13x Wide-angle footage for download
 

CSTV on the DVDoctor board has shot some footage with the 13x Wide Angle lens.

You can download the footage here:

http://www.gpjco.tv/~dvdoctor/clips/WideAngleDV.mov.zip

Furthermore, it must be said that it's shot in PAL DV Anamorphic, and the tape was handed to me to be ingested on my little PDX-10, which accepted the JVC footage without complaint.

Now, about the footage. There's been some moaning on the XL H1 forum about demo footage, and CSTV has done his best in tricky circumstances. CSTV had a brief moment to take a JVC GY-HD100 out of an exhibit, complete with IDX camera back and a wireless tranceiver, shoot something sans tripod to show the length of zoom, DoF and sharpness, come back in again, dump the tape and return the aforementioned HD100 to its tripod. At the same time, shoot in low light, up the gain to max, and show that this UK model has no SSE. He did well.

Enjoy...

Can you update the link, it says "file not found", thx!

Matt, there was a typo in the link. I found the correct link and edited it. 34Mb download.

There is a problem with the quicktime file. It looks like when you exported it, it wasn't self-contained. It searches for related movie data (probably a render file) when opened. Maybe you could encode it into mpeg2 at 9Mb/sec. That would be "super-bit" DVD quality and the file would still be small.

Also, could you please ask CSTV to comment in this thread on his experience with the lens? CA, breathing, weight, etc.
We've all been waiting to see some results, so I'm sure his input would be welcome.

Tim

Thx Tim, but now that I downloaded the footage it cant play, it says that a file is missing. Anyone seen the footage?

Same here...

<slaps forehead> D'oh! One can't rush these things - I thought (somewhat dimly after long day) it was a conviniently small file, considering...

Anyway... Have compressed at 7.7-9.0 VBR to .m2v file, zipped and it's now uploading to the same place:

http://www.gpjco.tv/~dvdoctor/clips/WideAngleDV.m2v.zip

Ready in about 45 mins from the time of this post. I have some other people to apologise to in the meantime. :D

CSTV may elaborate further, but general comments are along lines of

"didn't leave it on the camera for long actually because it's quite awkward to use - it's something you'd get used to, but it's a bit longer and heavier than the standard lens so it made it a bit tricky to wave around when demoing to people. The IDX battery and the 5.2GHz video transmitter bolted to the back didn't help either.

That said, you really do get 5 grands worth of lens here!!! As far as i can tell there's no obvious chromatic aboration, and it holds it's breath like the best of 'em! I shot about 2 mins of standard 50i DV footage with it. Focus pulling works beautifully and it's about as wide as you'd want to go before things start to look unatural."

CSTV also mentions that the pink fringing you see on the (famous) train set is a lighting effect, NOT CR!

It looked very good Matt, may I ask why you didnt shoot 25p instead of 50i?

Because I didn't shoot it - a good friend AKA CSTV did the lens work, and had to do it under duresse, too. Taking a £3.5k camera with a £5k lens and a £2k prototype wireless video system out of an exhibition and into the street is an opportunity to be taken when offered. I'm glad the pictures are sharp and the exposure is good considering the 2 mins of footage from 5 mins of AWOL.

:D

I don't have too much experience with the m2v stream played on the VLC player...when it plays on my Mac G4 laptop I see quite a bit of 'shredding', typically associated with interlaced video, mostly in pans and with moving objects (cars). Is it compression, the VLC player or my computer? Otherwise, it plays full speed no problem and yes, it looks pretty darn good!

It's interlaced 50i.

It is tough to judge the "HD" qualities of the lens based on PAL 50i, but I don't see any CA, it seems very wide with little distortion or vignetting, and it doesn't seem to breath very much. I would say it is worth the pricetag, but I still plan to test it first hand before laying out the cash.

hi everyone. thanks to Matt for hosting the clip. i hadn't seen any footage of it around, and i knew Matt wanted to see it so i thought i'd better get something! sorry it's not quite what i wanted to shoot but as Matt said, i only had a few minutes to play with it.

As you can see from the footage there are no obvious signs of CA, and no breathing either - good stuff!!! :D

It's in SD mode because i didn't have long and i needed for Matt to be able to play it back on his DV kit. More appologies for the lack of decent full-wide angle footage! i was getting carried away with checking for breathing and CA and forgot what the lens was designed for!

The lens is quite a bit heavier and longer than the standard one; i wouldn't even consider using it with the standard battery on the back because the balance would be very front-heavy! I found that having my arm just that little bit further forward made life quite uncomfortable, but i'm not a camera operator (as i'm sure you can tell!!!) and i don't have much in the way of shoulders!

I could be wrong, but i think i heard someone say that VMI (london) were thinking of taking a couple of these lenses as high stock, so that's something to look out for.

If i get another chance to play with one, i'll try to do some more exhaustive tests.

mark.