The ramblings of g1powermac

Not sure if I should laugh or cry on that one. Either way, it’s pretty good.

Posted by g1powermac under Filming,Interesting Stuff | Comments Off

With everything going digital nowadays, most people tend to forget about the older way of filmming things with, well, real film.  Of course, most of the film equipment that was used on Hollywood sets is still priced way outside of the range of a novice filmmaker.  Most Hollywood films were and some are still shot on 35mm film which is expensive in and of itself.  However, there are some interesting 16mm cameras out there in the world.  Many professionals and film schools like the Bolex 16mm cameras, but they are quite expensive.  Another option is a camera called the Krasnogorsk-3.  The K-3, as it is also known, is a Russian made 16mm movie made up to the early 1990′s.  There’s very little electronics in the camera as the motor system to drive the film is powered by a hand crank, making it a very rugged camera that can be taken pretty much anywhwere without having to worry about electrical access.  The other neat part about this camera is that the newer models use the Pentax lens mount so you can use standard 35mm slr lenses.  Besides the camera itself, if you look for it on eBay, you’ll find that most of the time the K-3 is sold in an entire kit full of filters and accessories for usually under $300.  This camera may just give you the opportunity to shoot some creative footage on real film that won’t cost you an arm and leg.

Posted by g1powermac under Filming | Comments Off

There has been much speculation over a product being designed by Apple codenamed the ‘brick.’  9to5 Mac has recently released details as to what the ‘brick’ is.  It is actually not so much a product but more of an entirely new process to create macbooks.  The rumor stipulates that Apple has created their own factory that is using lasers and water jets to carve macbooks directly from bricks of aluminum.  This is in contrast to not only using contracted out manufacturers to build macs but also to the multiple parts it takes to build a macbook case.  I really wonder how this is going to turn out.  I may just have to buy a new macbook when these things comes out.

Posted by g1powermac under Interesting Stuff | Comments Off

After being inspired from watching the video I posted yesterday, I decided to do a bit of research on building my own digitally stabilized camera mount. My first problem I had was finding a way to sense movement so I can correct the movement. Like what the video preluded, the gyrostabilized camera mount used gyroscopes. Although this does work, gyroscopes are not cheap especially since you need to have at least a dual axis gyroscope sensor. And, then you have to interpret the gyroscope data which isn’t easy. So, after a bit of searching, I found a sensor called an inclinometer. An inclinometer detects the angle at which the sensor is tilted off level.  With a dual axis inclinometer, I can then find the tilt of a plane which will let me stabilize and level the plane using servos.  I am thinking maybe an accelerometer might be useful as well to determine the speed of the correction.  Besides the sensors, I still need to figure out how exactly I am going to physically build this thing, and how to do the robotic stuff.

Posted by g1powermac under Electronics,Filming | Comments Off

A gyrostabilized camera mount is basically a camera mount that uses gyroscopes to stabilize any unwanted motion when moving the camera.  Take a look at this one made for helicopters:

That video has inspired me to try to create my own system. I got a tripod ball head that I think I could use to create a gyrostabilized mount using servos and some form of gyro sensors. Hopefully I can get my hands on some sensors without spending alot of money.

Posted by g1powermac under Electronics,Filming,Interesting Stuff | Comments Off

Today has been just one of those days.  Nothing much went on today, though I wish I could have gotten stuff lined up to begin shooting “The Geek Sacrifice.”  Oh well, tomorrow is another day.

Posted by g1powermac under Other | Comments Off

Alright, so most of you probably don’t know what a lensbaby is.  A lensbaby is a lens for SLR cameras that allows you to really play with the focus so you can artistically create interesting effects.  It’s a kin to the really expensive tilt and shift lenses available for SLRs that allow you to off center the focal plane.  A lensbaby gives you even more control allowing you to select just the item you want to be in focus and everything else will be out of focus.  Now here comes the interesting part.  What if you stuck one of these on a 35mm DOF adapter for your DV camcorder?  You could make some really interesting shots with this thing.  It allows for great artistic options in videography as well what it was originally meant for in photography.  The manufacturer even decided to make a dedicated lensbaby that has a particular mount just for cine movie cameras.  Just take a look at some of their sample footage to see what I’m talking about.  It’s really spectacular.

Posted by g1powermac under Filming | Comments Off

Both Nikon and Canon have recently announced new DSLR cameras with the ability to shoot moving images.  This is a quite interesting development.  These cameras, since they’re for professional photographers, have extremely large CCDs in them so they can easily produce a good HD video.  They also use 35mm lenses which give the same depth of field as what would I would achieve with the DOF adapter I’m building.  These things can definitely change the playing field a bit in videography.  But, it seems their strengths inherently produce many weaknesses.  The first is the fact that they are DSLRs.  The bodies are ergonomically not made for shooting moving images.  The other is their CCDs.  From reports that tested the video functions of these cameras, the image capture system is too slow causing weird distortions in the image when moving the camera.  However, despite some of their weaknesses, these cameras might perform well for certain jobs, especially if you want that great shallow DOF.  It should be interesting to see the improvements in the next generation of these cameras.

Posted by g1powermac under Filming | Comments Off

It could be true!  My production company, GenerationOne, has historical been a one man team.  Which, generally, makes what I can film to be quite limited.  However, I got a few requests out to some friends of mine to join me to help film “The Geek Sacrifice” and the responses have been quite positive so far.  I’ll see for sure tomorrow and later in the week.  But if I can just keep one past this short film person to help me, I may just be able to start filming the “This Old Gadget” video podcast I’ve been wanting to film.  Vermyndax, if you’re reading this post, this may be just the catalyst I needed to get everything operational…

Posted by g1powermac under Filming | Comments Off

According to an article by ScienceNews, it seems many scientific studies that paint cancer drugs in a negative light are not published.  And, studies sponsored by the drug companies themselves have the worst bias.  This, to me, is just plain wrong.  The scientific community needs to know how drugs interact and to know how well they work.  With not publishing the information, doctors are never given a chance to review the information, and so they happily prescribe medication without knowing the recourses.

This is why I really don’t like taking medication.  This is also why I’m a vegan as similar things go on the dietary world.  Lobbies from the animal product companies including the dairy and meat industries push the government into saying their products are healthy even though there have been quite a few studies, which are given little attention, that show animal protein is not healthy.  Yes, our bodies can suffice living on meat and dairy, but it has been shown that animal protein can promote the growth of cancer and just plain age us faster.  The book, written by T. Colin Campbell, called The China Study, demonstrates this clearly.  It is what prompted me to go full vegan diet after living a vegeterian diet for the previous year to lose weight.  It is truly an eye opening read.

Posted by g1powermac under Health Stuff | Comments Off