Basic Ramping Qs

[Roberto Lequeux]

I found several (VERY) old threads, so I decided to start a little new thread asking about ramping on current builds to make sure I didn't miss anything.

I guess you can ramp from 1fps to whatever the max fps for the given resolution you are working which would be

1 – 30 fps 4K
1 – 60 fps 3K
1 – 120 fps 2k

How do you actually start the ramp? And can you program a second ramp if you decided you really needed to change the speed from say 24fps to 26fps and then to 60fps?

[Vigen Vartanov]

As i found you can not do 2 ramp. It is nice idea.

[Roberto Lequeux]

It really would be sweet to be able to perhaps even dial the fps and set a curve for the responsiveness and perhaps an Enter button... dial the framerate, hit the button when you want it to start, dial the next framerate, and have it ready to go whenever you chose to hit the button and start the next ramp, this could go on as needed. Then with something like the REDmote you could do whatever you chose to.

It could be a fun thing to have available.

So can you at least make it go back to the original framerate?
And here do you hit the button to start the ramp? The body? Could it be from the EVF?

[Dominic Jones]

Ramping´s changed a bit since I last used it a while back, but it seems that now you can trigger from a user button (either side of body or evf) - will be shooting some studio shots with ramping this week, so can report back in detail after I´ve done the tests for that...

AFAIK, you can´t ramp anywhere other than from starting rate to ending rate, and the only control you have over the ramp is the time it takes to go from Afps to Bfps - no curves, in other words.

I agree that more ramping/framerate control would be great (and once people start getting to grips with the camera SDK that might well happen), but let´s not forget when most of us put our money down for the R1 ramping wasn´t even in the spec... Just a little reminder!

Cheers,
Dom.

[Roberto Lequeux]

Oh, for sure not being testy about it. I am stoked to be able to use ramping at all without having to pony up for a Varicam, so on and so forth. Just imagine how sweet it will be when we get more control, and when we get higher framerates!

Looking forward to your post Dominic, perhaps you can post a little QT of your test to show some of that time warp magic.

[Dominic Jones]

Oh, I´m with you on that one pal!! I´d love to be able to manually control framerate via a rotary switch, from 1-max fps continuously variable - that´d be the gold standard! An Arri-style handcrank accessory would be great fun as well, although perhaps not as useful in day-to-day life!...

Footage from the shoot won´t be my copyright, unfortunately, as I´m on a buy-out contract - but if I get a chance to shoot some ramping tests in the office (my cam´s out on rental at the moment, but hopefully get an hour or two to do a few tests before the client-facing shoot) then I´ll more than happily post a QT of that...

Cheers,
Happy ramping!...

Dom.

EDIT: Oh yeah, and a big yes to higher framerates - bring on the Epic! (and whilst we´re at it, here´s hoping the Epic´s will have much finer control over framerate built into the box - I think there´s a good chance of that, with all the talk of greater control over framerate vs the Scarlet).

[Giancarlo Bianchi]

My approach, until there`s a hand control for the ramping, I shoot at the max fps I`ll be using and do the ramps on post by accelerating the footage.
This way I find more control over my ramps.

[Roberto Lequeux]

Dominic, please do post the tests, I love watching footage and I haven't really seen many ramps since they were real popular.

About the real world use, I think they are underrated... of course they can be just as gimicky as pushing non stop, or poor and uncalled for push pulls, but if you find the right moment and don't over do it not only by not doing too many of them on a given project but picking the right framerates, they all say something different... It just needs to work, just like anything else, acting is the same, it needs to work and if your actor can't sell it then you just can't force it beyond the helping hand that your cinematography and score can lend... you can try it, but you might have to cut around it.

Giancarlo, I agree but there is still nothing like getting the real frames and have a perfectly butter smooth ramp. Now say you can't make it happen because the blocking is too complex or you only have one shot at it cause of cost, then sure, shoot it at the highest framerate and use something like Twixtor.