KitPlus | Articles

3D camera mirror rigs

3D camera mirror rigs will be around for a long time to come and contrary to popular belief, shooting in 3D is very easy with the right equipment. Entry level 3D mirror rigs made in the UK are now available, such as the manual Hurricane Rig developed by Alistair Chapman and the fully automated 'BINORIG' developed by us at Teletest Ltd. The key to a...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 March 2011

Lighting Q and A

I AM SETTING UP A STUDIO WHAT IS THE MOST EFFICIENT AND PRACTICLE WAY TO LIGHT IT Modern studios and current camera technologies have changes the way efficient image capture can be achieved. No longer do we need huge 5K and 10K lamps in our small to medium studios, but a new generation of lighting tools is now available, and has actually been aroun...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 January 2011

Eye to Eye at the Wildscreen International Film Festival

Founded in 1982, the Wildscreen International Film Festival is claimed to be the world's largest event of its kind. It attracts several hundred delegates from more than 30 countries, all of whom (if they register early enough) get their contact details listed in the festival directory. The festival is staged every two years in Bristol and revolves...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 December 2010

AF101 a first look

IBC saw the first working prototypes of the AF100 being shown to the public. Barry Green (some of you will be familiar with Barry from the US Forum DVXUSER) had the pleasure of working with the pre-production AF101 while at IBC. Incidentally the AF100 & AF101 are the same basic camera for different markets, all of them are NTSC/PAL switchable. At t...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 November 2010

Not so Good Vibrations

When shooting with ordinary 2D, you can almost do what you like with camera dynamics. If you pan wildly from side to side or up and down, what you see through the viewfinder is what you will actually get. If there is going to be some camera shake or vibration, you can opt to switch in a stabiliser in the camera or the lens system. In 3D these are d...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 November 2010

Deja Vu

3D was everywhere at IBC with a choice of new products on offer for all parts of production. This makes 3D far more accessible as well as easier to produce. It was also clear that interested visitors to the show were no longer swayed by the initial ‘wow’ factor and were trying to see the more important things – notably the economic realities. In th...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 November 2010

Around the globe with Q-Ball

The bicentenary of the birth of Charles Darwin was celebrated during 2009 by a variety of TV programmes studying the background to his 1859 book 'On the Origin of Species'. One of the most ambitious tributes was a 35-part series planned and produced by Dutch broadcaster VPRO. Rather than hire a studio, they commissioned the three-masted clipper Sta...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 November 2010

Television camera lenses

This is a glass-to-glass report with a difference, starting at front-end of the video production chain and staying there. Given the speed of development in almost every other branch of television, it is easy to overlook the advances taking place in optics. Until, that is, you need a wider capture angle than your existing kit can deliver or you want...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 November 2010

tv-bay IBC2010 double takes

Tv-bay Double Takes..!Acquisition For-A VFC-7000 Camera HD Variable Frame Rate CameraASA1800 Sensitivity, Native 720x1280 resolution with inbuilt up-convert to 1920x1080 and will output at 50 or 59.94 frame rates. 120 - 700 Frames per second recording speed. Two HD-SDI outputs enabling live and recordings to be viewed simultaneously. Standard onboa...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 November 2010

3D Diaries Part 2 Cameras and rigs

The idea of S-3D is not hard to grasp: one image for each eyeball. But making it work well enough to maintain the 3D illusion for the viewer is far from simple or straightforward. The fun starts with acquisition that breaks into two types of operation; live (no post production) and not live (with post). Shooting 3D requires acquiring two streams of...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 July 2010

Eye to Eye: Sports Production

I was somewhat crestfallen to receive the advice 'Lay off 3D' when I rang TV Bay for guidance on the theme for this month's Eye to Eye. For better or worse, 3D looks set to be a major part of sports television in the coming years. But I picked up my crest, closed one eye and carried on running. Long-range opticsIt is by now quite widely appreciated...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 July 2010

A conversation with Peter Harman, Vinten Product Manager

Vinten is celebrating its centenary in 2010. What were the origins of the business?William Vinten was an engineer with a passion for quality. He set himself in business to repair friends’ bicycles at the age of 13, did a full apprenticeship in a machine shop, and worked for Frederick Lamplough, the steam car pioneer. But it was seeing his first mov...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 June 2010

B4 to EX3 adapter

It’s difficult to get excited about things like adapters but that’s exactly what I was when Mike Tapa of MTF Services sent me his latest creation for review and testing. The “Powered B4 to EX3 Adapter” lets you attach any 2/3” B4 mount lens to your EX3, maintaining full servo zoom, auto iris and VF info. This ability opens up a whole new world of f...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 June 2010

Eye to Eye: Getting a grip

Getting a gripCameras and camcorders are shrinking at such a rapid rate that a lot of today's established support devices are looking completely out of scale. In some aisles of the NAB 2010 Central Hall, visitors were at perpetual risk of colliding with excited demonstrators nipping hither and yon with hand-held stabilisers for DSLRs. Most were onl...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 June 2010

POV cameras explained

John Chambers is Managing Director of Drivedata (UK) Ltd, which specialises in minicam solutions for broadcast, military and extreme-sports applications. Minicams, also referred to as POV cameras, are becoming increasingly popular as they get smaller, cheaper and easier to use. The POV camera is now a firm favourite in reality TV, sports coverage a...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 March 2010