Thoughts on remote focus.

[I Bloom]

I've been thinking about my setup for keeping my RED in focus. Because I've been doing a lot more handheld and steadicam operation for dramatic work recently and I hate being tethered or doing choreography with an AC, I'm leaning toward skipping a follow focus and pulling remotely almost all the time and making the gear to do so part of my basic package.

Here is the issue. Focus is going to be extremely critical on RED and it seems very important that the AC has access to the "magic focus" information even when looking at a wireless video feed, even when that feed is SD. How is it going to be possible to do this with RED?

I see two possibilities:

1. The focus information, including lense data information could be overlayed on the HD-SDI output. You downconvert that to SD (or don't) and transmit it wirelessly. (Annoying for some directors if they are also watching that feed but so what)

2. There is a way to downconvert the RED LCD output and transmit it wirelessly. (Seems less likely)

I might have missed it on here but I'm still wondering exactly how the focus system will work. I'm still hoping that it's going to be some kind of overlay on the image rather than a waveform and that its going to be available on the HD-SDI.

IBloom

[Alex Boothby]

...it seems very important that the AC has access to the "magic focus" information...
IBloom

I vaguely recall that Red's magic focus assist will only be available through the LCD and EVF outputs. So the question becomes - how to get it to the 1st AC, especially one using a remote follow focus?

There was a similar discussion on the View Factor thread:
http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?p=57653#post57653
I wrote the following.

"Has anyone thought to combine a traditional remote follow focus unit with a "focus worthy" LCD monitor - such as the 10" Bruce is designing. Sort of like a clamshell and Preston rolled into one. That way the 1st could watch a quality video tap as he/she pulls focus, and perhaps benefit from Red's magic focus assist.

At the moment I'm sure this would require tethering to the camera, but I've heard that transmitter / receivers are getting more powerful and I do believe there is a wireless product that will transmit 720p."

[I Bloom]

"Has anyone thought to combine a traditional remote follow focus unit with a "focus worthy" LCD monitor - such as the 10" Bruce is designing. Sort of like a clamshell and Preston rolled into one. That way the 1st could watch a quality video tap as he/she pulls focus, and perhaps benefit from Red's magic focus assist.


I have a buddy who built something similar to this for wirelessly controlling a remote head he built. All in all the neccessary tools to add a video element to his controller were only about 500 bucks. But its definitely SD.

The thing is that if the camera is telling you what edges are truly sharp using an overlay or a waveform and the lense is giving you precise feedback about the current focal distance, which RED lenses I believe will do, than maybe the monitor doesn't need to be "focus worthy" since a 720p monitor is not really up to snuff for 4K anyway. You might as well do it in SD and its like flying an airplane using instruments alone.

In any case, if its true that there are no overlays on the HD SDI port than the next question becomes how do you get the LCD/EVF output into a state that you can transmit it. My guess is it's something like a DVI interface, so we might be looking at the technology that lets you hook your laptop up to a video projector.

Best case scenario. RED decides this is cool and makes a wireless link for their LCD. Second best case, they put overlays on the HD-SDI. Third best... one of us figures out a hack.

One thing I know is that I definitely want to work that way.

IBloom