Rig-Slider Launched by Stereofocus
The startup company Stereofocus Ltd. (London, UK) is releasing the innovative Stereo-one 3D stereoscopic product line for the Kickstarter campaign starting this month (May 13, 2013 to July 06, 2013) with the Rig-Slider, Kipphead and Handheld-Rig.
The available 3D rigs do not meet all stereographer's wishes: Lenses are fixed, usage is complicated, each camera needs individual adjustment and almost none has the option to change between portrait and landscape. That is why Stereofocus is coming with three revolutionary solutions: the Kipphead to easily change from portrait to landscape mode, The rig-slider to control a pair of side-by-side cameras, and the handheld-rig, the ultimate gear for productions in smaller places.
Vertigo, an Autonomous 3D Camera Aboard the ISS
Free-formation-flying robotic spheres are hovering around the International Space Station with goggles on right now!
The Visual Estimation and Relative Tracking for Inspection of Generic Objects (VERTIGO) study, a part of the Synchronized Position, Hold, Engage and Reorient Experimental Satellites (SPHERES) investigation explores the use of small satellites equipped to analyze and capture data from specified objects, producing a 3D model of those objects.
The VERTIGO goggles weight 1.6 kilogram and include one 1.2 gigahertz data processor, camera, Wi-Fi device and batteries plus a 128 GB on-board memory.
Red Epic is now Even Better with Dragon Sensor
The Red Epic cameras are used by the best 3D stereoscopic movie directors and DOPs such as Peter Jackson who used several of them to shoot the Hobbit or Ridley Scott for Prometheus. Today at NAB in Las Vegas, RED is offering an even better version offering a more impressive sensor. The Epic DRAGON has 6K resolution (6144 x 3160), works at frame rates up to 100fps, and accepts 3 additional stops over the Epic M-X.
Underwater 3D Filming Now 100 Times Better Thanks to 3Deep
3Deep by Pawel Achtel (Coles Bay, Australia) is an underwater 3D rig housing for RED Epic cameras able to resolve full 5k corner-to-corner across entire sensor, not just in the middle of the frame. The precisely manufactured housing uses titanium and other uncompromising materials. It is by far the smallest and is also extremely quick to set up, taking only a few seconds to change lenses. The magic behind the exceptional quality of Achtel rigs is based on the use of wet Nikonos lenses.
The underwater stereoscopic rig pictured here under houses a couple of RED Epic in parallel configuration. Parallel filming is usually not an issue for underwater shots as the far plane is never that far. However, Pawel Achtel announced this month that a wet mirror rig is nevertheless under development and will be soon available.
Red Motion Mount Solves 3D-Killing Rolling Shutter
One of the biggest problems of the otherwise fabulous RED Epic cameras caused a number of headache among stereographers. The rolling shutter effect that introduced lots of retinal rivalry artifacts in stereoscopic 3D shots will soon disappear thanks to the just announced RED Motion lens mount.
