OK, here is a new approach to the 35mm adapter + Elphel camera + PC

If you take a look at the camera parts, there is a flexible connection between the sensor board and the main board. This makes it easy to put the camera body at a 45° angle to the sensor/lens.

I'm working on rod support now... I'll post some stuff later.
All comments are welcome.

Here is a better explained image with a basic rod support setup. I haven't figured out how to mount the camera and PC yet. Tripod support would be somewhere in the middle.

Wow, this look great. I've tried to search this conversation to see what PC are you going to plug into this, and what software are you using to control the camera, sorry if you've already post this, but could you please give some details?

Hi Ivan,

It's just a simple 7" tablet-PC version of a netbook. Every EEPC that runs on Ubuntu/Linux is also suitable, but the tablet and touchscreen function on this netbook is pretty desirable.
I have a French version ( WeSurf ) of the Clevo running on Ubuntu.

Come to think of it.... this PC has also a Portrait / Landscape function, that auto-rotates the monitor image 90°.
It'll probably save more space when I put the laptop on it's side. I'll try it in the 3d model.

UPDATE: Added rod support and PC in "portrait position"
All comments welcome again... :)

Wow, great progress Oscar.

I think 4 rods are definitely the way to go as you can easily attach microphones, etc on the top rods.

Would it be possible with your setup to also shoot from the shoulder and have the laptop mounted at a side?

Thanks a lot for the info.

But according to DP advises, when shooting in HD and using a 35mm adapter, focus is really critical. I wonder if the max resolution of your touchscreen (800x480) is enough for that or it'll be better to have a higher resolution screen (720p or something).

About your rod support it looks great but I'm looking for your 3d model for a typical shoulder mount position...

I don't think that a full resolution monitor is required to judge the image (sharpness).

Sony (and maybe others as well) does something called "peaking" to visualize image areas that are in perfect focus.

This basically looks like colored lines around sharp objects:
http://scubavideo.de/wp-content/uplo...peaking_on.jpg

This is done with image areas of high frequency information. Luckily this frequency information is available inside Elphel cameras as it is a byproduct of mjpeg compression. Now we just need to overlay this on a live image somehow.

This is the way to go. Those EEEPC's are relatively slow and real time preview is not yet evident on a slow PC. So we will possibly end up framing on a small (but live) image on the PC and focusing with the "peaking" method. That's why I'm going with the PC on its side now.

I think we should take this step by step. Right now, the camera has a rolling shutter artifact that makes handheld shooting difficult. I'm not saying it's impossible though, but I'd think about a steadycam setup more than a shoulder mount.

But I'll look at the dimensions in the 3d model and see where the shoulder mount should be. Probably still behind the PC, so we don't need to put the PC on the side (which would makes it hard to balance)

what about migrating to a Spartan-6 architecture with a soft core, microblaze or the like?

Spartan 6, yes, but in the current camera the CPU is a bottleneck. So upgrading FPGA will need upgrading CPU also. So I want it to be much faster than softcore and have all of the peripherals I need too.

That's the idea, using the Spartan to receive and send the image data, bypassing the CPU as much as possible, leaving the softcore (microblaze or better yet some open source one) to manage the strictly necessary, like passing settings to the CMOS sensor, etc,etc.

Updated the wiki: HD cinema camera Development FAQ - ElphelWiki

Camera GUI
 

I started working on the cameras screen interface concept.

The nice thing is that this does not require any additional hardware, just some webprogramming and will run directly inside fullscreen firefox.


Here is how other folks do it:

http://www.hdforindies.com/uploaded_...ain-782743.jpg
http://provideocoalition.com/images/...s/DSC_0639.jpg
http://www.thehighwaymanmovie.com/im...onitor1850.jpg

Detailed plans how I want to technically approach this:
-) the main video window is running gecko media player (a firefox plugin that embedds mplayer)
-) the interface around it are 4 java applets (good for realtime drawing)


VLC could also be used for the video window (cross platform compatible) but so far I was not able to overlay anything on top of a VLC video and I was not able to turn off caching in VLC which results in a short delay in the live video stream.


The concept for the layout implies that you (the camera operator) use your right hand to move the tripod handle and your left hand to operate the touchscreen. Thats why the controls are on the left handside of the screen.


Now please find me more images of other manufacturers screen designs and give feedback!

This is really starting to look 'ideal' Sebastian!
I hope a slower PC can stream real time/full screen... what do you think?
One note: The design I'm making now uses the tablet PC on it's side (portrait) Would your interface be auto-scalable when you have a low res screen? Maybe it's an idea to have the HDD file browser bellow the controls, so you see them when you use a PC in portrait mode.
Tomorrow I'll make an example of what I mean.

Great work!