Cameras

Imagine covering an event with almost two hundred and fifty cameras.. What strikes me about this article is that although hundreds of cameras will be used there is no mention of how many of these cameras will be operated by human beings rather than automated, or locked off to get a specific shot of a specific moment.

They also don’t mention how it will be vision mixed. If you have 250 cameras to watch, that’s a lot of attention to keep an eye on all the shot values. I’d expect AI to help during live vision mixing.

Recently Apple shot its entire keynote on their most expensive mobile phone. Whilst this sounds fantastic and empowering, it isn’t. In my eyes this is a marketing gimmick and a sad commentary on the state of video production today.

Video as Art

Video is an art. Video is a creative pursuit. If you use an iphone to film a keynote then you do show that the cameras are high quality. This is available at a cost of 1750 CHF for the 1 terabyte iphone 15 Pro Max. That’s a lot of money for a phone that you can’t drop, without breaking the front or back pieces of glass. That’s 1750 CHF for a camera where you can’t swap the battery if you run out of juice. That’s 1750 CHF for a camera that doesn’t have a proper lense on the front.

The Insta 360 Nano and Air are two affordable cameras. The first is designed to work with the new iPhone shape as well as a stand alone device. The Insta360 Air works only when it is plugged into an Android device. Both are good for specific uses.

Insta360 Air

The Insta360 Air requests a firmware update the first time you want to use it. This takes a few minutes and then the device uses the phone’s gyroscopes to keep the image stable. On the Via Ferrata I climbed this weekend I used the insta360 Air and Xperia Z5compact phone to take one or two landscape pictures. In these images you can look up at the cliff, look across at the landscape or look down at how far from the ground I am. This is a nice way of giving people a feel for what it is like to practice Via Ferrata. For the use of this system, it is good to have both hands free. [vrview img=“https://www.main-vision.com/richard/blog/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/export_1496508048682-1.jpg” width=“500” height=“500” ] Use the mouse/trackpad to rotate the image

So far this year I have been cycling for 680 km in 33hrs with a height gain of 6800 meters. In this time I have used my narrative clip 2 device to document the ride with a picture every 10-30 seconds as I want to focus on riding rather than other things. I like to have as high a moving time as possible so I usually stop once I get back to my starting point. By cycling I see the landscape at a slower, more interesting speed. I see the roads, I smell the vegetation, I feel the heat and I feel the cold. I also discover small paths that I would not take in a car or on a scooter. In practicing this sport I get to know the landscape. I also get to see seasonal changes. This year I have cycled in the rain, in the snow, in the wind and on days like today. Today it was sunny and there was no wind to fight against. It made the ride more pleasant. The technology I took on today’s ride was my narrative clip 2 to take pictures of the bike ride, my Crosscall Odyssey+ phone, the Cateye Evo+ and finally the Suunto Ambit 3. I also took the Ricoh Theta S but never stopped to take pictures. For future rides I should fix it to the handle bars. I could bring you with me on my next bike ride. Of course I would keep just the interesting bits of the ride. I can throw away the rest.

Tony Tremblay - 28th of Nov, 2016

Made a 360 degrees portrait page on facebook https://www.facebook.com/Portrait360-112660985877101/ amazing little camera

I was in Spain with the Ricoh Theta S last week so I took the opportunity to experiment with the Ricoh Theta S in a number of locations. What I like about such a device is that it takes a click to get pictures. I experimented with a manfrotto monopod and a smaller monopod. The Manfrotto base was clearly visible in shots so the immersive experience is degraded. With the smaller monopod the base is the same width as that of the camera. This means that at least the support was hidden.

Behind the Scenes: Record from The Lincoln Motor Company on Vimeo.

I love the idea of putting a small camera on an object and filming event from that perspective. The idea of putting a gopro on a record is an interesting one. With the size of technology today you’d expect this to be simple to do. I was disappointed to see that what they did for this video clip was to build a camera rig for a Red Epic and get the camera to spin. The second fallacy is the amount of time for which the record is speeding at “normal speed”. The image is blurred for too long before it goes to slow motion images. By that time I pressed pause and looked at the making of. As a person who loves the documentary genre and cinema verité this manufactured reality feels like a cheap lie rather than innovative experimentation.

Sony Professional: NAB 2013 - Introducing the new PMW-400 camcorder from Sony Professional Europe on Vimeo.

Two minutes in to this video there is a demonstration of the wireless options available with the PMW range of cameras. While filming you have remote monitoring. You can also send the data to your servers for editing.

The month is almost over and I’ve got fourty megabytes of streaming left to play with so I’m going to take advantage of that with my mobile phone. Since cities around Switzerland are covered by 3g you may find that I’m using Qik, Bambuser and Flixwagon to stream what I’m doing. Today I actually got Flixwagon to stream live over wifi which is better than i got yesterday and I found that streaming via qik works well on 3g. In less than a hundred days you’ll have big crowds of people in the streets and that’s going to be for the European cup. If enough bars and squares have wifi then you could get the fans streaming their reactions live from the pub. It’s the Vertovian vision, the All Seeing eye, and it’s a reality, no longer just a 1920’s eutopian vision.

richard - Apr 6, 2008

Thanks for that. I had been wondering about that for a while.