Flash 8
 

I simply use Macromeida Flash 8 Professional. As of version 8, Macromedia has included an EXCELLENT video encoder that all the new flash-video sites (youtube, google video) use. You simply convert your video from any format to an "flv" file, import the flv file into a new flash project, and voila-- you have a page that'll play your video as long as you have the flash player. Just publish and upload the html, swf, and flv, and you'll have what you need done.

Here's another site for the two tests. They are in wmv9 coding out of PP2 so are not the sharpest examples in the block. One of these days when the cargo plane comes home and brings good things to the mountain top, I'll buy Quicktime for the H264 encoding capability. In meantime, this will have to do.


http://media.putfile.com/20mm-Sigma-f18

http://media.putfile.com/SIGMA-50-500-f4-63-LENS


Sheldon.

Thank you for your advice on Macromedia.



FOOTNOTE:

Sorry. Looks like this sucks comprehensively too. Doesn't work at all. Never did like trying to download video so I don't expect uploading to be any better an experience.

www.savefile.com was the only one that worked and it looks like that one has gone belly-up as I can no longer access the site.

Looks like its back to the .jpg frame grabs.

FURTHUR FOOTNOTE.

Savefile must have been down for some care and maintenance as it is back up again now. I shall send my tests there.

FURTHUR FURTHUR FOOTNOTE.

Savefile is still broken. I probably broke it through mismanaging the account soimehow.

My previous material there had all timed out and dropped off and I am now being asked to change to a new password but my current now redundent password is being rejected so I give up.

In cost benefit terms of time wasted, it is easier to burn and send DVDs by post than perservere with attempting to ram Mbits into the end of a 300m copper overhead pair landline when they don't want to go.

As yoong Albert's moom wunce sedd, "Boy I'm vexed".

I'll try and get some .jpgs up when I can work out how to unstretch the frame grabs from cineform captures.

Shot this in 10 minutes after I finished my DIY rod support
 

http://www.schtm.com/kitchen.html :)

Tried again at savefile.com under a new account - no luck. My computer is a bit too old or the landline is too thin for fat files to fit through.

more footage
 

http://www.schtm.com/jungle.html
Can't believe I even considerd blowing 995 on the redrock

Hey Sheldon,
Have you tried the Nivea cream on your GG yet? That is supposed to yield some great results...

<QUOTE>http://www.schtm.com/jungle.html
Can't believe I even considerd blowing 995 on the redrock</QUOTE>
Hi Sheldon,

What did you mean?

I rented the redrock and got inferior results to the agus35 that I used to make the footage above.

oh man and ouch too! what a blow to redrock. Sorry but I am not trying to put anyone down here. Great effort from redrock by the way for a great product and creating a healthy competition, but I have always thought the footage from redrock aren't as great as I expected it to be. I hear alot of comments from people who had good results. But now my doubt is confirmed. I think its their GG. Some improvement probably in order.

Please forgive my ignorance, but what would exactly the Nivea cream do?

Update
 

Sheldon,


Please save me from going through the almost 50 pages of this thread.

Where is the latest version of your 35mm adapter?

What camera are you adapting for the add-on?

What are the limitations your adapter has, like F loss, aberrations, maximum F before seeing any lens element (if that is the case), etc.?

Have you tried or do you think it would work in HDV cameras?

Latest version?
 

Hi,

I'm using the *original* agus35 design. I wrote a quick tutorial to get you started.

All I did was use on of these: http://cgi.ebay.com/58mm-45X-Wide-An...-DSC-F717-V3_W 0QQitemZ260031542220QQihZ016QQcategoryZ116190QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZVi ewItem

Materials:
1. cd-rom motor (with the plastic mount)
2. 6 x 6 x 4 project box - can be any side
3. 9 nuts and 3 hex screws that the nuts fit onto
4. Grounded clear cd
5. On/off switch
6. Two sets of red/black wires (3-5 inches each)
7. battery box for 2 AAA battereis
8. Lens mount (I suggest Nikon- you can find Nikon lens mounts on ebay or at a photo repair shop)


Directions:
1. Drill two holes between 50-60mm diameter on the front and back of the box
2. Mount the cd-rom motor on the side OPPOSITE the side you want to put your lens mount.
3. The cd-rom motor should be in a plastic mount that has three screw holes.
Drill three small hols in the box, and use the screw holes in the
plastic motor mount to mount the motor to the box.
4. Epoxy the lens mount to the other end. Find the focal plane distance of the mount. For the nikon mount, its 46.5 mm.
5. Put a disc on the motor, and adjust the distance from the lip of the mount till the DISC is 46.5mm (or whatever you mnount's distaance) from the
lens mount's lip.
6. Solder the motor to the on/off switch, and solder the on/off switch
to the battery box using the wires. Mount all of these wherever is most
conventient-- you'll need to drill a hole to mount the on/off switch.
7. Sand down the clear cd with a cheap sander and 1000 grit sandpaper. Only
sand down one side.
8. Plop the cd on the motor, with the ground side facing the lens.
9. Put your lens on the box, and put the macro on the camera. Turn on the
motor, and connect your camera to a TV to help you adjust. Find your correct zoom/focus and you'll be done... construct your DIY mount off these distances.

I haven't tried mine on an HD cam yet. I still love the look of the dvx.
As for stoppage-- I haven't measured it yet- but if you look at this footage, http://www.schtm.com/cheap35/cheap35.html - it was taken on a cheap F3.5 50mm Nikon lens wide open in my dark room at night. DVX was set to wide open as well. I think my MF number on the dvx is around 35 and the zoom is around 72-- though I'll have to dobule check when I get home.

Sheldon,

The nivea cream leaves a fine layer, not unlike microwax on the CD. Some say it helps with diffusion and gets rid of the hotspot.

Sheldon.

Tis a good thing you are keeping the original thread alive with original building.

From viewing the image I make the following observation.

You have a brightness falloff to the corners and left. You will have this from a f3.5 lens so I would anticipate you should get a full frame with a f1.8 lens. You might however just pick up some remaining on the left side of the image as viewed.

If you have any zoom-in range left on your camera, this should take care of it.

This suggests that your SLR lens centre is slightly off to about 0.5 to 1mm low and about 1.5 to 2mm left relative to the camcorder centre axis as viewed from camcorder rear towards the groundglass, or the camera optical centre axis is slightly skewed or a combination of offcentre and skew.

Please don't take this comment as a criticism. Compared to my own efforts, you have it pretty well nailed. Because of the amount of zoom-in used, it takes very little to put the centre off, in my case, pulling up the seat belt on my assembly when taking it out in the car for a test is enough.

My own device has that amount of variation there always due to the flexing in the plastic casework and there being a chain of four removable joints along the optical axis, plus in my case three more for the prism path.

If you are fastidious about centres and your camcorder CCD image centre is the same as the camcorder's own lens centre axis, (NOTE: amazingly a lot of them are not) it is helpful to set up the camcorder mount and macro first on the second version you build because you know where it has to go.

Make sure the camcorder front and front face of the adaptor case are as perfectly parallel as you can get them.

Macro is best fixed directly to the camcorder for best centering. Once you have the rear mounting set up and secure, take off the camcorder then drill a small 1mm or 1/16th inch pilot hole in the case where the centre of where the SLR lens mount is to go.

Focus up and view this hole through your camcorder. File the hole out wider in the direction towards where the centre should be if it looks a bit off to one edge or another.

When it is centred, then measure out to your lens mount screw centres, fit the lens mount then mark out the clearance hole and go from there.

Within reason, centres are probably not the critical issue with groundglass relay as much as they would be for relaying the aerial image (groundglass removed) which I do for really long lenses.

As I have said before, welcome to the obsession. Go out and use what you have and become fluent with it before you go on to making any improvements. This helps you from heading into any dead-ends.

Thanks!
 

Bob,

Thanks for the advice; I'll try my best to apply all of it-- I'm trying to get in production ready for two short films I'm making. BTW, what's the quickest way to make an adjustable rod clamp?

Thanks,
Sheldon

Adjustable rod clamp? Got me on that one. I assume by rod you mean, of the lens hood and matte box Cavision style of arrangement.

I have another thread here relating to rods because I have need of knowlege on this question.

For different diameter rods, I guess you would need to have a Vee shaped channel across a piece of metal, at the end, a centre slot along the centre of that piece of metal and inside that another thin piece of metal with another Vee shape cut across that.

There would need to be a tail cut on the thin piece, outboard of the main metal piece, a sort of double "L" shape so a threaded hole in the main piece can carry a screw or a bolt which comes right through and presses against the tail of the thin piece to force it to close on the rod like an anvil type secateur pruner. This would look like a cross ebtween a clothes peg and pruner. The use of a thin pieice in a central slot would keep the clamping pressure centred and not cause the rod to tilt sideways.

Another way would be to drill a hole across at the end of of the piece intended to be the clamp, make the hole the size of the largest rod to be used, drill and tap a bolt hole so a bolt or screw can be screwed down on to the rod. For smaller sizes a sleeve would need to be used for each size to reduce the hole diameter down.

On that discussion page, a suggestion was made for my situation where I have used thick material. To increase the ability of the metal to bend where needed, several holes and "Tee" shaped slots were suggested. This method only applies to a fixed rod size. I guess if sleeves were made to be a really snug fit, this clamping arrangment could work for several rods sizes.

Seeyyumeeyah :-

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=76241

While I am playing around putting links on the page, here's another one which might be of interest :-

http://www.screenwest.com.au/index.c...B2FDD4B037EF9C

Out of curiousity, has anyone tried a 16:9 anamorphic lens on front of a relay device which is attached to a 16:9 format camcorder?

As for the PD150, the Century Optics 16:9 works on front of a 28mm f1.8 Sigma for Nikon Mount and on front of a 50mm f1.8 Nikon for a DSLR or motion picture frame.

Rescaling the resulting image in PP2 yields a watchable sort of cinemascope but not outstanding image to DVD-Video.

I don't think I would be going out of my way to make a small or feature project with this method but it might be a valid method for creating the effect of one as a short segment in another conventional video project.

I have had a go at posting an Agus35 test which is comprised of direct-to-camera 16:9 footage to FX1 and Agus35 4:3 footage to PD150 fr the low light performance shot in low light conditions at a live gig.

It is on YouTube as a .flv file as advised on this forum. I don't know how well it has gone. The last postings I put there weren't remarkable for resolution.

As the audio on my download computer is somewhat deceased I can't vouch for how the sound transferred. It wasn't all that good, - room ambience.

It should be findable at this address :-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ocWCjkXSRIA

FOOTNOTE:

Doesn't work. I think I might have broken YouTube. It might just be taking time so might try again later.

What's the name of the video?

Is there any way to see a full or better quality fragment?

I have had another shot at putting it up again, this time the address is :-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zgZaynJD3_I

I'm not sure how this one is going. It has been sitting dead for a long time the way the first one did.

I have tried to export a higher definition H264 file for posting elsewhere but the software does not get on with PP2 and creates a file which is visible only in the bottom right hand corner of the available frame and hugely enlarged.

It may be something to do with Service Pack 4 being needed, all in all a frustrating business.


FOOTNOTE:

This one seems to have taken root but the images are very blurry.

Video made with Agus35
 

Nice video Bob.
Shot this Saturday in 2 hrs: http://www.schtm.com/ghosts.html

A poor quality clip from the Peleng lens to Agus35 can be found at YouTube at the following address :-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8t5EKQW0mB0

I think I may have found a pure and unsullied upload path to a file sharing site which can shake hands with my old online computer through the 300metre overhead copper pair landline which feeds my premises and exacts financial tribute for its efforts.

No guarantees as to how the download works as I cannot afford to bring it back down to look at it.

It is a 30mb .wmv file. I have kept the frame rate to half in order to preserve some resolution. It is an assembly of some lens tests, 12 - 24mm f4 Nikon digital SLR zoom on wide, 14mm Sigma f2.8, 50 Nikon f1.8, 85mm Nikon f1.8.

The subject is the Armadale retail dragstrip on Friday arvo markets day.

You will observe that there is some edge falloff from the prism path on left and on right from the lens mount being incorrectly centred. The zoom was pulled back a little in attempt to get better resolution.

The TV safe area is fine but underscan shows the falloff.

This specimen of my experiments is covered with drillholes, patchups and other mutilations and is inclined to move off true during heavy handling.

Optical path is SLR lens >> AO5 groundglass non-backpolished Ohara disk, CD-R size, at 1500 rpm >> 2 x prism >> Century Optics 4+ achromatic dioptre, Sony HDR-FX1 camcorder at about 50mm zoom-in, shutter 1/50th sec, 0db video gain and SLR lens apertures set to enable as close to f5.6 camcorder iris setting as possible without causing groundglass artifacts, manual whitebalance to Lemac Chart ( = grey card). Illumination conditions, bright daylight, facing south-southwest, then north-northeast. Time mid afternoon in southern hemisphere late spring.

The address for download follows :-

http://www.filefactory.com/file/fcebfe/

Here's hoping it works.

FOOTNOTE TO ABOVE:

Filefactory itself is a free service. My ramblings above might be misleading.

diy macro
 

Do somone know how the "diy macro" in the redrock m2 guide is made?
Cant find any information about it.

thanks
daniel

Daniel.

Chris Hurd has recently put up a link to a dvinfo archive on the Redrock before it became Redrock. Might be worth a look. I dont recall the home made macro myself.

The link :-

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/forumdisplay.php?f=81

thanks i read it before.
On the first posts the "creator" of the redrock m2 wants to tell the trick than on the other hand he wants $$$ for the tip or to buy the whole guide. I know he spent some time for that simple trick but i dont want to waste my money on every bit of information that should be free on these DIY forums.

>>>I found the trick on other sites from macrophotography. Its very simple.
Get a cheap binocular 7x50 with 50-70mm front lens diameter (depends on your camcorder lens). Take out the frontlenses from that binocular (these are achromats and mostly coated). Only one Achromat should have +6. If you stack them you reach that +10-12 for use with the HVX200 or Sony HDV.

If you get a old Zeiss binocular from ebay and put the lenses together you should get the same quality as the overprized century optic achromats.

best regards
Daniel

Daniel.

If you have read the like of it before then please ignore the following.

An earlier version (non-flip) of my plumber's PVC pipe flavour of Agus35 used a set of optics from a generic telescope eyepiece I believe to be out of China.

I reversed the orientation of the lens set relative to the camera view, mounted the optics in a new tube with a 58mm filter thread on the end and this worked fine.

It caused a very close couple to the camcorder and front of lens to GG distance was between 12mm and 18mm. The best position between these two had to be chosen to avoid barrel distortion or pincushion distortion.

The camcorder zoom had to be right in.

The lens set was unbranded and sold as a fit for Tasco telescopes. It was described as a 50mm 2 inch eyepiece and the only part number to be found on the pack was SW5042.

The only motion clip to be found on www.dvinfo.net/media/hart as "agusdemo.mov" was shot on a PD150 using this arrangement. If you don't want to wait for the .mov file to download, there are frame grabs from this footage as filenames "mtatk2f1.JPG" or similar.

The image area was about 24mm x 18mm. There was a bit of brightness falloff into the corners.

I moved on to a flip version because of practical difficulties of using cameras upside down or having to carry an extra monitor around.

A bit more fisheye footage of cityscapes can be found at this address.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CEtydLGwECQ


Conditions were bright outdoors 3pm clear skies. I neglected to keep notes as humble public begain to look anxious at some locations so I kept moving along.

My version of the AGUS35 was described to me on the day as "that looks like the bastid issue of a multinova out of a tommygun. What do you use it for."

Also, the DeHavilland Tiger Moth aircraft is now 75 years of age. There is a clip oflong camera footage shot last Sunday at Murrayfield, Western Australia.

It was shot on theAGUS35 in aerial image mode, that is, no groundglass, simply used as a direct adaptor for a long lens onto the Sony camcorder. The lens is a Sigma f4-6.3 50mm - 500mm zoom. It works fine with th4 groundglass but better without it.

The clip is here :-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8f6Y3u1yYQ

nice stuff Bob!

Redrock really are fast these days. Ordered the M2 yesterday, it shipped today. i asked if there was any way I could get it quicker and a nice lady said no problem she would walk it through production the next day. She did, it's on it's way and I will get it Thursday.

Will let you know my thoughts!

new 35mm adapter..., WDR35 italian
http://www.wdr35.com/
370€

Looks bulky. Any footage or large grabs?

A DivX file of 12Mb of the Peleng fisheye footage can be downloaded at this address.

http://www.filefactory.com/file/c6a42d/

Just a short note to shove this thread back up to thetop of the heap for a while. Also, the Peleng footage referred to above is due to time-out from filefactory in the next few days.

bob, i sold my letus in the end. i hope the buyer makes it work better than me!

Last night, I got to cast my greasy fingerprints and stray DNA all over a P+S Technik Mini35 JVC HD100 model which has immigrated to W.A. and is believed to be the only known specimen in the state.

What a change it is to be able to offer a camera up to precise mounts and lens fittings and have them go on without obfuscation and my reversion to the red mist and foul language.

The thing works, no argument about that. Except for a bit of misunderstanding which comes from my practice of momentarily autofocussing a PD150 or FX1 to get initial relay focus, I found it simple to manage. The HD100 of course is direct relay.

The objective lens mount for Nikons is precise, locks the lens in place and best of all, no back focus of the Nikon lens mount is needed.

It helps to have built and have spent some hours using a home-made as once the basic operating methods have become instinctual, everything on the MINI35 falls into place where you expect it to be including the offset.

I am confident that any competent camerman who has constructed and made a lot of use of their own Agus35 or similar emulation would be able to step into a Mini35 with all the ease of putting on an Armani jacket.

It is patent that once set up correctly, the Mini35 will function solidly, not drift off-axis, spoil the sound or display any of the other vices my own home-made gadget will have me on constant and distracting vigilence for. The motor is very quiet and no vibration can be felt.

It uses the camcorder batteries so no worries over remembering to bring spare torch batteries.

The construction and finish are excellent, a welcome change from hacksaw marks in PVC sewer pipe, dags of blueglue on joints and brushmarks in blackboard paint.

Best of all, it doesn't creak or groan when hand-held. It is smaller and not anywhere near as heavy as I expected it to be.

The owner had the good sense to buy the additional front extension arms with handgrips on them.

On the shoulder, with these, I would feel confident in being able to stay on subject with up to an 85mm prime lens hand-held, with a focus puller of course and not be crippled after an hour of using it.

Best practice of course will be tripod or other stable camera supports.

I hope to be tagging along when furthur tests are done and the first project is undertaken with it.

In meantime I shall have to plug along with Agus's best as the real thing is well over my available and justifiable budget but at least I know now what to aspire to.

Bob:

We talked about achromats in another thread I started. I'm still awaiting delivery of my 72mm achromat from Cinavete... hoping that will improve the footage I get on the FX1 Micro35 DIY project I built. Will advise you what kind of luck that has brought. Hope to get where you have gotten already, at a minimum.

Chris.

I think that you will find that you shall get there. Whilst the 58mm lens will work, things can only get better if you are shooting through a wider one of equal quality.

There may be a sweeter spot in terms of how close to the camera the GG has to come versus how far the zoom goes in.

I cannot over-emphasise how important having the centre axes of both the camcorder/achromat and the SLR correct and all the faces parallel is.

If the centres are off, whilst you will get adequate coverage of the GG with your SLR lens's projected image, some interesting assymentic distortional things happen if you choose to use ultra-wides like 14mm or Peleng 8mm.

You can of course cheat a little by applying a bit of correcting pressure to skew the axis before you tighten the camera and adaptor to rods or other bracework. You risk edge softness with the wide lenses by doing this.

DAY 1 OF RED BULL AIR RACE in Perth W.A.

Amazing stuff. I am covering it as best I can for my own aviation archive which is another story I won't go into for the moment.

I am using the Agus35 with groundglass removed for the long lens and found it works this way just fine for the fisheye lens as well with thecamcorder zoom in all the way and the Peleng lens wide-open.

You can actually get away with f4 but I am skewing the axis slightly to bring the flat horizon down to the lower third of the image frame for better, more natural composition. With f4, this offset picks up the iris in one corner on underscan.

There were two helicopters doing airbourne coverage. One of them flew the actual competition course. It had a gyrosphere?? hanging off the front. The pilot of the helicopter wasn't bad at what he does either.

I couldn't get media accreditation so I had to be satisfied with looking in longingly from outside of a link mesh fence.

I tried for some 8mm shots of the take-offs from head-on outside of the fence. The rate of climb and angle of these aircraft is mindblowing. Fisheyes for ground-to-airs of aircraft are a bit difficult. The aircraft has to be really big or really close to fill the frame.

The redbulls are small aircraft so we are talking blowflies visually.

The long lens wll come out tomorrow for some more head-ons and the landings which are equally spectacular. Sunday will be more long lens of the actual competition and the air displays.

There were four other FX1/Z1P operators passed by. I lost a few opportunties when people wanted to know what was on front of the camera.

Nearly all serious cameramen who stopped by knew exactly what it was and what it was for, so it seems there is a lot of general knowledge out there now about adaptors.

After the first version with a $5.00 Radio project box, I recognize I have to be a bit more exacting. So I've already purchase a new box, and will probably change my design a bit. I won't do that until the achromat arrives.

In the meantime, with what I have got, I am learning more about the alignment issues. Nothing really great coming out of the +10 close up lens, so the achromat is my next big step. Then, I should no better what to blame on my poor alignments in the first build.

Other issue is I am using some old Pentax K mounts lenses as the prime lenses, using the glued on rear lens cap technique.. May look at ordering adapters from Redrock before I do rebuild...