Definitely!
I've already put a bid on a cheap c mount lens just for tests :)

I really want a groundglass solution. I do photography with an Canon 20D camera and have a few real good lenses that would be real cool to use with the Elphel.

I need to read up on macro lenses & how to make a simple solution to focus on the ground glass...any ideas Andrey? ..or know of a good site that I should have a look at?

The EOS mount part & groundglass is pretty much solved via the info at http://www.jetsetmodels.info

I'm sure you can find more info on it even in this forum, but if I had to build something like that I would use two standard lenses on the camera side, not just one. The closest one to the camera (1/2", C/CS-mount), let's say, f=5mm, the second one - five time longer - f=25mm (perfect ratio you can get as a ratio of a 35mm frame size to the sensor size). The first lens will go to the camera thread in normal way, the second - attached other way - facing outer side (designed for infinity) to the first lens. This second lens should be a 35mm format - the ground glass will be on it's back side. Maybe it is better to start with somewhat longer focal lengths, some 8-12mm for the first one and proportionally more - for the second one.

Such arrangement will reduce aberrations - each lens is used as it is is designed to - one side - to infinity, other - to an object in focal plane. That might turn out to be important as I think most ground glass adapters were designed for camcorders, not for the high definition (forgive me if I'm wrong - I am not an expert in this area).

The space between faces of 2 lenses is an ideal place for an IR filter - we tried to use it as thin as possible (t=0.3mm), but still spherical aberrations introduced by a glass plate can be eliminated completely if the filter is in the parallel beam.

I'll be able to test this... because I broke my IR filter. I'm very curious if it'll get better results. I'm rebuilding/improving my 35mm adapter right now, so I can choose/experiment where to put the IR filter.

Odd, I'm using a microcrystalline wax screen. I prefer this because of it's image character and lack of electronic parts (no power needed)
A normal (non moving) ground glass would be far to grainy for a high resolution camera. Also, a moving ground glass, can also get a small movement in and out of the focal plane and blur the image a bit.

Do they use ultrasound actuators to vibrate the ground glass too?

Or maybe it is possible to use running waves (probably surface ones as compression one will have too high frequency for required wavelengths)?

Andrey... and others, this doesn't seem so different than the one I've made: http://www.pstechnik.de/en/digitalfi...viewfinder.php
It seems that my optical viewfinder will also prove to be perfect for focusing, but I can only check when I can compare with HD footage from the Elphel, focusing on a focus pattern.

Now, can anyone tell me how a viewfinder extension works? it shouldn't be to complicated. Could it be home-made?

(I've finished my Elphel rod support. I'll post pictures tomorrow.)

Here just an update. I nearly finished a rod support suitable for the Elphel and all the things that need to be attached from time to time, like the 35mm adapter and bigger lenses than normal cs-mount ones.
Here is a picture of the support and the new version I'm making for the 35mm adapter (need to make a smaller (still 35mm) wax screen for this one)

Great Oscar
 

Dear Oscar hat is tooo god to be true,
since I'm here I've been fighting, crying that rails withe lenses, compendium and a REAL viewfinder are needed as you have to look thru the lens and with the other eye the scene what ever it will be to have a re true feeling of film making and get the right focus the lens.. Sorry sounds better than sex !!!
A digital poor mans Arri is finally arriving. Exit to fiddle around with diva like used 16 mm equipment. Wow.
Dear Oscar is there any way that me
OT !!!!!!!
now Régine, since years,yes I've been Intersex just the day born; so now a petite blonde with brains but
Ot End ......
still film making and a Linux geek can build with more then two left hands quite good home tools such a beauty.
What about how to do guide for bonafide idiots.

You did exactly what is needed out in the field.
Pump it in a smallish 104 Pc with big disks, Cinarella and co will do the rest.
A Gnu project of impact not seen every day.
I' m fascinated and dreaming a great Forum.

Elphel 353 availability
 

Hi all,

Can anyone tell me how to buy an elphel 353 ?
Is it already available for sale ?

Thanks,

MGC

Ronald, thanks for you kind, but... strange words. I guess I know what you mean, and I am encouraged.
I really like combining the 'best of the old' and 'the best of the new'. One should respect traditional technology.

Marie, you should contact Andrey Filippov at Elphel to buy a camera. http://www3.elphel.com/en/contacts

About Elphel 353
 

Hi all,

What are the real specifications of the elphel 353 ?

Can i shoot at 24/30 fps with a 2K resolution ?

MGC

Marie, I don't know yet, the wiki says they tested 1920x1072 video at 24 FPS.

I was discussing the rolling shutter artifact with Andrey and Daniel. I never really tried virtualDub deshaker, but my first tests (with older 333 footage) was pretty good.

Before and after deshaker
I just thought I'd post it here. In my opinion, the effect isn't a big issue when you bear it in mind while filming (use a tripod, don't do fast panning etc.).
Hand held filming is not really an option with the current Elphel models, for me that's no problem.
If people have thought on this, lets discuss it.

Oscar's Viewfinder and External pulse control
 

Oscar, it looks like you've accomplished a lot with your camera. Well done!

Since it appears that you are working with a beamsplitter block or plate between your OVF and the camera silicon, I'm wondering how you are collimating the OVF to assure that your eye and the silicon are at the same plane of focus. Do you have a varifocal OVF, and have you been testing it against a target? Not a point of criticism, I'm just curious.

I ask because I have an old 16mm Kinoptic orientable VF from an Eclair ACL that I may attempt do something similar with.

Andre: Will the 353 take an external TTL pulse control?

That will be a part of the 10369 board I'm working on now. It has a 4-pin modular (like telephone) connector for sync I/O (with the optocoupler, nominal 5V input). It will be possible to wire multiple cameras and get precise lock (to a pixel period).

Andrey

Thanks for your feedback Andrey!
..it made me realize two things:

1. What you said is what I need to do.
2. I need to get the harddrive to work, get used to manual focus, make a gui that works for me...and THEN think about a ground glass solution ;)

I got my lens today and now I'm learning the camera...exciting!!

Odd,

there is a cool program (mostly FPGA code) in the last software (7.1.7.11) on Sourceforge for focusing. I believe it is useful and fun to play with.

Andrey

Brandt, I've made the VF adjustable (making sure I it's roughly in the same range of the sensors focal point.) I've just began comparing the picture from the sensor with the image in the VF. The eyepiece lens will capture the final image (functioning in a way as the focal plane) so I can ultimately fine adjust the focal point with the eyepiece. There is also a rough adjustment possible in the 'flipping' tube part.

It would be a very nice starting point, but I choose for the 8mm camera VF, because the sensor size is nearly the same. You'll have to find a way to 'zoom' into the 16mm image to match the sensors image.

One other thing I'm working on is a viewfinder extension, making it easier to look through the VF. If possible, I'd make a separate extension, which flips the image again, so I'd see the 35mm adapters image right way up. I'm consigned about the light loss though...

...I'm very anxious to play with that new feature, Andrey. I think it'll prove to be a perfect combination with the optical viewfinder.

Oscar, it now combines two things - destructive (embedded into image) visualization of what the program is looking for (on the screenshot you can see - the brighter - the more high-frequency components are in each 8x8 pixel block. When you have foreground, background (and many in between, like with your lens adapter) you will see highlighted the features you focus on.
Other (green diagram) shows the total amount of hi-frequency components in the WOI regardless of if the image shows the focusing window, or not. Current value is displayed at the bottom as a horizontal line, the whole image moves up so you can see the history.

With USB port in the camera it is possible to attach audio output and provide different pitch tone dependent on that value :-)

The visualization will later be non-destructive, it will be output as one of the options for the low-res viewfinder DMA channel independently of the main images.

Andery

For anyone who isnt bold enough to build your own optical viewfinder...
..maybe this would be of interest:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll....cWAT.m240.lVI

Similar can be found by looking for "pan cine" or "VIEW LEG" or "ANGENIEUX"

I might get one myself...was about to bid on the above one but decided to wait until I'm sure that's the route for me...

//O.

Odd, interesting post. I was looking into those lenses myself recently.
In my opinion, an Elphel(+hard disk) with OVF(optical viewfinder) and a simple focus assistant in the software on a mobile controller... all powered by a 12v battery.. will be the best option available for us the coming months(?)
If this workable setup is ready, we can go on improving it, but I think it is the way to go.

Excellent! I'd love to try it out but my apple cinedisplay cant display 640x480 resolution...or rather my Nvidia card cant drive the display properly with lower res...and that means that all text when I boot the live CD (just like the bios boot text) isnt visible...all I get is a black screen. Thanks Nvidia...

..so is there any other way to upgrade the camera software...using win xp?
(I really need to sort out a linux partition)

12v?! you got a modified elphel?? ...or have you found a way to solve the 48v problem...?

Also - do you have an elphel with a running harddrive yet? Im about to buy a harddrive and will add the zif extension board to the elphel as soon as I got the drive and a proper casing...

Odd,

Maybe you can find some other computer around? I tried to support reflashing of Axis processors for WIndows at the beginning, but it was really difficult - required WinPCap library kept changing (loosing compatibility with my software) and different Windows (W95, W2K) also were not compatible to each other so I gave up.

It will also be useful if you can post on our wiki - what type of the computer did not work with the Live DVD.

You may also search for "knoppix cheat codes" or "knoppix + your_computer" -- sometimes it is possible to make it work just by adding the proper command line at boot prompt.


Andrey

Hmmm I've got two screens with my machine but none of them work in text mode...I'll try this cheap flat screen tv I got...think its got a vga input.

I truly understand...in short - windows sucks.
I wouldnt use it if I wasnt forced to while I work.
(need certain software)

Once I've found out why I dont get any text mode on my screen and a possible workaround - I'll definitely post it.

Hmm good idea...maybe I can make some kind of config file with the drivers & resolution I need it to start with. I'll look into that in case my cheap tv doesent work. I'll see how it goes...now - time for sleep. 1:30am here ;)

I'll let you know how it goes!!

Not really(my 333 is 12v), but Andrey spoke about a voltage doubler-kind- of device, so I was more or less pointing out the possibilities in the near future.

I have the hard-drive right here, I just need to put everything together, because I was building the OVF and the hard-drive needs a custom made body. I'll do that next week or so.

Edit... time to sleep too... 2:30 AM over here! :|

Ah! I see...I was very excited thee for a second ;)

Cool - let us know when its up n running!! :)

You can get 48v from 12v quite easily, there is various electronical component designed for that (48v phantom powered mic anyone ? There is lot of sound card powered from usb offering that feature).

Check this link (in french, sorry) for various solutions :
http://www.sonelec-musique.com/elect...s_phantom.html

The problem is the elphel's power consumption and if those components support it.

Yeah I'm afraid that may be the core problem...
..from what I've seen most of the 48v phantom power audio gear only supplies around 10mA or so...while according to Andrey the Elphel would need the power from two USB ports...so in other words (500ma/USB port) it sounds like 10mA would be less than a tenth what is needed.

Maybe Andrey could enlighten us?

In my camera I use the integrated PC's power supply to run a 12v 7" LCD.

You can get 12v from a pc power supply. (the yellow and black end on molex)

If you remove the board out of the PSU body its pretty small. About 3x4 inches or so. Be sure to cool it, I have an intake fan on the camera body cooling the PSU. Oh, there are also fanless PSUs but they are expensive. Make sure you have enough watts to power all the components.

Do at your own risk. Im no electrician, and its best to consult Andrey.


Odd,
Did my suggestion work for you? Did you ever get your pc to boot the live cd?

Hi Daniel!

Thanks for the suggestions Daniel...it turned out I didnt need to give knoppix any kind of command (although I appreciated the moral support)...I just had to switch my secondary 160USD screen into the main DVI socket used by my 900USD screen...apparently the cheap one could do text mode while the apple one could not. Fun. ;) - never underestimate the power of cheap OEM gear :D

Regarding the power issue...there are battery powered 48v power supplies made for powering microphones...but they seem to be all to weak to run the Elphel...too bad. It would be cool to be proven wrong.

Who made this ?
 

hi there,

i found this picture on the elphel wiki.

Who made this picture ?
Is there a sample clip of this shot available ?

cheers,

Marie Guillaume

Thats a clip from a short film I shot with the 333.

That scene was shot in two locations, the location in the picture is not used in the current edit. The film is currently in post-production.

I don't have any videos to share at the moment.

Another thread was started some days ago about the Elphel image quality. How about posting everything about image sharpness, color and compression over there?
http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=114676

Sumix vs Elphel...
 

Hi there,

Did anyone try the last revision of the Sumix Camera 12A2C ?

Is it good for HD shooting ?

Cheers,

Marie Guillaume

Hi to all yesterday I was looking through the web and I've seen this:
http://www.alt-vision.com/pdf/HanVis...O-14M%20DS.pdf
it use a foveon 4.5mp aps-c 3layer technology (14mp) and can produce 1280x720 at 19.2 frame at second so if we want to have a cinemascope 2.35:1
camera at 1280 x 545 we will have more or less 30frame /sec
I've seen the power and the limits of that sensor (I'm thinking to buy a new sigma DP1 camera http://www.sigma-dp1.com/) and the color rendition /dynamic range is amazing.... it will only need good light because it is not a bayer pattern cmos sensor and because the camera that use it with lens cost 800$ maybe it is not too expansive to adapt it for the elphel 353 that have all the power to use it at the max! here are some link of the video that the sigma dp1 p&s camera is able to do 320x240 :
http://www.rytterfalk.com/movie/4.AVI
http://www.rytterfalk.com/movie/1.AVI
http://www.rytterfalk.com/movie/2.AVI
http://www.rytterfalk.com/movie/3.AVI
http://www.rytterfalk.com/movie/5.AVI

I also love all Foveon sensors. They can produce amazing images full of colour and detail, but they have serious problems delivering enough fps for our purposes. You say it cannot give more than 19fps at 1280x720... Did you check if it can be rescaled to 1280x545 and if that resolution would actually give something close to 25 or 30fps? Because we're talking about the lower limits of HD here and when you go to foveon website and check the sensors specs it says 27fps at VGA res. That's quite small.

I wonder why CMOS developers don't create a cinema 35mm sized 1080p 30fps sensor (or even 720p). It wouldn't be hard to do at all. They're actually building them smaller, which is also harder to do. I mean, bigger pixel size would lead to more light and less noise, bigger sensors would lead to that DOF we're all looking for. But I guess they believe that kind of sensors have little or no market at all. Or maybe they'd be easier to build but also more expensive, because of the size.

Well... If Foveon released such sensor... Then it would be just perfect for all of us.

Nothing new
 

so quiet now

Sumix Ephel
 

There is so much buzz in the Sumix thread,
but you have to have streampix running on Windows
and as compression is software you need a fast laptop,
a real fast one, you a nuclear power device to be
portable or a small robot aside to have all that batterie power
shooting in the real-world.

Ephel does all in silicon, for me she wins hands down
But why no new on her here.

With a lens with an viewfinder she could be fine,
some smallish 104 or whatever board some smallish disk
maybe running a fast Linux and some goodies, Colour balance etc et voila

I'm sorry to say it and the last thing I want is a fight between Elphel supporters and Sumix fans, but the Sumix cam has many advantages compared to the Elphel. First of all, it has GigE interface, so bandwidth is not a problem. It shoots uncompressed 12bit, uncompressed 8bit and lossless compressed 8bit (hardware compression) in FullHD up to 60p. You just need StreamPix if you want to record directly to Cineform and there are a few projects already running to create free software exclusively for filmmaking purposes. It also has a larger CMOS, so you don't need an adaptor to have a DOF close to 35mm film.

I've always been a supporter of the Elphel. It was the first affordable camera to offer a real solution for people who wanted something different and closer to film, but I have to say it needs a radical change if it wants to be able to compete with other (better) options.

From here I encourage the Elphel guys to improve their cam so it can really be a great option if you want to shoot digital cinema. The key?? FullHD, at least 30fps and the most important feature: 1" or 35mm sized sensor. Offer that camera below $3000 and you'll have a huge number of happy customers.