time to MOVI it

Every now and again something comes along that changes, or seems to threaten to change the face of a particular field of work. This year at NAB the MOVI handheld gyro based camera stabiliser was such an item. It took me a little while to comprehend how it actually works but now, as usual, my improvising brain has had a look at it, and decided it a worthy pursuit to try realise for my own aspirations.

Where to start I asked myself. Then I remembered I had motors I removed form a bunch of old Compaq 80/20 tape drives. So right now I'm trying to figure out how those coils are wired and if they'll be suitable for my purposes.

Cheap Cheat

I've hacked apart an old 50mm F1.4 Canon FD lens. It works well so far its just I can't use it for video like I want until I have made a DIY variable ND filter which I learnt how to do yesterday on youtube. So now the. big wait is for payday yet again... Sigh.

I should clone myself

I sometimes wish I could clone myself but with a singular shared consciousness, because, I need more of me's doing things to realise my ideas. At least I got my skater dolly built and bought a helios 44-2 lens for cheap. Now to make a cinerails snaptrack copy....

I am so glad for small mercies and having a little work again is one such example. December 30th last year I finally acquired another Canon 550D. But that's now two models behind you say. Surely you'd want to have a more current model? Not really, I just fundamentally wanted the capacity to make my own films in HD and have control over the exposure and focus and all the creative elements. Well now finally I have that and i'm excited for the potential it gives me. Hopefully this weekend coming I can get a whole lot of second hand lenses cheaply, if things go well, and then the current interest I have in telling a story can go forward.

once again

So here's a post again, its been quite a while since my last. Its not that I didn't want but I effectively had only my blackberry to blog from, and that needed setting up again. I have such a lot that I want to update but I guess most pertinent is on the content creation side. I got a full HD capable webcam for an absolute steal second and that brings with it the potential for usage in Monkeyjam, (http://monkeyjam.org/) because the webcam, has a WDM driver. So that means some Stopmotion animation aspirations can be fulfilled.

It also means I can use high res 3D scanning (www.david-laserscanner.com/)

Now with this in mind if I can lay my hands on a kinect and successfully cannibalise it to be used with Jasper Brekel's software I have motion capture for full body and face, albeit seperately for now. And all that means background character creations for film ideas. I find myself pining for a camera capable of full manual control whilst shooting and the pieces are currently just not falling into place courtesy of car insurance claims that are sucking up my money...

But hope springs eternal...

Gizmos gizmos

Its been a while since I updated this blog but in the last few months I've dived into making a panoramic camera head and photo stitching ad also investigating building a cnc router.

Currently I have an arduino which I fiddle with periodically and I now have 4 easydriver stepper motor driver boards and 4 stepper motors. Sadly the easy drivers don't handle enough current for the steppers I have. So my cnc router, although much closer eludes me still.

So I now have a circuit to build such a stepper driver but I have yet to finance making the pc boards.

Eish, I miss having a job. Its so difficult funding hobbies without one.
Campbell Rae
079 218 4360

Gears and gear

It seems I'm finally getting somewhere in my metal work. Some time back I was able to get a Canon powershot A495 cheaply and I got CHDK (Canon Hack Development Kit) for it.

Now I've decided to make a geared meter of track for interesting timelapse photography using this camera and CHDK. It has yet to be geared but right now the motion is smooth, and I feel good about that.

More to follow.