I have an idea to get very wide angle rectangular shots without buying a $25K lens. Say if one was to purchased a good quality fisheye lens. One thread mentioned one at around $300, but even if it was $5000 then fine. Then in post processing each frame is converted from fisheye to rectangular, like have seen done in many applications for still digital camera shots. It would be great if REDICINE had a plug-in capability to allow the conversion on a frame per frame basis in the application. Some resolution will be lost in the conversion, but with a 4K capture, video downrezed to 1080P should look great. How does that sound?
Cheaper rectangular ultra wide angle
- Thread starter jlaurili
- Start date
I did that on my DSLR in the beginning when that was the only way to go. In the end I sold it and got myself a proper wide angle. The thing is that images that may look fine with a fish eye could look horrible when converted to linear and the other way round. In a production you would want some way to judge what you are doing. I think something like the Tokina 12-24 or the Sigma 10-20 is much easier and better to work with. If just somebody would come up with a way to set aperture on those lenses...
Have you looked closely at fisheye-to-rectilinear conversions? As you mention there's software out there that does this already for still frames, but I think you'll find quite significant loss in resolution.
The idea of an open plug-in architecture is worthy though- that is, give third parties the capability to add to the software if there's a nice feature missing that someone else wants to add. I've found the programs that publish interface specs and allow third-party plugins always end up having more useful capabilities, more quickly, than the completely closed apps. I understand why there might be reluctance though; if someone produces an inferior or buggy plug-in, the original vendor may end up fielding the complaints.
The idea of an open plug-in architecture is worthy though- that is, give third parties the capability to add to the software if there's a nice feature missing that someone else wants to add. I've found the programs that publish interface specs and allow third-party plugins always end up having more useful capabilities, more quickly, than the completely closed apps. I understand why there might be reluctance though; if someone produces an inferior or buggy plug-in, the original vendor may end up fielding the complaints.
I have played with the conversion software a bit. For sure it will loose a good deal of resolution, especially on the edges of the image. I guess it depends how bad you want a super wide angle. I think red could make it work ok in 1080 or 720 due that the fact that you are starting with a 4K image.
Plug-ins could be used for all kinds of things such as special look filters or correcting for lens barrel roll. The list is endless. I think it would be worth it's weight in gold. If the RED team can provide some SDK that will give me access to the RAW data of each frame for manipulation, it would be of great use to me, and the type of work I want to do.
Plug-ins could be used for all kinds of things such as special look filters or correcting for lens barrel roll. The list is endless. I think it would be worth it's weight in gold. If the RED team can provide some SDK that will give me access to the RAW data of each frame for manipulation, it would be of great use to me, and the type of work I want to do.
Jim Arthurs
Well-known member
jbeale said:
I do this technique all the time, specifically with the HVX Century .6 wide angle to take the distortion out. When applied to the HVX's HD footage (granting that the final will be SD) the results are fantastic. High end rectilinear perspective look without the price. Doing the same to a true fisheye of course would be unacceptable, but this technique is gold for correcting any average lens into something several levels above its pay-grade.
With the RED, I can see applying this technique to full rez 4k + when your final is 2k without much loss in quality. Which is just one of many reasons I will finish my 4K RED "negative" in 2K/1080 for the foreseeable future...
Regards,
Dear RED, If for some reason REDCINE can't allow plug-ins or an SDK to access raw frame data, please allow REDCINE to export still frames as uncompressed tga or bmps and a wav sound track, and then ALSO have the ability to import the stills and sound track back into the software. I can then make batch changes to the still images. It is very important for me to have a simple way to access the frame data to customize.
Rob Lohman
Red Team
jlaurili: http://red.com/workflow.htm
Lists both TIFF and DPX which are both uncompressed (TIFF can be compressed but usually isn't for software like this)
Lists both TIFF and DPX which are both uncompressed (TIFF can be compressed but usually isn't for software like this)
Rob Lohman
Red Team
Import back in again? Why would you want to import it back into REDCINE after you processed it in another application?
Say I export a sequence of still 4k BMPs and a wav file for the sound. I can run all the frames as a batch on Photoshop, my own custom software, or another application to manipulate each frame. I can change the sound track in an application such as SoundForge. Then I can have REDCINE pull it back into a compressed RECCODE video format again. Then I use REDCINE to size, export, or whatever to the final format. I keep the REDCODE video I imported in my archive, and delete all the still frames, which would take up a lot of space.
If REDCINE can use plug-ins or a development kit I can do the manipulation directly in REDCINE. The other method has the advantage of using what ever third party tools you like.
If REDCINE can use plug-ins or a development kit I can do the manipulation directly in REDCINE. The other method has the advantage of using what ever third party tools you like.
I'm not sure what you guys are talking about. It seems that just renting whatever super wide angle lens needed for the shot, 10mm, 8mm, is easier and more practical than mounting some still lens and then doing some adjustment in post that seems from this forum to not be capable without loss of resolution. Are you shooting with a fisheye and then trying to take out the spherical distortion? I'm not sure what the point of all of this is. Could someone enlighten me?
Poi Boy
Well-known member
I hear ya geek. I'm going the Nikon prime route in the beginning but if you need a super, super wide, rent the thing instead of going through all those girations that are bound to ... umh, look bad. I have a sigma 15mm 2.8 that I use on an slr (has aperature ring) and it is only ok not nearly as good as my nikon primes.
Aloha
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Aloha
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