Very interesting. Does anyone speak German to translate this stuff?

very interesting, indeed!


I tried an online transaltion (nothing interesting):
"The Movietube is an accessorie for miniDV cameras in order to simulate the Videodrehen the Tiefenunschärfe of real cinema films. The Flash animation on the CD-ROMS generated for a patent competition is actual component of the Movietube homepages that goes soon Online. For the competition, the presentation in Flash was modified for the use as an alone standing program on a CD something. Soon there will be the total presentation and to see more Online. Beforehand here schonmal a couple Screenshots of the CD (to the Vergößern please simply on the picture click)"

This is the translation i got for the beginning of that statement

" The Movietube is accessories for mini digital video cameras, in order to simulate with video tricks the depth and sharpness of genuine motion picture films."

Cosmin

I have two proposals to consider one is software related and the other is physical, i shall start with software

taking your clear cuddly toys pic (straight from video) and displacement mapping it with a greyscale noise pic in photoshop would produce an image quite similar to the stationary gg pic of the cuddly toys, provided the displacement factor was set to a suitable value.

So in effect, the displacement of pixels of the clear pic is proportional to the intensity of the grey value of the pixels in the noise pic. This process is reversible (try it) since taking the displaced pic from above and displacement mapping it again but in the opposite direction (negative dispacement factor) would produce the original clear picture.

ok so far?

what is required is to generate a greyscale noise pic which corresponds to the effect of the stationary gg. Some experimentation is required. The following is only a suggestion.

A good start would be to generate some fine black vertical lines on a sheet of white paper (thickness of the lines =space between them) and to measure how much they are horizontally displaced after passing through your stationary gg rig (I expect some zooming in will be required). The result of this will deliver the horizontal noise component of the gg

Next repeat the above with fine black horizontal lines to deliver the vertical noise component of the gg

Then composite the horizontal and vertical components into a single greyscale noise pic which in theory should be the noise signature of the stationary ground glass

bear in mind the resolution of the noise pic should be one pixel, which is tedious i know , so it may be best to concentrate on a small area to check that it works in practice.



my second proposal is a possible physical solution

Consider that your 35mm lens (from your rig) ultimately will be attached to a fixed length extension tube. Now with a circular saw cut a slit in the extension tube perpendicular to its axis at the point where the filmplane should be but not all the way through.

Make a circular disc gg of say CD proportions - a CD gg!

Spin the CD gg at high speed (5000 rpm is possible) through the slit created above by means of a motor mounted on the outside of the extension tube, this should sort the distortion problem and reduce the need for high quality ground glass. (maybe running the CD gg at slower speeds might introduce some desirable grainy effects)

Maybe the CD need not be ground glass at all but just radial score marks if it spins fast enough

A final design would have a housing for the CD gg and motor and would look a bit like a 'machine gun kelly' type of rig if you have understood me correctly

Thanks for the ideas, John.

Actualy, the second one I already tried a few days ago. I have a small (about 1.5MB) clip that I could send it to anyone interested. But only tomorow because I don't have it at me (sorry Elmar, I forgot...). The image is better than with the vibrating stuff.

The first idea is somnething that I have to test. I didn't relize is so complicated! The first time you mention it I thought I'd just take a pic at a white paper to see the grain... I din't think of the vertical and horizontal lines.

I'll let you know how it works.

please send it

krisp9@yahoo.com

Hey Cosmin,

Please send me that clip also to -- romanemp@aol.com.

Are you also a member of the homebuilt stabilizers forum? I believe i just finished answering a question you had on aluminum alloys.

Thank you Jaime! Yes, that's me! :)

Could you send the clip to me also?

And, sorry if you have said this, what camera are you using? Seems everyones working on Xl1 35 adapters, but i'm "stuck" (terrible thing to say about a purchase as major as this one was for me) with my Sony VX2000, and would love to see some headway in that department.

Thanks for the clip and inspiration. I'd love to get back to Ohio University next year and blow some ppl away with any ressemblence of shallow DoF. :)

shouck@neo.rr.com

I've sent you the clip, Spencer. I've sent the clip to anyone who ask for it!
I already received some feedback on my e-mail. Thanks! It seems that the image is nice, so I'll continue experimenting. I'm not going to try eluding the existing patents and make something for sale. I just want to make something for me... But I'll help anyone who whants to build their own.
I own an Canon XM2 (that's the European version of the GL2).

I like very much how the movietube looks! The adapter looks nicer than the P+S one. With shoulder support, viewfinder, XLR adapters... A complete accesory for miniDV.

I expect prices going down from now, as there's competition. I realy don't understand how could they ask 8000USD for an accesory made for a 3000USD camcorder...

I love that image, absolutely great!

I'm a very uninformed "noob" if you will, but I keep hearing people say that the 35 mill conversion doesn't work well with cameras with permanent lenses, such as your GL2 and my VX2000. Your tests seem to put that thought to shame, and I hope the same can be attained by my VX noting our similar lens setups.

Knowing that I'm totally uninformed, in theory could we in effect cancel out that we have lenses in front of our cameras? Bear with me now, but could you replicate the permanent lens structure of our cams in reverse and toss it in front of our cameras to take us down to a sort of "glassless state" like the Xl1? It seems a little fantastical and may introduce color abberations, etc., or maybe it just doesn't make any logical sense at all, but it just sounds like it may be crazy enough to work to someone who's clueless :). Who knows, maybe with your setup the glass in front of my camera won't instigate a problem, I'll just have to test and find out.

Oh yeah, I can't see very well what the philatelic lens(5x) looks like in your setup picture. Can you explain that to me, is it just a normal magnifying glass like any one you'd find?

Thanks for keeping the innovative stuff alive,
Spencer Houck
shouck@neo.rr.com

eureka or maybe countach!


Cosmin

1 was the fresnel still necessary?

2 looks like I shall find a new use for the lenses from my Pentax LX kit :)

Hey cosmin,

How did you invert your image? Did you do this in post or did you use prisms?

I took a canon eos camera apart and am using a skeletal version of it; problem is i didn't realize that canon eos lenses do not have a diagphram control it is controlled by the camera body (which i just finished destroying, UGH!) do these lenses default to being wide open? Or, will i be destroying a perfectly good lens?

Hi guys!

Spencer, why do you need that "glassless state" for your VX2000? Al you need is to focus the camcorder lenses onto the 35mm GG. For this you need a close up lens: a normal magnifying glass.

John, in this second test I didn't use a fresnell lens. The image is cropped on top and bottom (for a 16:9 or whatever look) and so the corners are left out. And so is the vigneting!

Jaime, I inverted the image in post. I don't have a prism. I don't know about the EOS lens. The lenses I use (Pentax K-mount?!) are wide open by default. The lens has a small lever that goes from the lens in the camera. Whatever aperture you chose, the lens stays open until you take the pic. Than the aperture is closed at the chosen level by switching that lever on the lens (yes, the camera does that). You can turn that lever by hand and see how the iris closes. I don't know if this is the case with the EOS lenses.

Could you post some pictures of your newly updated rig, especially any with the camera set up on it also?

I seem to have a hard time focusing my camera on anything relatively close which is discouraging me a lot in recreating this great effect. I believe the GL2's minimum focusing distance is much shorter than my VX2000's. Hopefully I can get it all working.

Thanks,
Spencer Houck
shouck@neo.rr.com

I'll see what I can do so I can take a pic "with the camera set up on" the rig.
The problem is that I use the camcorder to take the pics...
You'll see that the GG is not very close to the camcorder's lens. Look again at the pics I've already posted. Is the same setup but I use the rotating CD instead of the GG/fresnel sandwich. The magnifying glass allows zooming in the GG.