My little DIY camera project

Noah Yuan-Vogel · December 12th, 2005, 12:43 PM

I'm pretty sure drake was built from the ground up with a custom camera head and embedded hardware and whatnot, so its probably not even cameralink or usb, but i could be wrong.

As for USB, I checked out silicon imaging and lumenera USB camera heads but they seemed to cost a lot more than sumix. Actually steve nordhauser from SI specifically told me usb didnt seem like a good way to do even 720p24 but ive generally been able to get 30+MBps (1536x864@24fps) over USB on my integrated VIA chispet (intel would be even better).

As for other sumix cameras, someone on these forums was playing with their ibis5-based camera (150c) and had some interesting stuff to say about it. It probably wasnt as good for our purposes as drake's implementation of the chip. It appears to have bad color and poor light performance, whereas the m71 sounds great in low light but seems to have smearing so thats why i went with the m73. Theres always fast lenses and gain to improve light performance.

Obin Olson · December 12th, 2005, 03:59 PM

I have had lots of time with that 3300 cmos chip, it will not work, the rolling shutter is no good for cinema production or VFX work.

sorry, your doing the same thing I did months ago...

Oscar Spierenburg · December 13th, 2005, 05:51 AM

That's bad news...So what effect does a rolling shutter have.
Noah, did you already test it enough to see if it's any good?

Wayne Morellini · December 14th, 2005, 08:01 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Noah Yuan-Vogel

I'm pretty sure drake was built from the ground up with a custom camera head and embedded hardware and whatnot, so its probably not even cameralink or usb, but i could be wrong.

Yeah, it was enhanced from an existing Camera, the effort was such that I would think it might be the best Ibis5 camera on the market, and much much better than the Sumix. It is unfortunate that the example footage they showed was from an uncolour corrected dream sequence, where it was deliberately dull and lacked colour (to mimic dreaming) and they did not use the 12bit mode and the dual slope latitude enhancement, which would have made elements in certain scenes look twice as good (like flames etc, which looked cool anyway, because of the almost industry leading well capacity of the sensor pads). I wonder when the film is coming out, like to see it locally?

Noah Yuan-Vogel · December 15th, 2005, 11:55 AM

Ok guys, regarding rolling shutter, I've read most of what there is to say about it on these forums. Rolling shutter issues are not inherent to a sensor so much as to the frame time which is just controlled by framerate and blanking as i understand it.

Obin, I know you've worked with this sensor, in fact I went with this camera partly due to your work with the 3300. I know you do not think this sensor is good for motion picture work, but from what I have seen, given significant vertical blanking (high pixel rates and low frame pixel counts) I think it is possible. You were working with more pixels than I intend to. I will use <30MBps out of the 48MBps with all the extra pixel readout going to vertical blanking for less rolling shutter.

I admit camera tracking for vfx might not be possible, but we will see, im hoping rolling shutter will be unnoticeable, i will at least do my best to minimize its effects and i think i can to a level where i can make movies with the camera .

Oscar Spierenburg · December 15th, 2005, 06:39 PM

Good luck and keep us posted (or: keep the posts coming). I'm very much interested in the this project and in the general concept of the usb2 or firewire CMOS heads. If anyone can comment on which specs to look out for, which camera types are generally usable.
I know now that the global shutter would be better, but does that effect the cost much?
I also see most of these usb CMOS cameras come with simple software to adjust main settings like frame rate and size, exposure and such. Would this software be sufficient for simple recording or is it strictly designed for industrial machine-vision/whatever it is used for?

EDIT: What's a half global shutter? mentioned on this page:http://www.lumenera.com/industrial/lu205.php

Oscar Spierenburg · December 17th, 2005, 01:31 PM

While waiting the results from Noah, I've been looking around on the web...would a camera head like this be any good? The price is not as high as I thought it would be.

Noah Yuan-Vogel · December 20th, 2005, 11:15 AM

I looked at pixellink's cameras as well. That looks like possibly the IBIS5 (im not aware of that many other 1280x1024 2/3" global cmos's that can do ~48MHz). I mean it might work but then so might sumix's usb version for $700 less. I dont know much about what kind of sdk pixellink provides. Sure does seem like there are only so many cameras out there that do what we want and even fewer sensors.

Wolfgang Neun · December 21st, 2005, 02:41 AM

Noah,

I'm very interested in your camera project.
May I start with a question (in fact, it's more than one)?
Why do you replace the uv/ir filter? Or do you add one? If yes do you place it in front of or behind the lens? Has it arrived yet and do you have pictures to compare? Is there a difference with or without the filter?

Thank you!
Wolfgang

Oscar Spierenburg · December 21st, 2005, 05:19 PM

Hey, about the rolling shutter, have you seen this ? (scroll down half way)
It says to 'almost' completely remove the rolling shutter artifact on pans and camera shakes. (not for fast moving objects though) It's designed for the HC1, but maybe it's worth a try.
This makes me wonder if there isn't a plug-in for AE, or other post software, to remove the artifact or hide it in a forced motion blur or something like that.

Noah Yuan-Vogel · January 2nd, 2006, 12:00 PM

Wolfgang
Well the camera came with a screw-in ir filter and i replaced that with a uv/ir filter that goes in front of the lens. I did this partly because i wasnt happy with the performance of the behind-the-lens filter, and it seemed to significantly affect the flange focal length in the c-mount (glass is thicker than air). There is a huge difference with or without one. With, the picture has color, without, the picture is basically monochrome, with inaccurate shading, and twice as bright. I must have some pictures around somewhere with the filter, lemme see what i can do. only problem is i only have internet now at an internet cafe and havent gotten to play with the camera at all in the past few weeks.

Wayne Morellini · January 2nd, 2006, 12:37 PM

Sounds interesting.

John Wyatt · January 4th, 2006, 04:39 PM

I'm following Noah's project closely because, although there have been several previous DIY uncompressed threads here using industrial/scientific cameras, their accumulated costs have still been beyond my reach. I'm sure I'm not alone in having checked out the manufacturers websites, got excited by the camera specs, then finally you get the quote and the dream is all over! For the first time I feel this USB camera is something I could actually afford to experiment with myself, which makes it of more than acedemic interest.

Noah, I checked out the Sumix site and the screenshots of the software look very comprehensive in personalising the camera/capture settings. Can you explain why it doesn't work well for film making?

Happy New Year all.
John.

Noah Yuan-Vogel · January 5th, 2006, 11:44 AM

As I think I mentioned a little bit, sumix's standard application doesnt have any really good way of recording video in a useful way. The options are record to avi and save to .smx (or something along those lines). saving to AVI records RGB AVI to hdd, debayering and saving video 3x the size of bayer video, this creates ridiculous hardware limitations since its hard enogh recording uncompressed bayer in real time let alone rgb. saving to .smx records bayer to memory and then saves that to a file. this isnt so bad but records only exactly the number of frames necessary to fill your RAM. These along with being forced to use a mouse and having to choose exposures in milliseconds using a slider and other unfriendly things, make it not the best interface for filmmaking. But perhaps it could be used, and they are things that can be improved upon considering the flexibility of the camera and the api.

Wayne Morellini · January 6th, 2006, 01:27 AM

I'm not upto this, but I have suggested in times past, making an Visual interface (Visual C/basic) that pipes commands (command line) to the capture program as if it was a plug-in. So now you have any interface and controls you wish, and th's shuttering. You are basically relying on the softwares Real-time programming, without redoing it yourself. If it works, big "if" then it should be relatively simple, taking a few days after you get to grips with everything needed to be done and understood about the programming process through commands line/piping (or whatever else is available) and the software itself.

To record the bayer, is it possible to save it as a 8 bit grey scale (or one channel) avi then interpret/convert it in the editor/trans-codec?

December 15th, 2005, 06:39 PM	#21
Oscar Spierenburg Major Player Join Date: Jan 2005 Location: (The Netherlands - Belgium) Posts: 735	Good luck and keep us posted (or: keep the posts coming). I'm very much interested in the this project and in the general concept of the usb2 or firewire CMOS heads. If anyone can comment on which specs to look out for, which camera types are generally usable. I know now that the global shutter would be better, but does that effect the cost much? I also see most of these usb CMOS cameras come with simple software to adjust main settings like frame rate and size, exposure and such. Would this software be sufficient for simple recording or is it strictly designed for industrial machine-vision/whatever it is used for? EDIT: What's a half global shutter? mentioned on this page:http://www.lumenera.com/industrial/lu205.php Last edited by Oscar Spierenburg; December 15th, 2005 at 07:22 PM.

December 17th, 2005, 01:31 PM	#22
Oscar Spierenburg Major Player Join Date: Jan 2005 Location: (The Netherlands - Belgium) Posts: 735	While waiting the results from Noah, I've been looking around on the web...would a camera head like this be any good? The price is not as high as I thought it would be. Last edited by Oscar Spierenburg; December 17th, 2005 at 03:11 PM.

January 4th, 2006, 04:39 PM	#28
John Wyatt Regular Crew Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: West Country, UK Posts: 141	Sumix software querry I'm following Noah's project closely because, although there have been several previous DIY uncompressed threads here using industrial/scientific cameras, their accumulated costs have still been beyond my reach. I'm sure I'm not alone in having checked out the manufacturers websites, got excited by the camera specs, then finally you get the quote and the dream is all over! For the first time I feel this USB camera is something I could actually afford to experiment with myself, which makes it of more than acedemic interest. Noah, I checked out the Sumix site and the screenshots of the software look very comprehensive in personalising the camera/capture settings. Can you explain why it doesn't work well for film making? Happy New Year all. John.

December 12th, 2005, 12:43 PM	#16
Noah Yuan-Vogel Major Player Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: New York City Posts: 613	I'm pretty sure drake was built from the ground up with a custom camera head and embedded hardware and whatnot, so its probably not even cameralink or usb, but i could be wrong. As for USB, I checked out silicon imaging and lumenera USB camera heads but they seemed to cost a lot more than sumix. Actually steve nordhauser from SI specifically told me usb didnt seem like a good way to do even 720p24 but ive generally been able to get 30+MBps (1536x864@24fps) over USB on my integrated VIA chispet (intel would be even better). As for other sumix cameras, someone on these forums was playing with their ibis5-based camera (150c) and had some interesting stuff to say about it. It probably wasnt as good for our purposes as drake's implementation of the chip. It appears to have bad color and poor light performance, whereas the m71 sounds great in low light but seems to have smearing so thats why i went with the m73. Theres always fast lenses and gain to improve light performance.

December 12th, 2005, 03:59 PM	#17
Obin Olson Trustee Join Date: Jan 2003 Location: Wilmington NC Posts: 1,414	I have had lots of time with that 3300 cmos chip, it will not work, the rolling shutter is no good for cinema production or VFX work. sorry, your doing the same thing I did months ago...

December 13th, 2005, 05:51 AM	#18
Oscar Spierenburg Major Player Join Date: Jan 2005 Location: (The Netherlands - Belgium) Posts: 735	That's bad news...So what effect does a rolling shutter have. Noah, did you already test it enough to see if it's any good?

December 15th, 2005, 11:55 AM	#20
Noah Yuan-Vogel Major Player Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: New York City Posts: 613	Ok guys, regarding rolling shutter, I've read most of what there is to say about it on these forums. Rolling shutter issues are not inherent to a sensor so much as to the frame time which is just controlled by framerate and blanking as i understand it. Obin, I know you've worked with this sensor, in fact I went with this camera partly due to your work with the 3300. I know you do not think this sensor is good for motion picture work, but from what I have seen, given significant vertical blanking (high pixel rates and low frame pixel counts) I think it is possible. You were working with more pixels than I intend to. I will use <30MBps out of the 48MBps with all the extra pixel readout going to vertical blanking for less rolling shutter. I admit camera tracking for vfx might not be possible, but we will see, im hoping rolling shutter will be unnoticeable, i will at least do my best to minimize its effects and i think i can to a level where i can make movies with the camera .

December 20th, 2005, 11:15 AM	#23
Noah Yuan-Vogel Major Player Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: New York City Posts: 613	I looked at pixellink's cameras as well. That looks like possibly the IBIS5 (im not aware of that many other 1280x1024 2/3" global cmos's that can do ~48MHz). I mean it might work but then so might sumix's usb version for $700 less. I dont know much about what kind of sdk pixellink provides. Sure does seem like there are only so many cameras out there that do what we want and even fewer sensors.

December 21st, 2005, 02:41 AM	#24
Wolfgang Neun New Boot Join Date: Sep 2004 Location: Germany Posts: 23	Noah, I'm very interested in your camera project. May I start with a question (in fact, it's more than one)? Why do you replace the uv/ir filter? Or do you add one? If yes do you place it in front of or behind the lens? Has it arrived yet and do you have pictures to compare? Is there a difference with or without the filter? Thank you! Wolfgang

December 21st, 2005, 05:19 PM	#25
Oscar Spierenburg Major Player Join Date: Jan 2005 Location: (The Netherlands - Belgium) Posts: 735	Hey, about the rolling shutter, have you seen this ? (scroll down half way) It says to 'almost' completely remove the rolling shutter artifact on pans and camera shakes. (not for fast moving objects though) It's designed for the HC1, but maybe it's worth a try. This makes me wonder if there isn't a plug-in for AE, or other post software, to remove the artifact or hide it in a forced motion blur or something like that.

January 2nd, 2006, 12:00 PM	#26
Noah Yuan-Vogel Major Player Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: New York City Posts: 613	Wolfgang Well the camera came with a screw-in ir filter and i replaced that with a uv/ir filter that goes in front of the lens. I did this partly because i wasnt happy with the performance of the behind-the-lens filter, and it seemed to significantly affect the flange focal length in the c-mount (glass is thicker than air). There is a huge difference with or without one. With, the picture has color, without, the picture is basically monochrome, with inaccurate shading, and twice as bright. I must have some pictures around somewhere with the filter, lemme see what i can do. only problem is i only have internet now at an internet cafe and havent gotten to play with the camera at all in the past few weeks.

January 2nd, 2006, 12:37 PM	#27
Wayne Morellini Inner Circle Join Date: May 2003 Location: Australia Posts: 2,762	Sounds interesting.

January 5th, 2006, 11:44 AM	#29
Noah Yuan-Vogel Major Player Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: New York City Posts: 613	As I think I mentioned a little bit, sumix's standard application doesnt have any really good way of recording video in a useful way. The options are record to avi and save to .smx (or something along those lines). saving to AVI records RGB AVI to hdd, debayering and saving video 3x the size of bayer video, this creates ridiculous hardware limitations since its hard enogh recording uncompressed bayer in real time let alone rgb. saving to .smx records bayer to memory and then saves that to a file. this isnt so bad but records only exactly the number of frames necessary to fill your RAM. These along with being forced to use a mouse and having to choose exposures in milliseconds using a slider and other unfriendly things, make it not the best interface for filmmaking. But perhaps it could be used, and they are things that can be improved upon considering the flexibility of the camera and the api.

January 6th, 2006, 01:27 AM	#30
Wayne Morellini Inner Circle Join Date: May 2003 Location: Australia Posts: 2,762	I'm not upto this, but I have suggested in times past, making an Visual interface (Visual C/basic) that pipes commands (command line) to the capture program as if it was a plug-in. So now you have any interface and controls you wish, and th's shuttering. You are basically relying on the softwares Real-time programming, without redoing it yourself. If it works, big "if" then it should be relatively simple, taking a few days after you get to grips with everything needed to be done and understood about the programming process through commands line/piping (or whatever else is available) and the software itself. To record the bayer, is it possible to save it as a 8 bit grey scale (or one channel) avi then interpret/convert it in the editor/trans-codec?