Anyway, as an alternate to my other dual-lens idea:
This would work similar to the Nikon FC-E9 panoramic lens, but here's how it would work for RED:
You have 2 182 degree spherical fisheye lenses (for frame blending purposes) mounted pointing directly opposite one another. The images from each fisheye are sent down to the camera sensor and recorded as 1920x1920 square images (just recording the circlular image produced by both fisheyes).
The camera would be mounted vertically with the lens pointing directly up. Obviously with a 360 pano you'll end up getting the camera and operators in view, but it would add to the interesting look of the footage.
Then, in post, you would unwrap the spherical images and merge them together to create a full 360-degree spherical video. Ideally the nodal point of both lenses would be as close as possible to prevent parralax between the two lenses, but using the extra few degrees over 180 would allow some sort of frame blending that would probably hide any artifacts.
It would look pretty interesting to watch, especially if the camera were moving and subjects were moving in and out of frame / nature videos where the video is going on around the viewer continuously, but they can choose the area they want to focus on. Also good for planetariums and such.
Imagine setting the camera up the the middle of the wilderness, with the wind blowing and animals walking by. The viewer could change the camera's point of focus at any time, but the trees and animals would never stop moving. Of course they'd have to develop the 360-degree theater to go along with it, but that's a whole different post!
Also, useful for creating matte backgrounds that accurately move with little or no CG work required to get billowing clouds / moving trees / etc.
This would work similar to the Nikon FC-E9 panoramic lens, but here's how it would work for RED:
You have 2 182 degree spherical fisheye lenses (for frame blending purposes) mounted pointing directly opposite one another. The images from each fisheye are sent down to the camera sensor and recorded as 1920x1920 square images (just recording the circlular image produced by both fisheyes).
The camera would be mounted vertically with the lens pointing directly up. Obviously with a 360 pano you'll end up getting the camera and operators in view, but it would add to the interesting look of the footage.
Then, in post, you would unwrap the spherical images and merge them together to create a full 360-degree spherical video. Ideally the nodal point of both lenses would be as close as possible to prevent parralax between the two lenses, but using the extra few degrees over 180 would allow some sort of frame blending that would probably hide any artifacts.
It would look pretty interesting to watch, especially if the camera were moving and subjects were moving in and out of frame / nature videos where the video is going on around the viewer continuously, but they can choose the area they want to focus on. Also good for planetariums and such.
Imagine setting the camera up the the middle of the wilderness, with the wind blowing and animals walking by. The viewer could change the camera's point of focus at any time, but the trees and animals would never stop moving. Of course they'd have to develop the 360-degree theater to go along with it, but that's a whole different post!
Also, useful for creating matte backgrounds that accurately move with little or no CG work required to get billowing clouds / moving trees / etc.
