Canon XF105's and Zoom Axis Shift

[Alister Chapman]

I have been playing with a pair of Canon XF105's on my mirror rig and with the 105's you can use the optical image stabiliser to compensate for lens axis shifts. It's very clever and takes only a couple of minutes to calibrate the cameras using the built in routine. You zoom in on a target, then zoom out and use the calibrate function to shift the on screen image up/down, left/right until the image is centred on the same point and press save. Once both cameras were set I was able to do sync zooms that tracked almost perfectly using the IR remote. Very impressive.

[Bruce Schultz]

Here's a shot of two Canon 105's on your Hurricane Rig here in LA

[Alister Chapman]

We should have news on some Nun's knickers for the 105's at NAB as well as a handheld kit for the rig. Were working on the motor kit and oversize hood as well!

[Tim Dashwood]

Does the XF305 have the same built-in routine?

[Bruce Schultz]

Tim, surprisingly, I don't think it does. Geoff Boyle on CML posted a beta test review some months back about these features for 3D, but indicated then that they were confined to this 105 model. Maybe that's changed with a firmware update, I don't know, but I was pretty impressed with how easily these little guys lined up on the Hurricane Rig the day we tried them out utilizing the lens alignment features. Also, recording a pretty robust 4:2:2 (albeit in AVCHD codec) was impressive - but like all the rest, it's best to record out to I-Frame Nano Flash for optimum results. It's also only a single CMOS chip, 1/3" I believe.

[Tim Dashwood]

Hi BRuce,

I have two XF105 rentals in my hands (just picked them up) but I'm working on genlocking one to the other. Did you use an external genlock or did you take the component Y out and feed it into the other camera's genlock in? This is what I had to do to get genlock between them. Unfortunately that means I can't also constantly slave TC. I can slave some free run TC on both and check periodically.

The little hitch we noticed right away was that the built-in mic is too far forward to put these in any mirror rig without the lens hood attached.

[Bruce Schultz]

Tim, we just sent Y from one cam to genlock in of the other. The whole setup was together for maybe an hour just to check it out on the Hurricane. I've been genlocking 2 F3's this way also, but I'm ordering an AJA sync generator box because I think that's a more robust solution - at least until the 4:4:4, S-Log, 3D firmware comes out, after which the genlock will be internal as I understand it. The old way still works fine though.

Curious to hear about image quality on these 105's when you get a chance to post some results.

[Alister Chapman]

Tim, we are working on a solution to the Mic issue for the Hurricane-rig. There will be two options. The first is to use some Genus Nuns Knickers to close the gap between the rear baffle and camera lens. This gets the cameras closer to the mirror than with the canon hood. The second option will be an optional hood with a 140mm aperture in the rear of the hood, big enough to get the entire front of the camera into the hood. However we have found that the microphone gets in to the shot when fully when the cameras are very close to the mirror, the optimum distance appears to be close to where the cameras end up when you get them as close as they will go to the existing hood/baffle.

[Fergus Kennedy]

Originally Posted by Bruce Schultz

Tim, we just sent Y from one cam to genlock in of the other. The whole setup was together for maybe an hour just to check it out on the Hurricane. I've been genlocking 2 F3's this way also, but I'm ordering an AJA sync generator box because I think that's a more robust solution - at least until the 4:4:4, S-Log, 3D firmware comes out, after which the genlock will be internal as I understand it. The old way still works fine though.

Curious to hear about image quality on these 105's when you get a chance to post some results.

Hi,
I'm just thinking of hiring two of these cameras (xf105) to play around with 3D shootings. I'm new to genlock etc, so would love to know exactly which cable I need to get to genlock- it's a BNC at one end, but what type of plug do I need at the other? I'd like to have the cable ready before I hire the cameras, and I can't find the information as to what type of connector I need. Any help would be much appreciated.

Thanks in advance

Fergus

[Arnie Schlissel]

You need to connect both cameras to a single sync generator. Either the AJA Gen10 or the Black Magic sync generator will do fine.

[Fergus Kennedy]

Ah, OK Arnie, thanks, that makes sense. I understood from the conversation above that you could avoid that by connecting component Y out of one camera to Genlock in on the other.

[Bruce Schultz]

The XF105 has a component output and you can use it to genlock to the BNC genlock in on the other camera. Usually you have to use the included component cable to connect to the component connector and then use an RCA to BNC connector to finish the cable run to genlock in of the other camera.

All that being said, it's more robust and reliable to use an external sync generator as mentioned.

As far as timecode goes, you might have some problems there with synchronous code as the genlock input is shared by timecode on this camera. If you use external recorders like a Nano Flash 3D then you can output one of the camera's timecode to both them. Someone else with more time with these cameras might chime in to offer a synchronous timecode solution.

[Fergus Kennedy]

Thanks Bruce. That's what I needed to know. I'll order in one of those adapters before I hire the cameras.

Fergus

[Bruce Schultz]

Further work with the XF105 cameras on a 3D rig has forced me to ammend an earlier statement about genlocking the cameras together using component Y out to genlock in of the other. What appears to happen is that the two pictures are slightly offset vertically when you do this.

The problem disappears when you use an external sync generator or you can also make it work by using a Lanc Shepherd controller, but I have no direct experience with this and have only heard it works from others who have done it.

So the obvious answer seems to be that an external sync generator is mandatory for any 3D work with these two cameras.

As an aside, we were very impressed with how accurately these tiny cameras lined up picture-wise on the rig.

[Tim Dashwood]

The phase can be adjusted in the genlock menu. Of course you won't know if the signal is in phase without outputting on screen characters.