Introducing the F-Zero Camera
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- Опубликовано: 13 сен 2024
- Lock in Earlybird pricing at www.fzerocamer...
Kickstarter campaign GOES LIVE on May 30th: www.kickstarte...
For more info on the subject, we highly recommend these two videos:
"The Impossible Lens" by Media Division: • f0.3 - The Impossible ...
"Building a Next-Level Camera" by DIYPerks: • Building a Next-Level ...
Those one-off projects were inspirations for our work, which is the ONLY product ever made for a turnkey solution to this kind of imaging! Learn more and reserve yours now at www.fzerocamer...
Respect for giving credit to DIY perks, absolutely fine that you're providing a (hopefully😉) reliable option for people who don't want to tinker themselves.
Good luck with your campaign.
Diy perks should be "proud" of you
Both DIYPerks and The Media Division did awesome one-off versions of this concept (that's why we credit them in the video description, AND on our website, AND in our Kickstarter campaign). However there has NEVER been a commercial product you could buy to shoot these kinds of photos for yourself. Until now, it's been a long slog of hunting for vintage gear and specialty items, and trying to cobble it all together in the hopes that it'll take a picture. F-Zero Camera is the first turnkey solution to do this. We are happy to credit our inspirations, and recognize that this concept has been around a long time (MUCH longer than either DIYPerks or the Media Division, as both creators will be quick to tell you).
question of time chinese companies make ripoffs…
@fzerocamera I completely agree.
The fact your company was able to commercialize a complex DIY project because you made it more accessible and convenient for the average consumer should be celebrated. You translated intricate steps into a ready-to-use product, providing value by saving users time and the potential cost of errors. This should be considered acceptable because it expands the reach of the original idea, most definitely benefits the community, and fosters innovation and growth.
I think being honest about your inspirations and even going so far to talk about diy solutions is more than fair. If the sources that inspired you to do this had an end product like this in mind for mass distribution they had every opportunity to do so.
"DIY Perks" made a video about this type of system 10 months ago. His video is called "Building a Next-Level Camera". PS: Only after writing this I see your descriptions :D
Haha, no problem. Yeah we were inspired by the work of others. You should DEFINITELY watch the Media Division video as well. They do amazing work there as well.
Very interesting DOF adapter. I have been following Olexiy Bo Shportun for going on two years since i first found an article describing his digital camera obscura work. I have been playing with my iwn 8X10 DOF adapter and have been dealing with the hot spot on the ground glass.
This looks like a very good ready made system.
Thank you Gary! We are SO EXCITED to finally be bringing this to life.
@@fzerocamera good deal. I especially like that this camera breaks down into fitted components with a case. I can see hiking out with it packed up. The one I made is one big old cumbersome unit that, with tripod weighs in about 35 pounds and is awkward. Be nice if the front standard had some movement, like tilt and swing, but it's fine like it is. I am curious if the $949 camera comes with the shown lens? Will it be ready to use out of the box?
@@garyhamilton182 YES, the "Full Camera Kit" includes the Objective Lens shown. It's maybe hard to catch in the short text list at the end of the video. But on the Kickstarter campaign it's a little clearer, we have each bundle broken down in images. You could potentially do a y-axis swing, but we wouldn't really recommend it. You'd be affixing the standard only by one bolt in the center, allowing it to swivel. We prioritized rock-solid stability, which makes it more robust in general, and also better for video work. THANK YOU for your interest! If you like the $949 price, make sure to reserve an Earlybird spot at www.fzerocamera.com/reserve
Ultimate 3D pop camera
F 0.3 sounds like something you can shoot in very low light. Is this only for depth of field, while the main camera lens and sensor decides the light sensitivity?
Unfortunately this is NOT a new low-light king. It shoots light more like f8 or T8. The primary benefit is the shallow depth of field. Yes, the taking camera is what you use to set exposure. You can find more common questions and answers at www.fzerocamera.com/FAQ
Just wondered about the fresnel lens and how visible this is in the final image? Looks highly engineered, I’m putting together a camera myself for a 600 mm F6.3 aerial reconnaissance lens, have to build it myself as the lens is too big for any regular LF camera.
Hi Jonathan, so that will depend on how you build it. In the demo system I built (see this video - ruclips.net/video/yQyGUWCAdTw/видео.html) - the Fresnel sheet is right up against the ground glass. In that case it's somewhat visible, but only at high magnification. As you can see in the demo footage taken from that system (see this video - ruclips.net/video/cr5i25Hrq3M/видео.html) even at 4k resolution (8 Megapixels) it's not visible. But I kept the demo system that way to have the fewest possible layers and the least possible dust. If your priorities are different (such as, no fresnel lines at 32+ MP), you might want to use one of the included glass sheets to space the fresnel lens away from the ground glass.
Interesting. The principle appears to be similar to the P+S Technik Pro35 which allowed a 35mm depth of field on a 2/3” broadcast camera long before Alexa and Red existed. That adapter was sometimes referred to as a “flip” because the image projected onto the ground glass was inverted and therefore you had to “flip” the image internally with the camera’s recording options. I’m assuming this f0 design also needs to be flipped? There’s an interesting film from called “Bellflower” which screened at Sundance 2011. It was shot with a home-made bellows lens similar to yours with the SI-2K camera. Check it out. Looks amazing.
This is amazing
Thank you Gabriel!
wow, quite interesting, reminds me of a fully extended sinar f2 or P2 system, with two bellows plus the intermediate standard, and the wide bellows on the back!, a great macro setup, as this is the 'why' in the physics breaking, you are not technically breaking the laws, you are using the second principle of scheimflug ( tilting the standard planes), so the dof box is warped, to align this plane with the subject plane, hence no need for wide apatures;
PS the reason we Don't go beyond f 1.2 is simple, FOCUS, the dof is sooo shallow we can't manually focus a view camera, or 135 camera ! it is physically impossible, esp. with the pitch of gearing in the helix of lens mounts, or view camera focus racks to do any finer movement (necissary to achieve this focus). another reason is that iris size is proportionate to max apature, so the glass quality, weight, etc. would be too big, like a movie theatre projector lens!, to get that f number.
i could easily see it be modded/used for a scanner camera if the lens is sharp enough and the mid panel/screen had a fine enough texture well being semi transparent
Sorry, I have a lot of questions;
What sort of coatings and colour fringing correction have you put in place in the lens design?
I have an old sinar 4x5 with a lens hood that attaches onto the rail would this fit or is a lens hood included/ available.
I mainly shoot with medium format, is the image circle large enough to cover the whole sensor or would there be a lot of vignetting, can this be changed by the lens used when mounting a camera? What is the ideal focal length to get as large an image circle as possible?
Have medium format cameras been tested with the F Zero?
Don't be sorry, that's what I'm here for!
The current lenses in the reward options are adapted from the existing projector world. We didn't develop them from the ground up, so I'm not sure exactly what formulas they use, but I can tell you we didn't do ANY fringing correction for the demo footage - so what you see there will be the worst-case scenario. Also, we ARE developing some additional options based on very good Tessar formulas, which we hope to launch in Q4 2023 or Q1 2024.
Old 4x5 lenses will not be appropriate for the F-Zero Camera. The Intermediate Sensor there is an 8x10 setup, so 4x5 lenses will not cover nearly enough of the image.
I'm not sure whether any of your existing 4x5 accessories like lens hoods would fit, but I'm guessing that with a little DIY work something might be possible.
Hunting for a large enough fresnel lens (at a good price) is a task in itself
this already exists it's called a sinar camera. just diy a lens board and you achieve the same thing
You're half right. Large-format 8x10 cameras like Sinar, Toyo, Plaubel, and others do exist, and share some structural similarities with the F-Zero Camera. We acknowledge this explicitly in our FAQ. But none of them does what this camera can do, which is to provide a workable solution for digital capture INCLUDING video. First of all, their ground glass setup won't resolve better than about 702p, if that. And try to pull focus on any of those setups and the whole thing wobbles and shakes. To have a steady, usable image for digital, F-Zero is the only solution that exists. Thanks for your interest!
Can you be held liable for not actually breaking physics?
So, If I drop a buck for a reservation, would that be good for the parts kit as well? Beyond getting my own lens (and slider) what other bits would I need for the kit? Are the bellows included in the kit? You can tell I'm interested in the some assembly required option...
Yes, a reservation will guarantee you Earlybird access to the reward level of your choice. As shown in the video, Bellows are NOT part of the DIY Bundle, just the parts stated. There will also be images on Kickstarter to very clearly show which parts come with which bundle.
Yeah, this is awesome
Thank you!
So I have just seen that you will need to include a "Linear Slider" as extra. Why would you just not include this and alter the price? Do you have a link and price to the one used in your video? Thanks
Sorry for any confusion - this is just the campaign's intro video, without all the extra info you'd see alongside when it launches later this month. There are many different potential setups people might want, so we leave that part to the customer. And yes, we have exact links to what we used on the demo setup (which is about $150 total from a company called OpenBuilds).
@@fzerocamera Thanks! I appreciate the response.. Look forward to more details :)
Wow! I'm very excited! I'll be an early bird! Will there eventually be accessories for this to make it easier for rigging other accessories? I'm imagining a large cage that allows you to carry camera and lens together as well as add other accessories!
Thanks Brett! We are so excited to see the positive response for the F-Zero Camera. YES, we absolutely foresee building a larger ecosystem of parts for the camera. HOWEVER, you won't even have to wait for us to act; all outer surfaces are covered in standard 1/4-inch threaded holes. So you can already attach pretty much anything you like. For some of the test shots, I had a monitor mounted to the rear lens carrier. You could easily mount a NATO rail and then any handle on the market. The possibilities already exist, and we're definitely interested to develop more of them.
What is the resolving power? If I put my phaseone 100mp camera on the back, will I be able to resolve eyelashes on a full body photo or will just get details of the intermediate screen??
So, we have not measured the resolving power in a lab setting. On the one hand, we did work very hard to create a very high-resolution ground glass which is superior to any other we've seen on the market, and in fact much higher resolution than what you see in the demo video. On the other hand, I cannot promise any particular resolution and overall this system is not primarily about resolution, but rather about a unique look that cannot be achieved in any other way. If pixel-peeping is your concern, perhaps this camera is not for you. What the F-Zero Camera offers is an image unlike anything else you've ever seen, even if your 600% crop isn't as sharp as on a Phase One.
@@fzerocamera Cool, I thank you for the reply. I understand its more about a look, but i was curious to the extent of the look. Looking forward to knowing more as it progresses
@@portblock we do have a 45 megapixel RAW comparison you can check out, which is in our website's FAQ. It compares Canon's 50mm f1.2 RF L lens against the F-Zero camera, although that is using our older lower-resolution glass. In my opinion it compares favorably. And the production hardware should be capable of even greater resolution.
@@fzerocamera great thank you!
Perfect for selfies...
In fact I DID take some selfies ;-) The opening image (guy leaning against fence) is me; anywhere you see that guy in the video is somewhere I took a selfie. I know you were joking, but it's possible haha.
@@nick_salazar Hi Nick, Yes it was a joke, of course. By the way I have a Sinar P2 camera and I tried to take selfies with the camera on a broomstick. It was fun but with a f8 lens the result was a bit... strange... I guess with your setup it could be way better.
Your project is very interesting.
How much does this weigh? I could not see anything with regards to this? Also, is the slider width Arca Swiss compatible? Do you have a link to the ProAim head that it is attached to? Thanks! :)
The final setup will depend on which taking camera you select, what slider you want to use, etc. However, you should expect something in the 20lb+ range. Again, this stuff is in the campaign details, I'm sorry it's not clearer just via the intro video, which is meant to be short and to the point. Our Gantry Plate and Lens Carrier (the two parts which attach to the slider) have tons of holes for mounting to just about anything you could possibly want. The prototype setup was an old Linhof tripod, then on top of that was an Arri Dovetail Baseplate (made by Proaim), and we used a dovetail clamp on the bottom of our slider to act as a quick release onto that Baseplate. We will get into LOTS of technical videos, explanations, setup examples, etc, once we have final production equipment in place. We didn't want to make those videos using our prototype, as there will be some changes between now and production, and we wanted to avoid confusion by showing prototype gear if it doesn't work 100% the same as the production equipment.
@@fzerocamera Thanks! I appreciate the response.. Look forward to more details :)
This is a cool tool, but I think that this is false advertising. The camera is f4.5, which is plenty shallow. This thing just takes a picture of the image that the camera produces. Am I wrong?
Perhaps you're missing the meaning of "equivalent." In this case, we're shooting a large format 500mm f4 lens onto an 8x10 intermediate projection. Then we're shooting that image with a digital camera at the back of the system. If you wanted a native full-frame lens that had the same field of view and same depth of field, you'd need a 67mm f0.5 lens, which of course does not exist. You can run these calculations yourself at the excellent online calculator made by Points in Focus, here: pointsinfocus.com/tools/depth-of-field-and-equivalent-lens-calculator/
@@fzerocamera That makes sense. So the name refers to the effective depth of field rather than it's light gathering capacity. How do you meter for it when you are using it?
Beautifully made project! You should shoot machining process with the camera.
I also made version using Industar-37, but my version is a loooot more "ghetto" looking: ruclips.net/user/shortsvliwcGLASZM
Good one, have been playing around with this for many years…
Do the lenses have an aperture? I would this this is necessary, particularly for video work.
Any chance of seeing a front standard that enables movements?
I am mainly interested in stills, any chance of seeing some RAW files? A bit hard to assess image quality…
Thanks 😃
Thanks for your interest! The objective lens doesn't have its own iris - after all, the whole point here is to be able to exploit the unique look of an ultra-low effective f-stop. HOWEVER, you very easily have control over exposure. As you can see in our test shots, we have everything from bright outdoor scenes to firelight-only shots. You use the taking camera to control exposure. And for VIDEO, it's actually extremely interesting because the aperture of the lens on your TAKING camera essentially acts like an ND filter. That is, no matter the aperture you use to capture the intermediate sensor, the depth of field won't change. Your exposure simply gets brighter or darker. So our demo shots were taken with our taking lens set to anything from about f2 to about f8, depending on the scene.
I apologize if this is confusing, we will have LOTS more info and technical demonstrations once we have final production equipment. We don't want to get into making all those videos just yet, as there will be some small revisions between the prototype and production gear to make things better and more universal, and we want to demonstrate using final equipment only.
No RAW files yet for the same reason; we want to show off only our best final gear in order to avoid any confusion. I hope this is helpful!
@@fzerocamera Thanks for the reply.. Cannot fully agree with you, an aperture would be very nice to have, especially if you are talking video. The DOF is so shallow must be a nightmare to even attempt pulling focus. As long as other lenses with an aperture are able to be placed on the front (I see you have lens boards) then that should be ok.. Any chance of seeing a front standard that has tilt/swing? Thanks!
@@wallpaperviking Well, I come more from a stills background, and only recently have been dipping my toe into the world of video. But I found it pretty easy to rack focus for this demo footage. And as you can see many of them involve either racking to the subject (shots of the cars, or the painting) or racking through objects (the spraypaint cans). I'm not an experienced focus puller, but it seemed to work for me. I was just monitoring on relatively inexpensive 7-inch field monitor (which displays at 1080p by the way) and it seemed to work well.
In terms of tilt/shift, in our testing those kinds of things really compromised the stability and robustness of the system. You get a LOT of wobble/vibrations when there are tilt/swing mechanisms in place. The guys at Media Division noticed the same thing on their setup. So instead, we designed the F-Zero to be rock solid specifically so that it WOULD be more usable for video. We can whip pan, tilt, whatever, everything stays solid. You can still potentially get a y-axis tilt by only affixing the standards via one center bolt, allowing them to swivel. But you'd need to be careful as they're designed to be locked down with three bolts.
Thanks for your feedback!
@@fzerocamera Fair enough, I have realised from playing around with such a system that there is always a compromise in there somewhere ;) I have reserved an early spot and wish you the best with the Kickstarter funding.. With regards to the two lenses available (67mm f0.6 and 39mm 0.5) do you need a separate 810 frame/glass/collimator to match each lens? My understand of Fresnel lenses is that they need to ideally be matched to the Large Format focal length.. ie a 300mm Large Format lens needs a 300mm fresnel lens. The two lenses you offer are quite a distance apart in terms of focal length, so I imagine you cannot use the same Fresnel.. Thanks! :)
@@wallpaperviking we use only a single sensor assembly for both lenses. I believe the focal length is around 400mm or so, and works well for both lenses. There is a small amount of vignetting left over on either setup, but it's easily corrected out as you can see.
You did not get around the laws of physics !
Exactly.
Wow
Thank you Saj!
Will this work with anamorphic lenses?
I assume you mean an anamorphic taking lens. Yes, any taking lens will work. However, you aren't going to get any of the bokeh characteristics of the anamorphic. That's because what the TAKING LENS focuses on is just the plane of the Intermediate Sensor - it's all "in focus" as far as the taking lens is concerned. Basically you are taking a picture of a picture. So things like character, flare, anamorphic arrays, none of them contribute to the final image in this context.
@@fzerocamera If you can find an Anamorphic attachment bigger enough to cover the Large Format lens, then you should get anamorphic characteristics.. I have tried this on my 5x4 camera.. The issue is finding one bigger enough.
@@wallpaperviking sounds like you're talking about an anamorphic OBJECTIVE LENS, where I think Mr. White was asking about the Taking Lens (that's what most people are curious about). They generally want to know something like "if I put an anamorphic lens at the back, will I have an effective f0.5 anamorphic setup?" and the answer is basically "no."
You are suggesting something else - putting one up front and using it as our Objective Lens. However, I'm not aware of any anamorphic lenses which will cover our 8x10 Intermediate Sensor.
@@fzerocamera Yes, that is what I am talking about.. I am also talking about Anamorphic Projection lenses. ie Kowa or Sankor etc etc. They basically just enlarge the taking lens from about 85mm and up ( full frame equivalent). Not sure about 8x10 but have tried it on 5x4 and it works. Like I said, it would be about finding an Anamorphic attachment that is bigger enough or an 8 x 10 lens that is smaller enough, otherwise you will get pretty extreme vignetting..
How do you deal with vignetting on the ground glass?
The sensor assembly includes a collimator setup (fresnel lens sheets).
@@fzerocamera Great! On one, or both sides of the ground glass? Are they customized for 2 lens you are offering, or same focal length for both lens?
@@itsskin in the prototype setup there are two, and they are both BEHIND the ground glass, which helps us eliminate any artifacts from the grooves. We are continuing to refine this feature, so production may be slightly different, but that's how we did it for all the demo shots.
Oh, and yes they are an ideal fit for the two lenses we are offering; the focal length is somewhere between the two lenses, such that both lenses work well. There is mild vignetting which is easily corrected out.
@@fzerocamera Interesting design! Thx! Will reserve one ;)
then we go back to the 20s with a bellows camera? 😂 Looks like agfa belows
Marketing wording here needs work. It's not a physics issue with lenses, it's a business decision. And this is not "getting around" the issue, it is simply how it can work without using multiple very expensive to produce lens elements to achieve similar results. That's based on the videos you wrote you were inspired by to create this bellows with a projector lens project.
Hi David, I'm sorry you don't like our language. But I'm going to disagree with you that it isn't accurate. I assume you're referring to the Media Division video in which Nikolas Moldenhauer describes the theoretical possibility of a lens made at 0.7, or even possibly as low as 0.5. Note that the F-Zero Camera can shoot as low as f0.3, which would indeed be a physical impossibility - that video is even called "The Impossible Lens" and they describe "getting around the laws of physics" to "capture the impossible" very similarly to how we describe it here. In fact, we even ASKED The Media Division for their permission to use that same language, to ensure they wouldn't be upset by what we're saying and the wording we used. They were happy for us to use those same words, and have seen our marketing material. Now, that leaves the possibility of the "theoretical" very low aperture lenses. There aren't merely business decisions preventing them from being made but indeed the laws of physics. As you get toward the very low aperture range in conventional lenses, the image falls apart VERY fast. There are barely any f0.95 lenses that look decent (even the legendary Leica Noctilux has HUGE chromatic abberations and other issues) ... and any of the wider lenses (certain X-ray optics from Zeiss and others) are similarly unusable as a practical matter for a wide variety of reasons. We've tested a bunch of them. It is indeed physically impossible to build a lens that produces the image that the F-Zero camera produces.
So you copied idea of DIY Perks
We love the DIYPerks project! In fact we link to them on our product page and in our campaign. This idea has been around for a long time. We are definitely not the first. But we ARE the first to bring a product to market to let people try this for themselves. Every other version requires folks to hunt for vintage gear and specialty parts and then try to cobble it all together. This is the ONLY product ever made that lets you do this in a turnkey fashion. Also, for a deep dive into the physics of all this, I HIGHLY recommend "The Impossible Lens" by The Media Division here on RUclips. We also link to them in our website and our Kickstarter campaign.
We are more than happy to give credit where it's due; those two projects in particular were big inspirations for us. But they're by no means the only folks who have done things like this.
too late ...we have AI and photo editting tools now ;P
So far I've never seen one that can 1) handle the depth of a subject (i.e., as a subject moves farther from focal plane in a single shot), or 2) handle foreground elements in front of subject, or 3) handle focus racking in video, or 4) do video generally, or 5) actually look good. Other than that, if you're happy with AI blur, be my guest!
Do you still use the in camera lens to focus or do you set it to infinity and slide the F zero to focus?
Great question. The taking camera lens needs to focus on the intermediate sensor, which is approximately 17 inches away. So you need a relatively close-focus lens. Once it's set, you can switch the taking camera to manual focus to ensure it won't drift or get confused. At that point, focus is achieved by sliding the F-Zero components.
We will have PLENTY of good explanatory materials once we get to production. We just didn't want to do them right now, as some minor things change between prototype and production, and we want to ensure we're demonstrating production equipment. Does all that make sense?
@F-Zero Camera very exciting!!I got me wondering if there potentially could be a modular focus pulling system similar to a slider? I'm really excited about this project ☺️
@@brettalexander.studio yes! it can actually work with any existing slider as long as that slider can accept the weight load. And we have plans to develop something a little more integrated down the road.