C300: Interesting News from Optitek!

Yes,
very interesting. However... This post is from last spring and I've tried in the past 9 or so months to reach out to Optitek for more information on this. I've tried e-mail (through their website) Facebook and Twitter - no response what so ever. in the fall their twitter account had a brief flurry of retweets, including a re-tweet of this info, but since then - dead silence...
We have their Optitron 2 for the Sony F5/55 and it works rather well. It's not the best choice for every situation, but it's an AMAZING tool to have in your arsenal, and I would be prepared to pay quite a lot for this to be ported to the Canon C-cameras.
My understanding is that Optitek is a very small company with a fairly diverse/complex product line-up and they may simply be struggling with allocating resources to development/manufacturing...
I would be VERY happy if this indeed came into being :-)
 
jacknusa said:
very interesting. However... This post is from last spring and I've tried in the past 9 or so months to reach out to Optitek for more information on this. I've tried e-mail (through their website) Facebook and Twitter - no response what so ever. in the fall their twitter account had a brief flurry of retweets, including a re-tweet of this info, but since then - dead silence...
Click to expand...
You could give them a call, their phone number is on their About page.
 
Canon and Optitron

Canon and Optitron

Thank you for noticing!!
We've been in contact with Canon about this feature.
We made OptiTron work with Canon Cameras but the camera needs a small bit of code for the OptiTron to work really well. Right now IMO it is not the level of control we would accept for OptiTron.
Canon has been really responsive albeit slow in implementing the SDK per their manual. They asked us to be patient and keep pressing on it just this week.
Here is to finally getting it corrected !!!:beer:
 
jacknusa said:
We have their Optitron 2 for the Sony F5/55 and it works rather well.
Click to expand...

could u tell what u did not like about that unit? is there a delay or something? do u have a WiFi version? I thought i ll be able to use it with a focus puller instead of using manual lenses with cinema style FF...

regards
 
anatusa said:
could u tell what u did not like about that unit? is there a delay or something? do u have a WiFi version? I thought i ll be able to use it with a focus puller instead of using manual lenses with cinema style FF...

regards
Click to expand...
The OptiTron currently moves focus and iris but does not hold position i.e. the marks on optitron do not match marks on the lens every time.
There is no feedback from the camera to let us do that.
There is a code that does it mentioned in the SDK manual but, apparently it has not been implemented in the camera yet.
We are on top of it and as soon as the firmware contains that protocol we'll finally get it going.
Believe me we would like to widen the appeal of the optitron to the very popular Canon C cameras but, on the other hand, we can't release a product with inferior performance. :embarasse
 
anatusa said:
could u tell what u did not like about that unit? is there a delay or something? do u have a WiFi version? I thought i ll be able to use it with a focus puller instead of using manual lenses with cinema style FF...

regards
Click to expand...

On the F5/55 we found it very useful, reliable, and all around a good alternative to conventional wireless for many uses. Also LOVE the fact that no power is needed on the reciever/camera side (power supplied from the camera mount).

The downsides are mostly lens dependent and doesn't have to do with the unit per se, but for practical purposes it's all one system.
Downside one is that some lenses are fairly noisy when pulling focus. So much so that it becomes a real problem for sound in synch sound /drama productions. In general Canon lenses are the most quiet and Sigmas very noisy. Some lenses also feel a little steppy / jerky when pulling focus. And obviously, you can't do smooth iris pulls like with a conventional wireless FF. Some lenses (notably the sigma 18-35) would hang the unit under certain circumstances, requiring a re-start.

Also, the hand unit is very bare bones with a non-standard battery system. The build quality is fine, but a seasoned focus puller will miss the ergonomics and bells and whistles of the ARRIs/Prestons/RTmotions etc...

That said - we have been very happy with the unit, and if this is successfully ported to the Canon C300 mk2, we'll be first in line to buy :-) It's an excellent tool to have in your arsenal.

P.S. RT motion has implemented the same functionality for canon glass on the RED through their "lattitude" system. They have hinted that they are looking into porting their solution to "other" cameras...
 
optitek said:
The OptiTron currently moves focus and iris but does not hold position i.e. the marks on optitron do not match marks on the lens every time.
There is no feedback from the camera to let us do that.
There is a code that does it mentioned in the SDK manual but, apparently it has not been implemented in the camera yet.
We are on top of it and as soon as the firmware contains that protocol we'll finally get it going.
Believe me we would like to widen the appeal of the optitron to the very popular Canon C cameras but, on the other hand, we can't release a product with inferior performance. :embarasse
Click to expand...


Hi there Optitek - great to hear this is still being worked on. Like I've mentioned above, we'll be first in line to buy :-)
Out of curiosity - how are you doing this - are you replacing the lens mount with your own? Also, we've sold our F5s but I've been hanging on to the Optitron in the hopes that it will be ported to the C300 mk2 - but, will that same unit that we used for the F5 be possible to use for the C300 mk2 implementation, or will we have to buy a new unit?

Kind regards and great to hear this may still be happening. And again - if you need beta testers, we have the Optitron 2, a boatload of canon and 3rd party lenses and C300 mk2 in house...

J
 
jacknusa said:
On the F5/55 we found it very useful, reliable, and all around a good alternative to conventional wireless for many uses. Also LOVE the fact that no power is needed on the reciever/camera side (power supplied from the camera mount).

The downsides are mostly lens dependent and doesn't have to do with the unit per se, but for practical purposes it's all one system.
Downside one is that some lenses are fairly noisy when pulling focus. So much so that it becomes a real problem for sound in synch sound /drama productions. In general Canon lenses are the most quiet and Sigmas very noisy. Some lenses also feel a little steppy / jerky when pulling focus. And obviously, you can't do smooth iris pulls like with a conventional wireless FF. Some lenses (notably the sigma 18-35) would hang the unit under certain circumstances, requiring a re-start.

Also, the hand unit is very bare bones with a non-standard battery system. The build quality is fine, but a seasoned focus puller will miss the ergonomics and bells and whistles of the ARRIs/Prestons/RTmotions etc...

That said - we have been very happy with the unit, and if this is successfully ported to the Canon C300 mk2, we'll be first in line to buy :-) It's an excellent tool to have in your arsenal.

P.S. RT motion has implemented the same functionality for canon glass on the RED through their "lattitude" system. They have hinted that they are looking into porting their solution to "other" cameras...
Click to expand...
I would love to hear from you about the lenses that do not hold position or not move smoothly. We can "massage" the algorithms for specific lenses and improve the performance to match the others. There is nothing we can do about the noise.
We are in fact in process of doing just that currently. The 18-35 Sigma is the first on the list.
And, to answer your question in the other post- no we do not nor we plan to replace the canon mount.
The first rule is that the camera system we support MUST remain factory stock ....
 
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