/images%3Fq%3Dtilt%2Blens%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official_s%26sa%3DG

But is not the same thing. Just about but not the same.
I guess one could combine focus roll (on the lens) with perspective CTRL (for the shots I imagined)
Not of interest here anyway...
>>>(You see it too?)<<< Sorry to confess here but it has been a good while since I watched TV. (a movie now and then is OK though)
>>>Throw a anamorphic element in there<<< I did! (Century) not very appealing. To de ana... you have to stretch the pixels on the horizontal.... rez loss just to fill a wider screen (way better than cropping top and bottom though)
Yes, opening titles only.
How did "Matthew" go?

Happy "Good Friday" guys. (I just had one of my prayers answered today)

[Brett Erskine]

Yeah that was a fun shoot - The story of the Last Supper. Believe it or not I actually had my camera bless on that shoot. Everyone -crew and cast came together on that one. I made some custom gear for that film that you might find interesting. I knew I wanted to make a lot of very small dolly moves but the shooting schedule didnt allow for the time it would require to reposition and setup track and dolly every 5 minutes so I built what is best discribed as a miniture dolly for the camera only that fit on a 5 foot long miniature track. These two items were light weight but sturdy enough to be attached to the TOP of a tripod. Sound strange, I know, but actualy it was very useful. It let me do a new dolly setups in as much time as it normally would take to walk a tripod across the set. The lighting setup was also very odd but I think I've talked off subject long enough. Email me if you want to chat. See ya

[Michael OKeefe]

What the heck is this thing supposed to do exactly?

[Dan Diaconu]

Move the GG in an angle in X,Y,Z as opposed to square only, relative to the SLR lens, thus allowing only a "slice" of sharp image for elements placed at the same distance to the lens (during a take that is) to be seen from a full sharp frame.