New (secret) VR Camera by Unit 9

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plnelson

Member
I was in Barcelona on vacation in June and I was shooting for myself in an obscure part of the waterfront where the fishing boats tie up and I stumbled across a shoot Unit 9 was doing with some experimental VR camera of theirs. I grabbed a quick picture of it with my D800. They yelled at me and told me to delete the photo. I pointed out that there were no signs saying 'keep-out' or 'no trespassing' or anything like that. But they were quite threatening and since I don't speak Catalan I figured I couldn't win an argument if they called the cops. So I made a big show of deleting the photo but then I un-deleted it when I got back to my hotel.


It's pretty cool - it's 9 Red Dragon 6K's - definitely their attempt at a cinematic-quality VR.


The next day I took the aerial cable-car ride over Barcelona Harbour and shot down where I was the day before. As you can see (look for the white boat with the blue stripes in both photos) they piled up lots of netting and metal barriers so no one would accidentally stumble across their project again.

I was steamed that they bullied me into deleting my photo. I've done newspaper photography and I've shot riots, protests, demonstrations, etc, and been teargassed twice, and no one has ever made me delete a photo or hand over film. So I put their 'secret' project up on Photo Bucket for everyone's enjoyment . . .
http://s304.photobucket.com/user/plnelson1/library/?sort=3&page=1
 
It looks to be stereoscopic in 4 directions and then one camera pointing straight up. That's intriguing.
 
Not interested. I couldn't hand-hold it steadily enough. :)

I do kind of wonder how the "up" camera fits into the picture (literally), and why it's not a stereo pair as well.

- Greg
 
I've been shooting VR lately with both the Ozo and a few different Go Pro Freedom 360 VR rigs. After looking at this RED monstrosity, I can't help but think that in 3-5 years, if VR is still even relevant, we are going to look at this rig and all of the others and just laugh at the Rube Goldberg quality. Yes, I know Gen 1 tech, growing pains and "we need to discover what works", but at this point, we have the normal photography parameters that we already need. So when will someone build the equivalent of the FS-7 or C300 MKII for VR shooting? A good, solid, reliable, bulletproof, (yes, again, reliable) VR rig that retails for $7 to $12k, can actually be taken out into the world without overheating or not being able to balance it's limited DR, something that will have 12-15 stops of latitude, etc? So far, every rig I have shot with has either had camera lock up, crashed, overheated with massive graininess to the images before the camera(s) shut down. Reliability is almost non-existant outside the studio on the "pro" rigs, but the cheap consumer stuff seems much more reliable, probably because they are so much simpler.

VR, at this point, is such a total hack, it's like everyone knows what they want the end result to be but nobody has figured out the proper way to shoot it and the proper way to construct a camera rig that makes sense. Everyone was all hyped about the Ozo and for $60k, they should be. But Ozo has a deep, dark secret. It's not very good and is massively overpriced for what it delivers. Go rent one and shoot a real project with it and get back to me. For $60k, it is only marginally better than 8 Go Pros, extremely limited latitude (perhaps 8 stops), no way to affix ND filtration, the whole thing overheats if you so much as expose it to sunlight on an exterior, it's tempermental, massively overpriced for what it is and what it can deliver, etc. The Go Pro rigs are even more of a joke, the whole time you are using it, it just feels ridiculous, like you went from professional image acquisition in your normal shooting to being a hack.

Enough of my rant but if the backers of VR ever expect widespread acceptance, they need to really move the tech along a lot faster than they are, the current VR rigs, at least the ones that I have shot with (five different models not including consumer rigs like the Samsung and Kodak) kind of suck and are extremely frustrating for a professional to try to work into a professional workflow. VR holds potential, but at this point, we are in the VR dark ages and the public, in this case meaning creators, have short attention spans and lack patience.
 
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plnelson said:
I found the ad they were shooting:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hquIYWoQGg0

... kinda cool in a noir-y sort of way.
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Feels like this is shot really poorly. Imagine a traditional ad shot this way, everything in a long shot so that you're almost completely disconnected all the way through. I feel like in the future people will have to come up with much more clever camera placement that actually fits the blocking/storytelling.
 
IanTheM said:
Feels like this is shot really poorly. Imagine a traditional ad shot this way, everything in a long shot so that you're almost completely disconnected all the way through. I feel like in the future people will have to come up with much more clever camera placement that actually fits the blocking/storytelling.
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You get it Ian, I have the same issues. The technology right now is 1930s equivalent, big, heavy, bulky and cumbersome to shoot with. Even the small Go Pro rigs I have been shooting with are cumbersome to shoot with, not because of size and weight, but because of mounting options, powering options, etc. Someone will come out with a ground breaking adaptation to shoot high quality VR easily and quickly and they will own the market. But it's not even close to here yet. Each new rig I see (like this one, for instance), is less and less practical, flexible and usable for the visual stories we want to tell.
 
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Seems like something like some of those BM pocket cinema cameras might make a more practical component than a GoPro. And I thought the use of camera pairs for 3D was going away in favor of derived 3D from evenly spaced outward looking cameras?
 
J Michael said:
Seems like something like some of those BM pocket cinema cameras might make a more practical component than a GoPro. And I thought the use of camera pairs for 3D was going away in favor of derived 3D from evenly spaced outward looking cameras?
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I'm surprised that nobody has rigged a VR camera yet with the BM cameras. Maybe they have and we just don't know about it? I looked and saw this http://nofilmschool.com/2016/04/blackmagic-collaborates-entrepreneurs-360-degree-vr-cinema
I think ultimately, the design of the Ozo and Sphericam are the right direction, we need integrated cameras without a bunch of separate wires, power supplies, media cards, etc. Those are what make the rigs so cumbersome now. But baby steps. We need DR too. Every VR shoot I have done so far, the producer/director/creator (whatever the 'idea' person is called in VR?) asks me to setup shots that have full daylight with dark shade in the same frame. I try to explain the concept of DR and explain that the camera we are shooting with only has about 8 stops but they still don't see to get it. Even if we had 15 stop VR cameras, it would still be the same problem but not as bad. Until we get imagers with 22-24 stops of DR, we will have these issues, especially when shooting exteriors with VR. It's said that our eyes typically are capable of about 22 stops of latitude. For regular cameras, we can utilize lighting to even out the exposure but with VR, out in the real world, we don't have that option so the technology is going to have to evolve to give us that capability.

I am curious if the BMD cameras can be physically placed close enough to each other to give the convergence/convex distance correct? This is the other problem with these rigs made of lots of little cameras, the distance between the stereo pairs needs to be fixed and measured off perfectly. That's one thing both Ozo (stereo) and Sphericam get right (flat), they have they have their cameras fixed at the perfect distance, no user interference required. That's a good thing. That's why I hate about the Freedon 360 Go Pro rigs, they seem to be 3D printed and while placement is close to where it needs to be, it's not precise and repeatable plus the way the Go Pro is retained, the retaining clips break off and you are constantly fighting to contain the wires from getting into the image. They suck.
 
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Yeah, I thought the same thing about the static shots. It probably has a lot to do with how cumbersome that rig looks, but I've also heard that some people are taking a very cautious approach to VR, believing that you shouldn't move the camera or cut too much. Of the few VR pieces that I've seen so far, I thought that the Mr. Robot VR experience was pretty well done with sensible camera movement, etc: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2Jc1wHlhEU

I agree with puredrifting that this is the cumbersome early days of a new medium, like early 1900s silent film or early 1930s sound film. I also feel that the consumer VR space is ahead right now because of how compact and practical the cameras are (ex: Ricoh Theta S and Samsung Gear 360). I feel that the approach of using two super-wide angle lenses facing opposite each other has produced some pretty good results, depending on the quality of the stitching software. I think that as they advance and improve chips, lenses, and software, they will be an even better solution for many people. Nikon is about to release their version of such a camera, and Ricoh is rumored to release the third version of the Theta.

Oh, and one more link... http://nofilmschool.com/2016/05/vrs...ra-philosophy-behind-new-oculus-series-nomads

NFS: You mention this customized camera with exposed circuity. Are you at liberty to talk about what the heck it is that you use?
Paul: We’ve been building cameras since we started making VR. In fact, before VR we were doing a lot of 3D cinema. We were making what I now call “pre-VR” installations. You lock down the variables of the viewing angle that people had in relation to the screen, and the way we shot our films was very much like creating a limited field of view VR. We were using TVs and projection screens. We were building cameras at the time as well. What we’re doing now is a lot more sophisticated. We’ve got a team of engineers and developers that work with us. But we built our first VR camera in 2013, and we’re now onto the third generation of that camera going on to the fourth. It’s a constantly iterating process where we build a camera, we use it, and after we shoot we go back to the shot and modify the camera. It isn’t a rig of GoPros or anything, it’s separate parts of sensors, and customized circuit boards, and customized case. We’ve optimized this thing for VR capture, with as little compromise as possible. I can’t go into too much detail as to how it’s designed—it’s a bit of a trade secret! We spend a lot of time on the technology side of the filmmaking process.
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