Suggestions for POV (for side by side) cameras

[Nick Hiltgen]

Last year I used a few prototype cunima (kunima?) cameras for some side by side work they had a genlock hook up soldered on and had a 2/3 1080p sensor. Honestly I was pretty disappointed with them. Well it looks like there will be a few more jobs coming up and I would like to use something else, does anyone have any suggestions?

I'm looking for a POV type camera because the camera's will do double duty as both a steadicam/lockoff 3d rig camera and then individually as POV's (for 2d shoots).

[Nick Hiltgen]

For anyone else who may be looking for a similar thing the only two I've found are the iconix hd-rh1 and the cunima mcu1.

Anyhow if anyone else has another suggestion that would be awesome and appreciated.

[Tim Dashwood]

The Iconix are the smallest around and I've used them quite a bit but they require a head cable and the CCU box is quite large. I do like that they are CCD and the curves are very good but only 1/3". I've shot many action scenes with them. Cunima is 2/3" CMOS but I have yet to get a couple of demo units in to test them properly. Apparently Cunima can put any type of mount on that you want including PL, but that would negate the tiny width (less that 35mm I think.)

Many people are playing around with the GoPros for helmet cams because they are cheap crash cams, but I don't think they can be genlocked. However, they will overcrank to 60fps in 720p so genlock becomes less critical at higher frame rates.

[Nick Hiltgen]

Hey Tim thanks for the confirmation. I had looked at the go pro but in addition to 3d world these cameras would be thrown into a multicam situation as well which necessitates genlock.

I wonder if I was too hard on the cunimas I used last summer, The biggest issue that I had with them was the interface, which I believe was due to the camera's being preproduction or early production models. I forget which lenses we used by I think we had stuck with the C-mount. The other slight issue was an image thing where I swear it looked like they used only half the infrared sensor that was needed. When outside all the black cloth that people wore were read any grass was brown, it was really underwhelming. Again these were early models so maybe that was jsut something that got overlooked or that can be fixed with a simple fix. The version we were using also had the old firmware that didn't support 23.98 which was annoying and I think the production mcu1 does. Anyhow I'm curious to hear of anyone else's results with this or the iconix. It seems like there out to be more options out there but maybe there's really not.