Aapo Lettinen

erasing the drive clears the partition table so that the data on the drive is not fragmented anymore and it can potentially record faster data rates. So a formatted drive is usually a little bit faster than a drive which has something on it (especially compared to a drive which has clips recorded, then some of them removed without full reformatting, then recorderd more on the same drive. this causes lots of fragmentation on the new data), depending on if the storage space is "continuous" or if there is only fragmented free spots available to store more data for the existing files taking the rest of the space, then the "drive needing to continuously jump from one spot to another during recording" which slows it down. This is very common and if formatting seems to partially help with the footage problems then it may indicate that your ssd is not fast enough and you need a much faster one. I personally use Angelbird drives for 5.8k and 60fps 4.1k proresraw recordings and for under 30fps 4.1k I use WD blue line 3dnand drives, don't remember the exact model but they are often just fast enough to store 4.1k raw at normal framerates and sometimes 60fps 4.1k might work if the drive is newly formatted and one dares to risk one or two drops every now and then. About the clip test, are you sure your interpret footage settings are correct and the editing software is not doing any pulldown on it? I can't imagine the camera adding pulldown on 120fps footage, there is something else going on. When importing slow mo material which is meant to be played back at the "native slow motion rate", you should set the project fps to your final output delivery fps (like 23.976 or 24.00) and then in the interpret footage settings of the clip select that same framerate for the clip's playback speed and ensure there is no additional settings anywhere else which could mess up the footage.

This project is on hold at the moment, will need to wait for more orders to be able to move it forward. I assume it will take couple of months for the World economy to stabilize enough that people would be confident to invest on camera motors again. This will affect the schedule of the project but otherwise the goals stay the same: to make a reasonably priced and very compact and lightweigh completely new crystal sync motor for the NPR. Likely the price stays the same, 1200usd + shipping for the normal 2-speed version and about 1800usd + shipping for the version which has footage counter and 9 or 10 crystal speeds. it could be possible for me to make a OLED display version of the higher priced model, it depends on how many orders there is. there is pros and cons because the oled is less durable in the long run than the 4-digit 7-segment Led display I was originally going to use, and oled takes more time and resources so it affects the motor body finishing level. But I will look for the possibility if there is enough orders to finance that kind of version. Let me know by DM or here if interested in this motor. I can start working on it as soon as there is enough orders in 🙂

seems it drops complete frames but l would suspect it is the camera and not the recorder. kind of like shutter/framerate mismatch but probably something else. how it looks like when you inspect the jitter frame by frame, is there a repeating pattern and how it behaves when counted the frames?

I actually like Atomos products a lot. Have some Rode microphones too but the Rodes have had the same issue than with some Blackmagic products, the quality control can be a bit hit and miss at times and sometimes need to send stuff back for repairs or replacement (like the NTG3 which started to buzz and pop in cold temperatures despite it being specifically made to withstand humidity and cold better than a normal mic. switched to my backup NTG2 which had no problems at all whatsoever. sent the NTG3 for inspection after the shoot but they could not find anything wrong with it. weird stuff all in all )

I have not used that combo but often HDMI RAW has most issues with the hdmi cable not being reliable on the very high data rates (frequencies and bandwidth) on the highest settings. it is a bit hit and miss with the cables, the expensive ones may be better but not always. I tend to blame the cable if some settigs can't be reached and the ssd does not drop frames. sometimes the ssd drives can be the issue too but you can spot it easily because the not-fast-enough ones will fill the buffer and start to drop frames. with the normal NinjaV the Angelbird drives have been best for me with raw as they are designed to support fast continuous bitstreams instead of the normal computer drives which are good for data bursts but suffer on continuous data stream like video recording, you can see this on computer use too and not just on video recorders. but don't know which ones you use on the V+ and they are probably fine if you can't see the Ninja indicating frame drops.

it is planned to work on 12V. the magazine motor could be run with a separate converter which lowers the 12v battery voltage to 8v, that is easy to do so users can likely make that kind of cable by themselves if needed. Some users would likely use the motor with v-lock batteries which should work fine if a similar style down converter is used to lower the 14.4v to 12v

yeah you see why I like to shoot stuff with cameras instead of trying to draw or paint 😄 maybe it is a mutated lizard-roo of the radioactive wastelands, who knows 😄 the tail is important to mark out that it is supposed to be something from Australia. otherwise it would just look like a dog with short front legs 😄

that is hard to believe considering how absolute garbage the Z6 camera was. low quality sensors (bad pixels from the factory etc) and wrongly designed sensor electronics with random channel noise/flashing etc. The dynamic range was really poor, they claimed 14 stops and the real dynamic range was something like 9 stops or so... outright scamming as the real specs were so different from the published ones. Not the most reliable camera either, had to be rebooted now and then though still not that bad. Additionally their image processing was very poor quality, it could remove the black hole sun effect on simple highlight but complex highlights like overexposed tree branches had black edges all over the place as that confused the in-camera processing. Firmware updates did not help. I just got rid of the camera after the indie feature was shot, it felt like escaping the prison when the camera shop accepted it as a trade-in for the Panasonic I have had some years now. I mean, Panasonic cameras cost less and they never had these things, even the GH3 I first got in 2013 was fine with highlights and did not have reliability problems and bad pixels and no random flashing etc. It was just very reliable camera which delivered images, period. I traded it for GH4 in 2014 which I shot with for almost 10 years, all kind of making of stuff and such. Insanely reliable camera and most of the footage worked perfectly for the application. Just last month I traded the still-working and good condition GH4 for a slightly used GH5s because I wanted better dynamic range and codecs. I expect to use it as a backup and stills camera for years to come. It is just, pretty much everything but Nikon can be good for movie stuff, only the unreliability and unnecessary image issues drive people away. That said, some of these are the issues of the Blackmagic models too which is why they will never become real professional cameras and will always thay in the low-to-mid level indie and prosume use, maybe sometimes borrowed as a F or G camera for some action scenes in real movies but never used as a A, B or C camera. When shooting with the GH4, I could shoot about 2.5 hours with a single small onboard battery. that is insane compared to the pocket cameras which drained similar capacity LP6 battery in something like 20 minutes! if making indie shorts the Pocket would be better image quality wise than, for example, a GH5s but if you need to shoot somewhere remote it may sometimes be good to have a camera which survives the whole shooting day with 3 batteries instead of needing 20 batteries or huge Vlock workarounds to be able to manage without mains power

the FS7 was released after the F5 and F55 which were released in 2014. Same sensor than on the F5 but different processing and lower quality sensors overall, they had higher noise level than the F5 sensor had because seemingly they put the off-spec ones to the FS7's and saved the best ones for the more expensive cameras. The Canon C series cameras are weird indeed, I think they are meant for some kind of hybrid documentary+corporate use which they fit well after you get used to the weird camera shape and operating. I have handled tons of C300mk1 and C200 material, the C300 stuff looked generally really nice and was easy to grade even when the format specs on paper are pretty depressing... low bitrate long gop but when it looked really nice most of the time the audience did not care. very economic to shoot with, great for nature stuff and such. The C200 not that easy to grade, still very nice image quality overall after one gets the perfect grading settings locked down which takes time. most of the basic LUTs looked weird so manual work in post needed. Good camera after that. Not very competitive though when it came out. I know people who shoot feature films with them so very capable cameras still. The main issue with Canons, I think, is that they probably did not know well enough who they wanted to make the camera for so it is a bit of this, bit of that, difficult to figure out until actually shooting something with the thing (to reach that point it would need to be purchased or rented first which may not happen if people struggle to find out what the camera is about) The FX6 and FX9 type cameras are a perfect fit for TV documentary and reality work, even more so than the FS7 which was also extensively used for that purpose. If watching any kind of reality show which was shot in recent years you can spot it is the FX6 or FX9, almost all the time. For narrative action short some other kind of camera might be more tempting but the Sonys are absolutely killer for documentary/reality stuff. Not the cheapest cameras out there though so working-for-free projects would likely use something else.

Photochemical finish requires setting almost all things perfectly on set and very little can be corrected afterwards apart from the actual vfx scenes which are scanned anyway. Some filmmakers really like this approach, having to make everything perfect from the start instead of repairing half good stuff afterwards. Some people who do DI like to use only simple printer light controls etc stuff which can be done photochemically to emulate the feel and mindset of photochemical. For example Rodrigo Prieto did this on Biutiful and you can see the it on trailer too, clear difference to normal DI look

Oh it might have been the meme I included in the original post, removed it because the audience was clearly wrong and it was not even the funniest one 🙂 still would had hoped the camera had BOTH the hdmi AND the sdi. would make it much easier for people with dslr background who likely have all their existing accessories with hdmi connectors. Anyway, great that we created at least some amount of good conversation after all! Personally not sure about the viability of the Pyxis design but surely it fits at least some special purposes. Would had hoped for a better sensor, the backup HDMI along with the existing SDI connectors and some kind of good wifi remote control similar than z-cams etc have. would make it so much easier to rig and use. the OLPF is good as well as the L-mount which is easy to convert to PL and most stills mounts. easy to use for indie and documentary stuff. and clearly an improvement over the Pocket line of cameras if SDI is useful and the box design makes sense for the use scenarios

Could be well working solution if it can supply the needed amps reliably. LiPo batteries usually lack the outer protective shell and they can be really nasty if damaged so it would be good to arrange some kind of protective box for it (plastic project box or something 3d printed for example) to protect it. probably velcro should work fine for mounting but as said I would not use plain LiPo battery, better to have a protective box as they can catch fire and even explode if they are punctured or deformed too much causing internal short circuits which heat them to breaking point. They are meant to be installed inside devices where the outer casing of the device protects them, or in case of drones and RC stuff they don't have casing to reduce weight but then people just need to accept the risk that they get easily damaged with potentially catastrophic consequences. I don't have Bolex motors to test out anything as my Bolex is too old model to use motors. if making motor modifications I would need to purchase a newer Bolex model with motor mounting points to test out the designs, that is why there is minimum order amounts in place as purchasing a camera body and couple of original motors just for tests costs quite much

crystal conversions for most motors can be arranged but if it is a new design there will be minimum order quantities which makes it impractical to order only one piece and one needs to figure out what to do with the rest of them. Generally from 3 to 4 pieces minimum should be converted at a time and then those sold which the customer does not need. I usually charge from 3k upwards minimum order to cover the design costs whether it is a single piece or two or three, depends on the motor type and testing requirements how many pieces one could convert with price that but 3 or 4 should be possible depending on what kind of features are needed. If AZ Spectrum already has a solution to convert these motors, definitely ask them first because they could probably make single pieces and faster than a custom newly made solution would take

They seem to be still using the same over a decade old Pocket sensor technology... basically it is just the full frame Pocket with fixed display, no hdmi, larger sized and couple of other quirks. The price is not bad but I don't see that much value on this camera other than it might be slightly easier and more secure to rig and it may look cooler to uneducated people so one's customers might think it is "better camera" because it looks "more professional" to them 😄 actually the fanboys seem to think that this would be technologically much better than the PocketFF because it looks "cooler" when they seem to be exactly the same sensor and processing wise. I would had hoped more dynamic range (15 stops would be standard nowadays for stuff which tries to give an impression of being even remotely 'professional'), higher fps capabilities (the 60fps-ish is just very very basic. any camera in the price range can do that and one generally would need 100fps in 4k on shoots where this kind of camera would be useful) and a display which could be flipped over and secured so that it is not exposed to damages when one actually rigs this thing to something or tries to handheld operate it (no one could operate the camera using a display fixed on the side of the camera and it will absolutely get damaged in use and when transporting it). A separate viewfinder or monitor is a must for the onboard display being completely useless for shooting. could be handy for playback of course which is probably how they intended it being used

Still couple of days left to order. No one has asked about these so far so looks like it is safe to discontinue it after all? I checked out some things and it does not seem to be practical to make user installable kits like this anymore. Could make a technician installed more advanced kit later but that would be much much more expensive so very uncertain would it work at all. Again, still couple of days left to order if you need the 1-speed system for the CP16 camera. this will likely be the last user installable kit available for this camera model and if there would be any kind of later model made at some point it would need to be camera tech installed for being too complicated for anyone to install by themselves

COLLECTING ORDERS FOR THE SECOND GENERATION VERSION of the Aaton speed controller I am working on. You have seen the first model (the 50-speed crystal controller for Aaton) I made which had the 2-digit Led display and three buttons and which was "as affordable as possible" -- This is the more advanced and more expensive version I was talking about earlier. The basic features: - variable speed knob about 5fps - 50fps for comfortable manual speed ramps with a large knob - quick switch between variable mode and programmable crystal speed mode, likely with a single switch which can be used even in the middle of a take - programmable crystal speed mode: * small OLED display and couple of buttons to select settings * crystal speed selectable from 1fps to 80fps in 3 decimal (0.001fps) accuracy * tcxo (temperature compensated crystal oscillator) for really accurate crystal sync even on very long takes * footage counter for take length and total amount * additional features depending on how much budget and time I have available after the mandatory stuff is programmed first - open collector output for controlling external devices, could be used to start a sound recorder etc. automatically by the user - some kind of small summer and light included which make it possible to have a "bleep mark" on picture and sound easily in situations where one cannot use clapperboard for some reason. I will likely make the marker system separate from the controller so that one could mount it on the mattebox etc. location (likely a small light+summer which is connected with a short cable to the main controller) - I will likely arrange newly made cables for this device which fit the 9-pin Amphenol connector on the Aaton cameras. it is very difficult to get suitable connectors which fit so I think the most practical solution is just to make them partially out of scratch (machining/3d printing) instead of hunting down the few remaining original connectors which are almost non-existent. In any case, a good cable properly fitting the camera is included in the price. Availability: it takes from 6 to 10 months or so to finish the device after the starting funding is secured. So the schedule depends on when the first paid preorders are in. Price for the device for preorderers is 1300usd including shipping (up to 100usd shipping costs, not more. should work even for expensive parts of the World like AU, etc.) which can be paid in three parts if needed (300usd deposit when order is placed + 500usd in the middle of the project about 3 to 4 months from the start when the prototype has the variable speed and basic display features like speed selecting working + 500usd final payment when the project moves to the finishing phase about 1 to 2 months prior shipping, this is when the final cables and outer casing of the controller is made which creates the highest costs. When the controller kits are finished they will ship immediately without further delay, that is why I will want the shipping sorted out beforehand so that it is possible for me to just send them all at the same time when they are ready and much easier to arrange the logistics then.) So the price for preorderers who follow the schedule would be 1300usd including shipping costs. For later sales the price will be 1500usd + shipping costs (typically ends up to about 1580 to 1600usd with the shipping). If wanting to preorder this more advanced Aaton crystal controller device, let me know by DM. I will need to collect couple of orders ( I would say at least 3 ) before being able to start the project .

I assume most people would use a rolled towel on the shoulder and use the camera without separate shoulder pad. Because likely in any case the camera would sit too high if using a base plate with rods, then some riser, then some separate shoulder pad... the new motor will be very small but the camera body itself is still relatively high so I don't think it could be compensated enough. but could be wrong too, my test camera is not in working condition so have not tested it 🙂 in any case I will try to reduce the motor height as much as possible because it was the main goal of the motor project in the first place. modern motor drives are possible to get in flat shapes which was not possible in the past

I will likely change the motor shape a little when getting enough budget to continue working on it. it depends on what type of bldc motor drive I can get to work with it, some of them are flatter than others which allows reducing the motor height and shaping it differently. Unfortunately these motor drives are very expensive and I can't afford making the tests without the orders in place so have to wait and see how it goes. the camera's own gearbox is relatively large as seen on the reference images, that makes it impossible to get the motor tripod mounting area to the save level with the magazine bottom surface. So likely I will make the motor so that the motor has relatively large flat bottom with tripod threads and the back part of this area is somehow curved to shape it better for shoulder use and extends backwards enough to allow the camera sitting on table on its own balanced without tilting forward/backward. it is relatively complex shape to model and thus I will need the final dimensions before starting making it. which like mentioned requires the budget first because I need to fit the electronics inside before knowing the exact dimensions of the motor especially vertically

I think they only have some value if they are tested and otherwise one would likely pay the scratch test film value. Especially the higher speed films don't like 14 years of warm storage at all, they would suffer a lot even in fridge

here is the previous draft printed to test its size with the NPR camera body. This is just drafting and the final device will look different. The final will probably be just a little bit smaller in vertical direction and extending more towards the magazine to get larger mounting area on the bottom. But here you can get some kind of view what size of a motor we are talking about 🙂 I will need to wait now to collect orders (budget) to move this project forward, it only makes sense to continue the designing process if there is enough support to finish the project in the first place. So let me know ASAP if you are interested in ordering the new "compact NPR motor", I would like to work on it in Summer if in any way possible but will need the orders in April to keep that schedule because continuing requires ordering the most expensive components next before anything else can be made. price for 2-speed model is 1200usd + shipping and for the display version with at least 10 speeds and a film counter will be 1800usd + shipping.

yes the emulsion color will differ and different films often have different smell as well, sometimes one can pick up the difference from the smell alone in the darkroom without looking at all

Yes movies always 24fps with 172.8 degree shutter and tv stuff 25fps at 180 degree shutter

Anyone interested in the 1-speed system? there is still about 2 weeks left to order these kits if you need one. As said I will probably throw the leftover parts away and sell the camera body in Summer so there will be no cp16r crystal update kits available then anymore

Here is some files where one can take mounting plate dimensions when designing how to mount this Universal Motor to their own camera project. Please inpect the photos carefully to see which holes are used for mounting, the motor is supposed to be mounted to the camera with four M4 screws/bolts and the rest of the holes are either blocked by the motor parts or already used for something else (mounting the motor drive or electronics box). Motor axle is about 19mm lenght measured from the mounting plate surface. And it is 5mm axle. The screw heads of the brushless drive mounting screws are about 3.5mm height so leave about 4mm room for them and you should be fine. https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1Oq2I3yeMbI9qHOqDNY2uVBZi0b6W3m8b Designing your mounting system should be easy, you can even print out the 1:1 pdf file of the plate and make a cardboard model of your mounting system if that is easiest way to work.I have one partially assembled 2-speed motor which can be finished in about a week or so after someone ordering it. So I have these available and can make more whenever needed, just need orders to keep them moving 🙂 two were sold last month so there is already people working on these

Is it really possible to use the viewfinder if there is a battery sticking out of the back? I am pretty sure it would hit your face and make the operating difficult no matter how the battery plate is oriented. If it can be mounted to all different positions around the camera (door, rods, etc) then it could be useful but only the backside mounting would be very limiting by my opinion and I am pretty sure it would not work well in real world shooting. using a step down converter and short cable would be useful as Robert suggested. it can be nice if the regulator is built into the battery plate but that makes it 20x more expensive regulator board than using a similar specs regulator separately. personally I would use a separate regulator on a short cable and have different mounting positions for the battery plate so that it could be moved out of the way quickly if needed