Dan is that your 35mm adaptor on that system? could it be?

Was wondering if you guys could make a mount to hold Arri 35 primes?

Obin,
Any 1 or 3 CCD/CMOS (of any size; 1/4", 1/3", 1/2" or 2/3" ) can record images of a GG (with the appropriate hi rez lens for the given CCD/CMOS size) thus enabling the prime's DOF be captured electronically. As long as chips will be smaller than 18/24 mm, what I have done has an application (for the purpose of shallow DOF) Whenever they will be fully "grown up" and mass produced, the GG and all this work will not be needed anymore. Is going to be a while though ...(I hope)


Gary,
Pl mounts are sold by many:
http://www.visualproducts.com
http://www.cinematechnic.com/products/PL_Mount_Adapt_ARRIBay.html
To many to list, just goggle for PL.

Now,... some are even matching my sense of humor:
http://www.visualproducts.com/storeProductDetail02.asp?productID=653&Cat=3&Cat2=42

I'll get two (for breakfast)

<<<-- Originally posted by Dan Diaconu
Now,... some are even matching my sense of humor:
http://www.visualproducts.com/storeProductDetail02.asp?productID=653&Cat=3&Cat2=42

I'll get two (for breakfast) -->>>

I hope that price is in Italian Lira ;)

so dan is that your system on the camera or not?

The camera currently doesn't utilize a GG unit. We find our collection of 2/3" lenses (really fast, most are f <1.0) very good. They are part of the system and define the "look" of the camera. The front part you see is the camera head, containing the sensor. It is detachable if you need it.

www.drachenfeder.com/int/drake6a.jpg
www.drachenfeder.com/int/drake6b.jpg

dof
 

That looks great, guys. It is so nice to see a modular design
with upgrade path for bigger better cmos chips.
The first clip made with the drake showed a shallow depth of field. I think you are right in not giving up resolution for a marginal increase in depth of field your 2/3 chip with ultra fast lens seems more than enough in creating this look. I would much rather save my money for the 1080p chip, solving the problem once and for all. These cameras also have some very green sensibilities. We won't have to landfill perfectly good cameras just to get the newest technology in chips, and we will be able to cut back on the manufacturing of tapes as storage gets smaller.

thank,s again your camera looks realy cool

Once the magazine hits in April will you be able to post a copy or link to it.

... 3 days till the story come out (magazin CUT), yes, link will come...

Time for more details?

As Markus say, Drake need no 35mm adapter, because with those extreme fast lenses (f stop under 1) our 2/3" CMOS produced near 35mm DOF. This work, because our sensor have NO build in microlenses. Why dont use other camera manufactors those lenses? Why cant you find HDTV primes with those wide open iris? Why say people, those lenses are not sharp? Its because ALL other sensors, CCD´s or CMOS have build in microlenses (from Canon over Altasens to Varicam). But with microlenses and f stops under 1:1.4 the pictures washed out. Drake have no microlenses (also DALSA and ARRI), thats why it work. See also this DALSA PDF (Page 7):

http://www.dalsa.com/dc/documents/Im...8-00_03-70.pdf

Another point about Drake´s sensor: Fillfactory produced also the IBIS4 14000. It work in KODAKs DCS Pro 14n digital still reflex camera (its a full negative-size 35mm color imager with 14 megapixel resolution) This is one of the worlds top high end cameras. Internal IBIS4 and IBIS5 based on the same technologie.

Mono VIEWFINDER: Times are changed. Now, Drake got also(optional ?) a mono viewfinder.

BTW: I found a cheap way to build full resolution HDTV viewfinders. (full 720 and also full 1080, mono or color). Its crazy, but it work...

Rai PLEASE tell me how your building HDTV viewfinders!! I want to know! GREAT WORK!

do you guys have some more images from your shoots? I wiould like to see some 1280 images from the ibis5a...can you show some color ones with lots of color?

<<<-- Originally posted by Rai Orz : CMOS produced near 35mm DOF. This work, because our sensor have NO build in microlenses. Why dont use other camera manufactors those lenses?
..
But with microlenses and f stops under 1:1.4 the pictures washed
-->>

F1:1.4, thats pretty good (but not for 35mm like DOF). I imagine, if they use very accurately shaped microlens they can get these aperture, but if they use very small microlens (4 to a pixel) they can get even more. Microlens collects light that would fall in between sensor pads and directs towards sensor. This can be a lot, and also affect Signal to Noise ratio (as we know). The reason Ibis gets away with it, is because they have a second sensor mechanism around the pad that determines how much misses sensor pad (but I think only roughly, the second pad does not seem to boost the signal so much). But, eventually, you go so wide with aperture, that light bounces off the surface of the chip (or diffracts across ridges in the chip) I do not know how wide that is, but then you need to use an optical mechanism that straighted path of light (like the four third format also does).

While Ibis 5 and 4 use same technologies, I think it is possible 4 is taking advantage of improvements since 5a.

> BTW: I found a cheap way to build full resolution HDTV
> viewfinders. (full 720 and also full 1080, mono or color)> . Its crazy, but it work...

You should have asked me, I also have way to do this, I mentioned last year, in fact there are a number of ways, some really cheap (but depends on quality you want).

<<<-- Originally posted by Wayne Morellini : F1:1.4, thats pretty good (but not for 35mm like DOF). -->>>

Please do not missunderstand:
1.) I said, most microlens sensors produced unsharp pictures if f stop goes under 1.4 (1.6=sharp, 1.4=samewhat unsharp, 1.2 unsharp, 1.0=total unsharp and also colors whashed out, testet with a lot of sensors and viedeo cameras). BTW. Together with wide angle lenses the blurring beginns at 1.6 and is always harder. The reason is clear described in the DALSA PDF (i posted the link before)
2.) I said not, 1.4=35mm, no,no. But i said, Drakes sensor have no microlenses. The down side is, it need more light, the up side is, it work together with extrem fast lenses far under 1.14 (and those extrem fast lenses compensate this downside).
3.) For example, most clips you saw, was shot with f under 1:0.95. And those f stops (together with a 2/3" sensor) are in fact = near 35mm DOF.

Wayne, your right, there are optical mechanism that straighted path of light, but those ways are bad for DOF (because if the light beams, came out of lenses, are absolute parallel, there is no focal plane, that mean, the sensor can move backwards and forwards without lost focus. That mean also, the pictures are sharp from macro to infinity)

<<<-- While Ibis 5 and 4 use same technologies, I think it is possible 4 is taking advantage of improvements since 5a. -->>>

That make sense, if Ibis4 was made after Ibis5. But Ibis4 was first.

<<<-- Originally posted by Obin Olson : Rai PLEASE tell me how your building HDTV viewfinders!! I want to know! GREAT WORK! -->>>

Thanks, great work also to you.

HD-viewfinder: I do some patent researches before i will tell details. (Years ago i made bad experiences about those things). But be sure, i will tell you the "secret" and then you can use it also.

<<<-- do you guys have some more images from your shoots? -->>>

Next days we send more links, after the magazine is out

<<<-- Originally posted by Rai Orz : <<<-- Originally posted by Wayne Morellini : F1:1.4, thats pretty good (but not for 35mm like DOF). -->>>

> Please do not missunderstand:

No, I understood that you meant 1.4 as for microlens quality (just that they might be able to, eventually, go better with alternative designs). I was also agreeing that 1.4 was not good enough compared to your superfast lens, for 35mm DOF.

> Wayne, your right, there are optical mechanism that
> straighted path of light, but those ways are bad for
> DOF

Unless you establish the image and DOF, before the light comes out straight. There are techniques (screenless 35mm adaptor).

> Ibis4 was made after Ibis5. But Ibis4 was first.

Sorry, I thought it was the one I saw on their site released last year. What revision date is it, I know that the Ibis5a does not use all their technology (used in the fast Lupa version).

I am eager to see this HD viewer, and see if it is one of the designs I have considered.

Rai I understand..let me know when you can

I want to see some frames/video! c'mon guys...I wana see it! ;)

We finally made it to set up a first web page in english!

Check www.drachenfeder.com and select the buttom right image for the english pages. You will find some more clips, a feature list and more camera pictures there.

Cheers
Markus

Look's nice Markus, are these color corrected versions of the clips (I'm still downloading the clips).

Looks very good, like that little capture frame idea, good thinking.

It mentions a shutter mode of 1000th/sec, is it still using he Ibis5a?

It doesn't mention shooting mode/technique, is there any mode for video work?

It says 66MByte per second for image save. 1280*720*24fps@8bit is less than 24MB/s, are you saving a de-bayered 4:4:4 image. Is there an option to save straight Bayer, would fit a lot more on disk, and de-bayer latter?

Well, now the standard has been set for everybody else to aspire too.

Thanks

Wayne.

I see the price is in as well:

15,000.- EUR or 19,500.- USD

That was kinda what I was expecting. I'm doubt many here on DVi
have that much cash available....

It looks great!

I still think color quality is really bad.
May be if you could post some other kind of clips we could see how it performs under different situations.
As it is right now I'd better use any cheapo HDV stuff....

There on those English pages on the site.

Technical discussion, colour:

About the colours, I agree with you Juan, a little, but I think it only needs a bit more. Unlike camcorders, this camera allows you to do colour correction to taste. I would like to compare what a colour corrected versions looks like.

I think for cinema people, it is what they actually prefer.

I watched a late 60's movie the other night, that had been colour corrected. Though it looked good it was obvious the colours were a bit flat, as the original colour lacked the fidelity (??). If the original colour had twice as much range and definition, the transfer would have been much better, as to be unobjectionable. So how much is enough. Juan, you have done color correction, what do you think?

I don't know what causes this in the Ibis, is it the collection mechanism around the sensor, or the filter? I have seen similar on the fill-factory dual slope white paper page, in the dark and dual-slope images. Some ibis images even look like they have a little washout. On a microlens sensor they concentrate the light down on the sensor pad. This should concentrate response at the expense of sensitivity, range, and noise, compared to bigger sensor pads.

My biggest question would be, when it is ready for rental, what will the rental price be, and would you rent to the US?

Well, I don't really know.
I guess you can push them further if they are getting the full 10 bit (linear) from the sensor.
Even if the colors were really too noisy, there is a vast selection of filters you can use to lower it...
extreme example: even if the reds and blues get to no more than 8 bit precision at last the final image would look far better than it looks right now.
About cine people: It is a misconcept to believe Cine people want washed out colors, if that were the case what would be the reason for negative manufacturers to sell low ASA/ISO films which have blowing mind color saturation and richness ?

I just dont like the ibis chips ..can i see some outdoor mid day shots from the drake?

Juan

I didn't actually mean that ;), but that they are used to lower colour levels (not about washout).

Wayne.

I will say it again, sorry guys.
The new Sony HDV camera looks light years better than what I'm seeing from the "Drake" system...

Juan I would not say that untill you see some footage that is daylight with lots of colors in it..maybe some flowers?

lets some flower shots Rai

Obin, I have seen it, and pushed it around a bit. But the problem is gloomy European weather in the scenes (everything is pale in real life, Autumn/Winter shooting) just not the same light levels as over here or in the US. There are clips on that English page posted above. One clip has trees with yellow flowers in the back ground (can't remember but it looks over cast). When I pushed the colour around a bit and see that there is beautiful detail, and colour works. A lot of compressed HD cameras have flat colour and flat detail instead. So it is a matter of look.

Thanks for checking out and your comment.

The reason why some clips are looks so dark and low coloured are not only the gloomy European weather, its a look for some "dark situations" in the movie. The sand in the hand clip for example is extra flat color corrected, near zero, because this is part of a bad dream sequence. They shot all this "dark" clips in winter or by night without big lamps. Now they wait for sunshine to shot the "other side of the movie", also with "color" scenes.

Please understand, the clips on www.drachenfeder.com are not made to sell DRAKE, they made for the movie. Thats why Markus posted the link to the movie page. I am sure, he will post some comments, if he is back next week.

BTW: The magazin CUT is out, but i still wait for the postman...

I wish i had more time, but here i have a case of illness in my family.

<<<-- Originally posted by Obin Olson : I just dont like the ibis chips .... -->>>

You know, ibis is a fillfactory sensor. All fillfactory sensors worked at the same internal technology. Some of fillfactorys sensors are custom-designed. But that means not different technology, that means only changes by size or multiple output ports to increase readout speed.

But here is the news. Its new, also for me. Go to the middle of this page ...

http://millimeter.com/mag/video_capturing_vision/

There is short article about ARRI D20. They write:

.......ARRI...D-20 contains a custom-designed 6-megapixel, 35mm-sized CMOS from Belgium's FillFactory......

Obin, do you also dont like ARRIS chips, now we can say: DRAKEs big Brother ?

Ahh, that explains it, the dream sequence. I notice these clips look a bit duller compared to other clips (still twice as good as compared to Ben's old Sumix Ibis5a camera). If a man walked through my town that white, people would immediately think he come from the winter down south, or was a foreigner (we only have a few weeks a year where we need to dress up for winter, mostly at night).

I think it is not the best not to have good sample photo's on your site, customers might think those clips are an example of the best that Drake can do.

Now, I think the Lupa series has additional technology to the Ibis5a. The 5a was developed (in house pre-release) something like a year ago or year and half. I still think they need to do 5b. How do the Lupa (I know you test all sensors before going with Ibis) compare to these pictures, and also Altasens to Lupa (apart from it's lack of DOF compared to Ibis)? I also interested how does Ibis compare to Micron, we see bad smear there (needs variable ND to compensate), but what over colour, noise, sensitivity and latitude (I think Ibis will trounce them).

I am sorry to hear the sickness continues.

Wow. I just went through all of this thread. Almost 3 hous of continuous reading. Very interesting read. Is it my impression or the people who are building similar or their own cameras are the most critical and ones who are picking in every little detail? I think no matter what, the Drake is a great achievement.
But now that the new panasonic camera was announced for $6,000 and it does 108024p and variable frame rates in 720p, will it still be a good deal to pay $19,000 for the Drake system? Yes, I know the HVX200 is compressed, but it still is 4:2:2 100mbps which should hold up pretty good in post. Besides it's much easier to do post production. The Darke has the bigger sensors, but you have to record sound wild. A headache for indie production. Besides it cost over 3 times more than the HVX200. I think the HVX200 is more of a indie tool with it's higher resolution, more flexibility in frame rates, easy to edit image and really affordable indie price. How many here can afford the Drake? I think a HVX200 would do better for most indie filmmakers. Not necessarily better in image quality, but sure more practical and affordable while still having an edge in resolution and frame rates and maybe even color range, if the Drake's look is limited to low saturation. Looking forward to those sunny day clips :)

But regardless, the Drake looks very good and is a great achievement. Congratulations to the whole developing team. That only goes to show the big companies make us pay a huge premium for technology we could have for much cheaper. That's the way to go. If they won't give to you, make your own. I'm truely impressed!

Good points Michael. Yes it does seem that most bashing comes from competitors. I sum it up as it currently is, improvement at a price. In normal cinema equipment market there are huge differences in price of equipment, one camera might be less than 10K, another more than 100K, but still record on the same film ;) So some will buy the extra features because they have the budget for good equipment. Drake was done for a cinema company, so offers you more pro cinema features than the Panasonic. I think it is not doubtful that a much better image can be gotten from the Drake than the Pana. To cinema people this can matter more than the Video features and picture of the Pana (unless they have no money).

From the limited information I have read. It appears the the Pana is using a codec not too different than the DV codec, recording much lower HD horizontal resolution (in 1080 and 720), and using 24fps is at 40mbit/s, and 100mbit/s is at 60fps. This produces high compression rations. HDV uses mpeg2 compression, which is much more efficient and records much better quality for the same compression ratio (but 4:2:0 8 bit). So it might only get an advantage over HDV in motion artifact. But until proper information, compared to this here say, comes through it will be hard to say what exactly the situation is. But it looks certain that our cameras will be much more HD Cine worthy cameras.

There is suggestion that an uncompressed picture "might" be gotten from the Pana, which would somewhat improve the situation. I think the real star might be the JVC that does have uncompressed output and is a nicely mechanically featured camera.

How much is the base line mass production price for a single chip raw HD camera? No more than the $1595 HD1. I actually say less than $500. But you mostly need to be million/billionaire manufacturer to make such a thing from scratch at that price.

How is recording sound in a dual-system setup a "headache"??

How else do you plan on getting good audio? Surely not with an on-camera mic into the pre-amps of a cheap little mini-DV camera. If you want your audio to sound reallly nice, then you're going to have to pay for gear (it's not that expensive for a 24/96 recorder now), and you're going to need a second sound person to run at least a boom mic. Now when you have a boom teathered to the camera, THAT is a major headache, because the sound person is limited in their position in relation to the camera, and if you don't have a third person to manage the cables, then you're going to be in a tangled mess.

Since paying people is typically more expensive than renting or owning gear, ideally you would have a camera person and sound person with their own recorder and boom mic for professional level sound, and not need another cable wrangler to manage the mess you create when you try to record sound on-camera with a seperate boom operator.

Rai,

The PC sound market is very competitive. The latest EMU professional sound cards was (may still be) the best in the world (close to 120db SN) and better than much professional equipment. Creative own EMU, and are trying to move higher spec audio to motherboard integration, VIA is also trying o do this, and Intel, but I don't worry too much about them. So the spec of audio on MB are going up (assuming that you are using a MB for this addition of the camera). But also they are making sound cards as USB models. So you have very good chance of finding external ones with specs above 96db, and maybe even MB ones. Go to Creative and VIA audio site (the VIA audio processor is an external professional design they bought).

Thanks

Wayne.

absolutely agree - there is no problem recording quality sound to separate device. There is ton of solutions from minidisk recoreder/cheap dv camcorder to separate field hdd recorder. What i really like is smth like usb or firewire audio interfaces with xlr inputs and built in preamps, like was excellent m-audio duo (about $200+). Its obsolete now, but there are others. That device/devices could be connected to a laptop and a separate person can control all channels to be recorded to hdd.

Crazy world.Here it is exactly the opposite.It is much much cheaper to pay people than to rent equipment.
the weekly salary for a sound man is around $ 180 USA dollars here.
So this means $ 30 per day.Weekly means 6 days here (usually 12 hours a day for a feature length film)

Crap dude! $30 a day? I can make twice that amount working at Wal-Mart pushing around carts!!

For a good sound recordist in the U.S., depending on the market, try $50/hour for a 10-hour day at least. Typically after 10-12 hours you go on overtime, which is then time-and-a-half ($75/hr.). On union shoots, they actually get $75 every 15-mintues when you start going over the pre-allotted time.

No, expect to pay around $3000 per week for a good sound-recordist, which is just as much as a nice Varicam HD package, and a lot more expensive than top-quality sound gear which rents (like one of those expensive multi-track digital recoders, i.e., Aaton Cantar) at around $1200-1500 per week.

Wow, that should be the reason why Spike Lee was shooting a BMW comercial this past Saturday just 2 blocks from here!!! :0
Imagine Lee shooting Buenos Aires to make it look like New York!!
Amazing, isn't it?

These days you get a full HDCAM (F900) for less than 2K here.
A DP goes for u$ 1333 per week for a feature length film (usually 6 to 8 weeks) or u$ 350 per day if shooting a commercial.
DP is one of the highest salaries here.
Another example. Catering service is around u$ 8.30 to u$ 16 per day per person.