Digitoids: A Work in Progress #004

Well, in my 'spare' time I'm continuing to find my way around Cinema 4D. Keen readers will remember I bought the full 'Studio' edition earlier in the year and that I recently upgraded to the latest r16 version too.

As for the subject matter: I was playing around with this Digitoids concept a few years back, possibly as a stop motion / After Effects hybrid, but I'm now trying out this CGI / After Effects technique instead.

Just to try something new, I decided I would post updates of this project from time to time as I go along. So once evry few days I am replacing the file on Vimeo to show a continually evolving 'Work in Progress.' For anyone that wants to see how the work is progressing, click by here again soon and hopefully you will see the clip move on a little.

Sumix 150M industrial camera tests again.

camera Sumix 150M, c-mount Fujinon TV zoom lens f1.8 17.5-105mm

Working late in the lab again tonight trying to see if my old Sumix 150M industrial camera can be used as a webcam (for an interview request), but it doesn't look like it can be. I bought this off ebay years ago; it's a curious little camera module for scientific/industrial uses. The Sumix 150M can shoot stills or video at up to 1280x1024 size; but only in monochrome. The Sumix camera capture software has lots of controls that you just don't get with consumer oriented gear. 

Also, the camera can take C-mount lenses and I was intrigued by the macro possibilities of the camera using some extension tubes. My goal was to try to capture frame by frame 8mm cine images from the gate of my cine projector, now that I look at it again, I wonder if that might be worth another try...

For all it's specifications though, I don't think it'll work with Skype...

Anyway, below are some test captures I made with the camera back in the day. Mostly macro photos using more and more extension tubes until I got down to the required 5mm or so image size of the 8mm film frames. I gave up with the super 8 capture experiments, but I did end up using this strange camera to shoot all of the stop motion elements for my film TXT ISLAND.

The camera is tethered to the PC by USB, so only able to take pictures of things nearby!
camera Sumix 150M, c-mount 50mm lens with extension tubes.

With a few extension tubes, macro photography becomes possible.

Some desktop clutter, surprisingly sharp.

Using rulers to show scale here.

And in we go until our image is 5mm wide.

An actual super8 frame.

Another actual super8 frame.

DIY Circular Camera Slider First Test

Here are some first test shots using a DIY Circular camera slider made from a 14 inch 'Lazy Susan' bearing. DSLR camera Canon 600D.

Conclusions... A much larger diameter bearing would be more useful, but this one could be quite handy for macro shots.

Technicolor Cinestyle for Canon DSLRs

I was out shooting some tests with the new Canon 600D DSLR camera this weekend. I'm pitching on a project with an idea to use both the stills and HD movies functions of this camera combined.



I shot the movie tests using the recently-announced Technicolor CineStyle colour profile.

CineStyle is available as a free download for the Canon DSLR users. You install the software to your camera using the Canon Photo Professional software as one of your preference profiles, then shoot your movies using this setting. The results are dull-looking and initially unimpressive; but the theory is that with this setting, there will be much-increased dynamic range retained in the images. The idea here is to shoot the best most versatile footage, then use the increased range to grade it later in post to achieve the desired look.

Here's one of my early test shots. This clip shows (with lots of YouTube compression of course) a clip shot with the Technicolor CineStyle profile... dull and grey looking. The clip was then brought into Adobe After Effects CS3 for some saturation and curves.



Initial tests are positive, I'll hopefully be able to post some further examples and more findings here soon. I've only had this camera since Friday, but I'm hugely impressed with what it can do already.

Top Secret Test

This is a test movie I made and uploaded to YouTube. It's private though, so you can't see it!

World's Most Awesomest Police Video (animation)

Well, I've been known to stay up late watching whatever captivating nonsense appears on our Freeview channels. I've noticed a whole genre of police chase action videos. The US ones are especially intriguing, blending a thrill-seeking voyeurism with a moralistic 'crime never pays' narrative. I'm really quite attracted to this idea of TV trying to have its cake and eat it too. Here's my little pastiche/tribute to the genre.

Little Flash Test Thing

Well I snatched a little moment at the end of this royal wedding bank holiday weekend to do a bit of my thing. I genuinely don't know what this is all about, but I sat down with Flash and here's what popped out...

Motion Control Rotations

A couple of the many rotating objects I've been shooting for my latest CanonGate Books short film. As described in the earlier post, I'm using a geared down stepper motor which can be controlled from my PC (using a Stepper Bee motor controller card).

My initial plan was to shoot these all these rotations as stop motion, but with motor control and the Canon 550D's HD video recording, I was presented with the opportunity to shoot these as continuous live-action. I set the motor to do just over a full rotation at quite a slow speed, knowing that I'd be able to edit and time remap the footage later... This simple rig works pretty well; super-smooth results and a bunch of time saved.

Adventures in DIY: Motion Control Rig

For the next stop motion short film I'm currently making for Canongate Books, I found that I needed to shoot accurate rotations of many small three dimensional objects. This seemed like a good application for the geared stepper motor and Stepper Bee controller board that I've had lying around since my long-abandoned DIY film scanning project.

I dug the bits out, rigged up a small stand to hold a bearing and (after a bit of fiddling about with O-rings) the stepper motor drives an 8mm threaded shaft that I can attach my objects to. The stepper motor already enables pretty fine control (it's rate at 1.8 degrees per step) but with the gearing still attached, it actually takes around 700 steps to perform a full rotation.

The AutoStep software that comes with the Stepper Bee card is pretty basic but allows me to set the number of steps and duration of each step.

It all works a treat, I can shoot the rotating objects in single steps (for stop motion shooting) or allow the motor to run continuously at a controlled speed (for live action shooting).

Technically this IS motion control, albeit a simplified single motor rotation-only motion control.
Here's the rig...

DIY Motion Control Rig: Stepper motor drives gears then an o-ring drives 8mm threaded shaft. Note the Stepper Bee card with DC power cable and USB cable to host PC.