At times you find yourself in a situation where you need to know where the sun will be at a given time. It might be that you need to film a sunrise, simply to know when the light starts in an unknown location, or to calculate shadows.

On a Mac or Windows machine, there is a $87 program called SunPath, which holds information for about 40.000 locations world wide. If you have an internet connection, you can also go to Sunposition.info, which will draw a nice map of the sun’s position,  or use the Sun tools on timeanddate.com, which offers a variety of tools:

• Astronomical Twilight Starts/Ends
• Nautical Twilight Starts/Ends
• Civil Twilight Starts/Ends
• Sunrise and Sunset
• Sunrise and Sunset Azimuth
• Length of day
• Solar noon at time/altitude/distance

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Take Several Shots at Once With multiple eyes—Adobe’s prototype has 19—the light-field camera is even more perceptive. Each of its lenses is faced with a prism set at a unique angle, so it can take 19 pictures simultaneously, with each capturing a different part of the scene in focus. Each image uses a piece of the sensor, so a 100-megapixel camera will yield 19 5.2-megapixel shots.

Fill in the Blanks But the process doesn’t stop there. Adobe software can analyze the 19 captured photos and from them generate thousands of intermediate images so that each shot seamlessly morphs into those adjacent. Then images are layered, like thin sections, producing a three-dimensional simulation of the scene in which every piece of it is in focus.

Paint in Your Focus Because a light-field photograph is dynamic—virtually three-dimensional—focus can be selectively painted in with a “focus brush,” allowing the photographer to bring details from both foreground and background into focus—something that’s currently impossible in a single photo. Or future online photo sites could let viewers manipulate a photo’s focus as they choose.

(Excerpt from PopSci.com.)

As a former Focus Puller I find this very exciting, as the technology proposes to give the director so much more freedom in post. Ultimately, it will help to tell the story, and that is what camerawork should be all about. But also from a technical side, it appears that the age-old connection between aperture and depth-of-field ceases to exist. I can only begin to imagine the plethora of new creative uses this lens throws towards us camerapeople.

HD will feel like home movies

In stills photography, resolution has quickly increased from a mere 250.000 pixel to two-digit megapixels. The video world has been much more conservative. Until a few years back, there was only SD, which has about 1/4 megapixels. HD is just now starting to catch on, which delivers roughtly between 3/4 and under 2 megapixels. But already now, some camera producers are pushing forward with 2k and even higher resolutions. But my guess is that 4k will only the beginning.After having gotten used to DVD quality, old VHS films are almost painful to watch. Looks like the same will happen to HD in the not-too-far future…

Good for the ops

For an camera operator, the biggest handicap with the modern cameras are their viewfinders, which simply do not show all of the resolution that camera records. The Red One for example, shows the operator only a fraction of the total resolution. Which means that the operator can never be sure in critical focus situations. Now that Adobe Lens would relieve us from one worry.Now, for the career Focus Puller this does pose some trouble. That title might just fade out, and revert to “1st AC”. But I would suggest to learn more about the new workflows around digital acquisition, and I am sure there will always be enough work in the camera dep´t.

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Sony / Panavision

It will be exciting to see how the big guys are going to react to the Red One camera. I would hope for an affordable 2k shoulder-mount camera, that supports higher frame rates, and has interchangeable lenses. Competitively priced against the Red. Sort of a Red light for ENG work.

Red

Red is a master of hype, and this NAB looks like Red might just steal the show again. They have announced 3 big and 3 minor news. With only a little bit of foundation, I will do some wild guessing as to what they might be

Majors

1. A palm sized 4k camera. This has already been announced, but none of the details are out. I would imagine that it is either a slightly downsized Red One camera, meaning aimed at the professional market. Or it could just be a more consumer-friendly priced camera, something for the video enthusiast.
2. 4k projector. Its been rumored a long time that Red would produce their own affordable solution for viewing 4k. With that in mind, it gives an extra layer to view the recently published Mythbuster video on Red.
3. This is the most mysterious one. Some suggest a time-reversal machine. I would guess that it could have something to do with the handling/archival of digital files. Harddisks are unreliable for long-term storage, DLT a bit cumbersome. At the same time, lack of a good archival system for file-based cinematography has been holding its development back.

Minors

1. Direct support for FCP, Avid, Premiere. Since Apple is not having a stand this year, we know that there won’t be a new Final Cut Pro/Studio coming out.
2. Red One Build 16. Greater colours, higher frame rates. But a faster boot-up time will come at a later time.
3. Optical viewfinder. PS Technik in Germany has already announced one, but wouldn’t it be great if Red had that option built-in?

The others

Will be interesting to see when other battery technologies become viable.There will be some new solutions for the tapeless workflow in post production.I guess also the tendency is that the workload shifts from the set to the post production. Adobe is just one of many players here, but they have come up with a very exciting concept around focus/depth of field:

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And here a little clip for the week-end. Test your awareness:

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And the the RED EVF weighs 2.4 pounds, or 1090 gram.

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Games and cameras

The early computer games were static, 2D. A bit later on came scrolling games, still two-dimensional. Next came the 3D wave (and I remember some games even claiming to be 4D; maily because movement was said to be a dimension in itself). And even later the addition that the player could control the camera, often having features where you could view your previous game from pretty much any position. Some games have evolved into stages where you can almost direct your own short movie.

Many games seem to focus on their graphics, and seemingly 3D is a must-have. But must they?

Here is a upcoming game, Echochrome, that would not work in 3D at all. It rather plays with our ways of interpreting 2D pictures as 3D. Escher taken to the 21st century.

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