i/technology not reading correctly

[Ryan Patrick O'Hara]

Many people are waiting for i/technology to work correctly with other lenses.

See link: http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthr...-PLEASE-update

[Brent@RED]

Please submit a request to our tech info team via Contact Us on RED.com.

BC

[Ryan Patrick O'Hara]

Email sent today.

Thanks!

[Ryan Patrick O'Hara]

I sent this email:

I was instructed to contact you via this interface from Brent over at RedUser.net .

I am one of many who would like to see the i/technology contacts on the Epic cameras work like the REdMX ones did. Right now, the camera recognizes aperture, but not focal length and focus, however the focus numbers do change when you change the focus ring, so I'm thinking it might be an issue with focal length, and then the numbers would fall in line (since they are DoF ranges and not a fixed absolute focus point number)

Right now it seems only a few Red Zooms work. I am curious when the camera can read Cooke S4's, 5i's, Panchro/i's, and other lenses (Sony, Fujinon, etc.) that use the i/technology. Cooke is I think the top candidate, considering they brought the system to market, and Red adopted that system.

Thank you for your time and in-advance for your response. Wonderful camera you made. Now I just want them to talk to my wonderful lenses.

Thoughts?

RED replied:

Hi Ryan,

Thank you for contacting RED SUPPORT. If you are using a RED 18-50 or RED 50-150mm lens then the EPIC will display focal length and aperture. Our Prime lenses do not communicate however.

I will check with our engineers regarding the other PL lenses that you have mentioned below.

All the best.

John Restivo
RED Digital Cinema
949-206-7900 x7934
restivo@red.com

I replied (10 days later):

Hi John,

Wondering if you found out about when Red will be updated to support Cooke lenses via recognizing focal length and distances. Right now the only accurate reading is the iris.

Best,

-Ryan

RED replied:

Hi Ryan,

Im not sure about this however I will ask our engineers. It's possible that Cooke will have an update to lens as well. Have you contacted Cooke regarding this?

The RED 18-50 and 50-150 give accurate readings.

Please advise.


John Restivo
RED Digital Cinema

So.... I didn't seem to get an answer. Cooke invented, literally invented the 'i/technology' interface. The original Red1MX did just fine reading the exact same lenses. The person answering clearly had no idea. Cooke is not going to update the lens. That is ludicrous.

Please update firmware to read cooke lenses.

[Rob Lohman]

Ryan: we're looking in to adding support for this. As always it's a balance between the many feature requests we get every day.

[Ryan Patrick O'Hara]

Thanks Rob. I do understand. I keep posting things like this because I'm sure with some minor feature requests, the squeaky wheel gets the grease. If there is anything I can do to help, let me know. I have a set of cookes to test with, if need be. :)

I really loved the i/technology feature on our Red1MX, so I very much look forward to it on Epic.

-ryan

[Jon MIchael Puntervold]

I have a helicopter shoot coming up in a couple of weeks. For the shot I need to add some virtual elements. This forces me to use a fixed lens for the shot, as I do not dare to zoom without getting metadata, but being in a helicopter without being able to zoom, is not ideal... This is a HUGE issue for many filmmakers, and for all who use some kind of VFXs in their works, it should be considered a top priority in my opinion, not something to be considered some time in the future! I've taken it for granted that support was right around the corner for Epic & Scarlet... Please give this some priority, and if possible add LDS support while you're at it :)

[Kemalettin Sert]

even i/ support is not fully completed atm.on epic all lenses shows 48mm Focal distance with panchros
on R1 MX only few lenses works with i/ support.some of them do not work i mean panchros

[Ryan Patrick O'Hara]

Odd. Are you sure? I remember all of mine (panchro/i) working! I do know that sometimes (most of the time), if you swapped lenses, you'd have to restart the camera for the i/data to come back. But I don't ever remember not having any of my lenses not work on the Red1mx.

Now, on the Epic, the iris works perfectly on all lenses, and when I change focus, the DoF scale does change, but the focal length is simply stuck at 48mm for all lenses. It appears that it's just a focal length error, but then again, I've not done the math with a 48mm to see if it's accurate.

-ryan

[Ryan Patrick O'Hara]

It is fixed!

Thank you very much for doing this. The Cooke lenses are reading at correct aperture, focal length and giving a dof range.

It is very appreciated and already being used in the field.

All the best,

-Ryan


ps: the redmote seems to only read in meters, even when the camera is set to read focal distance in imperial, not metric. Just FYI. :)