Announcing the new UltraPan8 Facebook web page

[Nicholas Kovats]

Plans for global ultrawide UP8 film domination have finally launched! Well, almost.

You may check out the UP8 Facebook page here, i.e. http://www.facebook.com/UltraPan8WidescreenFilm. Please feel free to
bring to my attention any typos and/or omissions. Contributions are welcome!

Regards,

Nicholas Kovats
Toronto, Canada

[Lunar07]

Nicholas -
Great work. But the examples you are giving on the page may scare people. 5.9mm lenses? Exotic adapters?
This should come later. For now the emphasis should be on 'regular' c-mount lenses that one can relate to. That, YES, everyone can do that. A 5.9mm lens sends the wrong message. Exotic adapters on a bayonet-type mount is not exactly a re-assuring step toward dominating the world

Plans for global ultrawide UP8 film domination have finally launched! Well, almost.

You may check out the UP8 Facebook page here, i.e. http://www.facebook.com/UltraPan8WidescreenFilm. Please feel free to
bring to my attention any typos and/or omissions. Contributions are welcome!

Regards,

Nicholas Kovats
Toronto, Canada

[Nicholas Kovats]

Thanks, Lunar.

I am not too concerned in "scaring" people away by not promoting the greatest common denominator, i.e the ubiquitous C-mount (FFD = 17.25mm). Practically speaking the Bolex bayonet mount is backwards compatible with a typical filmmakers legacy C-mount lenses by simply using the Bolex factory's stock adapter. There is a picture of the classic 3 C-mount lenses turret on the Facebook page.

The Bolex bayonet mount is a robust beast with a substantial breech lock. It is meant to be load bearing in the way the tiny threaded C-mount cannot especially with telephoto lenses. It's relatively short flange focal depth (FFD = 23.22 mm) makes it an excellent intermediate precision mount for the majority of still photography (EF, F, etc) and motion picture lenses (Arri PL, B, S, etc) with longer FFD(s). The C-mount is prone to vibration such that the threading can loosen. And also dirt in the threads that may or may not impact it's ability to mate correctly.

Thanks for the support and I look forward to your forthcoming UP8 2.8 R8 footage.

NK

[Scotness]

I think the success of anything comes down to two factors:

1. The quality of the product itself
2. How accessible/useable it is to the public -- which covers the marketing of it, and any alterations to the product itself to put it in a form more useable by the public.

Business history is full of stories where better products didn't make it due to poor marketing and useablity of the product. One example right off the top of my head is the Commodore 64 computer - the world's most popular home computer when there were many superior competitors out there - but it had the best marketing and software range and so it won hands down, and other superior sytems like the Spectravideo or BBC lost out.

Now if you have a superior product, in this case a film format, and if you don't make it as accessable to as many people as possible it will forever be a little off shoot that most people won't use.

If you're happy just having the hard core tech heads then fine, and you will get a certain sense of self righteous happiness out of it - but you won't have spread the product to it's full potential and met the users half way. I think you've got to take something half way to them, rather than expect them to travel all the way to you.

So if you're getting detailed advice from the market about how to widen the products appeal you'd be foolish in my humble opinion to ignore it. Look at Dave's Supermag 400 in the threads here if you want to see that approach in action.

Good luck
Scot

[Lunar07]

Nicholas -
I totally agree with you and you are preaching to the quire
I know this info and I know the advantages of the bayonet type.
However, you are approaching this thing from a strictly technical aspect.
Your average user out there who may be interested does not understand exotic adapters on a Bayonet type Bolex. They have not even seen a Bayonet type Bolex except maybe the Bolex SBM. A 5.9mm lens is beyong their budget. The use of a 5.9mm lens should be the exception NOT the type of use you talk about. It is an "after fact" not the general rule. I am just giving an example.
They understand turrets and C-mount RX lenses of the range of 10mm and up on a Bolex RX-3 and RX-4.
Your approach is way too advanced for the average user who may be willing to try it out.
Also, to be realistic, converting a camera to a Bayonet type demands that the user sends an SBM. The guy who is doing the conversion may not have enough bayonet front plates. Things like that.
This is my opinion.

Thanks, Lunar.

I am not too concerned in "scaring" people away by not promoting the greatest common denominator, i.e the ubiquitous C-mount (FFD = 17.25mm). Practically speaking the Bolex bayonet mount is backwards compatible with a typical filmmakers legacy C-mount lenses by simply using the Bolex factory's stock adapter. There is a picture of the classic 3 C-mount lenses turret on the Facebook page.

The Bolex bayonet mount is a robust beast with a substantial breech lock. It is meant to be load bearing in the way the tiny threaded C-mount cannot especially with telephoto lenses. It's relatively short flange focal depth (FFD = 23.22 mm) makes it an excellent intermediate precision mount for the majority of still photography (EF, F, etc) and motion picture lenses (Arri PL, B, S, etc) with longer FFD(s). The C-mount is prone to vibration such that the threading can loosen. And also dirt in the threads that may or may not impact it's ability to mate correctly.

Thanks for the support and I look forward to your forthcoming UP8 2.8 R8 footage.

NK

[Lunar07]

I think the success of anything comes down to two factors:

1. The quality of the product itself
2. How accessible/useable it is to the public -- which covers the marketing of it, and any alterations to the product itself to put it in a form more useable by the public.

No doubt the product is superior and of high quality.
As you can see from my comments, I think the approach should be to what makes it relate to average every day users and to show it in terms they understand. Thus my comments about avoiding the mention of bayonets and 5.9mm lenses as a starting point, and to emphasize what can be converted that can be easily found out there on eBay and other places. Meaning Turret cameras with C-mount lenses.

[Scotness]

Yes I agree with what you are saying - that's why I put in my 2 cents worth - to support what you were saying.

Dave's Supermag 400 is a great example of all of this going wrong - he had a great product and idea (400ft super 8 loads) and was getting some invalueable feedback from people here - but he ended up taking it all personally and ditched the project - but everyone was just pointing out problems that had to be fixed in order to make the thing either more useable or actually workable at all --- I'll try and dig out one or two of those threads as there's alot to learn from them -but unfortunately for all the wrong reasons!

Two things I've learnt (and this is more to do with artistic performances) but it really goes for this kind of thing as well:

1) If people criticise you - they aren't criticising your right to do something, just something about the way in which you are doing it now
2) Just because you love doing something it doesn't automatically mean you are doing it to the best of your ability

Nicholas is well with in his rights to just leave the Ultrapan project as it is - but if he does so he is selling himself, the public and the idea short, in my opinion

Scot

[carllooper]

On the question of lenses I'm using a normal Bolex C mount 10mm lens on my UltraPan modded Bolex, but also a Bolex wideangle adapter attached to the front of that, which converts the entire lens assembly to the equivalent of a 5.5mm lens.

The only consideration with UP8 is that you use a lens with twice the field of view that you might have otherwise used for 4:3, ie. if you want to keep the same vertical fov that you entertained in 4:3. So where you might have used 25mm in 4:3 you might want to choose a 10mm in UP8. If you are in a situation where you would have used 10mm in 4:3, only then would you need something specialist such as a wide-angle adapter, or standalone wide-angle lens.

Here is my setup with a standard C mount Switar 10mm RX, but with a wide-angle adapter attached (Bolex Aspheron 5.5mm adapter for Switar 10mm) to the front of it.



The horizontal angle of view for 5.5mm is really very wide, ie. not necessarily a lens you would use all the time - although I would use it all the time because I love it.

Using Ancient Greek magic ...

horizontal angle of view
= 2 * atan( filmHalfWidth / focalLength)
= 2 * atan (5.26mm / 5.5mm)
= 2 * atan( 0.956 )
= 2 * 43.7 degrees
= 87.4 degrees

The vertical angle of view can be calculated in similar fashion:

= 2 * atan( filmHalfHeight / focalLength)
= 2 * atan( 1.875mm / 5.5mm)
= 2 * atan( 0.341)
= 2 * 18.826 degrees
= 37.65 degrees

You can use the same formula for calculating 10mm lens, 25mm lens etc for UP8:

10mm
horizontal fov = 2 * atan( 5.26mm / 10mm) = 55.49 degrees
vertical fov = 2 * atan( 1.875mm / 10mm ) = 21.24 degrees

25mm
horizontal fov = 2 * atan( 5.26mm / 25mm) = 23.76 degrees
vertical fov = 2 * atan(1.875 / 25mm) = 8.58 degrees

C

[carllooper]

Business history is full of stories where better products didn't make it due to poor marketing and useablity of the product. One example right off the top of my head is the Commodore 64 computer - the world's most popular home computer when there were many superior competitors out there - but it had the best marketing and software range and so it won hands down, and other superior sytems like the Spectravideo or BBC lost out.

The commodore 64. I loved that machine. I taught myself programming on that thing. I wasn't aware of Spectravideo or BBC at that time (early eighties). In the shop it was only a choice between a Commodore64 and an Apple. The Commodore64 had something like 40 more pixels than the Apple did.

C

[Andreas Wideroe]

Hehe ... me too. I was very into the C64. Did assembler programming, graphics, swapping and was a part of the demoscene for many years. http://noname.c64.org/csdb/scener/?id=310

[Scotness]

Yeah I'm not saying the C64 was a bad system - just that if you compare it's specs to some of it's competitors it's left behind (which is why Simons Basic was invented) - but it was still way more popular.

But besides if you can make pictures like this with it, it can't be that bad 8O :lol:



But back on topic if Ultrapan 8 is not sold as being relatively simple to set up - other mods like Super Dooper 8 will be more popular even if technically inferior.

Scot

[carllooper]

Hehe ... me too. I was very into the C64. Did assembler programming, graphics, swapping and was a part of the demoscene for many years. http://noname.c64.org/csdb/scener/?id=310

Cool. Those were the days - assembly coding - and the instruction set was printed in the manual that came with the computer. I ended up doing heaps of work in assembler. Did lots of computer animation for outdoor theatrical events (along with video). The last thing I did on the C64 was about '92 - writing the controller for a robot that mechanically painted pictures on canvas from images it acquired through a Fairlight CVI frame buffer. The C64 was slightly modded (without harm) to control both the robot and the Fairlight CVI over it's RS-232 port. The resulting paintings were really quite strange. Looking phtographic and handmade. One was of a TV newsreader who flew half way across the country to see it (after she heard about it). The other was of a footballer turned local politician - and painted in analglyph 3D!

After that it was the Amiga and then PCs and the end of a particularly interesting era.

C

[Scotness]

After that it was the Amiga and then PCs and the end of a particularly interesting era.

C

Agreed -- I'd love to see some of those pictures if possible - could you PM me or email me - so we keep this thread on topic

Scot

[Lunar07]

The only consideration with UP8 is that you use a lens with twice the field of view that you might have otherwise used for 4:3, ie. if you want to keep the same vertical fov that you entertained in 4:3. So where you might have used 25mm in 4:3 you might want to choose a 10mm in UP8. If you are in a situation where you would have used 10mm in 4:3, only then would you need something specialist such as a wide-angle adapter, or standalone wide-angle lens.

You are approaching this from the point of view of a 16mm user.
Which is the wrong approach. As it will confuse many people.
This is UTLRA WIDE 8mm. So, from the point of view of 8mm, lenses stay the same as in 8mm format.
You reach the same conclusions as you state but without confusing others.
In other words - in UP8, you use the same range of focal lengths as in R8, in C-mount RX lenses:

5mm-7mm for wide angle (for which you use your attachment on the 10mm lens or a standalone 5.9mm lens as in Nicholas lens )
10mm-12mm for Normal
25mm-36mm for Tele
50mm and up for extreme Tele

This is simpler to understand instead of going around it in a circle.

[Lunar07]

I understood that scotness that you were supporting what I said.
I agree with you and will add following.
This is not a criticism of the use as put by Nicholas as it is a criticism of the approach from a marketing point of view.
And it reflects my enthusiasm for UP8.

And this is for Nicholas - I do not mind writing an essay on UP8. Without all these technicalities, and avoiding even the mention of bayonets and 5.9mm lenses. As a starting point.
We just have to introduce it in a language understood by a user looking mainly for a turret camera with c-mount lenses. Not a bayonet bolex. This is why that was my point: your main picture on facebook is sending the wrong message.
You see Nicholas, this is YOUR way of using UP8. Which is fine. But believe me this is NOT the way of the majority out there who will be interested and enthusiastic about this beautiful format.

Of course, it goes without saying that this is constructive criticism of the type you would hear while we are in a coffee house discussing this on a cup of coffee ) with scotness present of course

Yes I agree with what you are saying - that's why I put in my 2 cents worth - to support what you were saying.

Dave's Supermag 400 is a great example of all of this going wrong - he had a great product and idea (400ft super 8 loads) and was getting some invalueable feedback from people here - but he ended up taking it all personally and ditched the project - but everyone was just pointing out problems that had to be fixed in order to make the thing either more useable or actually workable at all --- I'll try and dig out one or two of those threads as there's alot to learn from them -but unfortunately for all the wrong reasons!

Two things I've learnt (and this is more to do with artistic performances) but it really goes for this kind of thing as well:

1) If people criticise you - they aren't criticising your right to do something, just something about the way in which you are doing it now
2) Just because you love doing something it doesn't automatically mean you are doing it to the best of your ability

Nicholas is well with in his rights to just leave the Ultrapan project as it is - but if he does so he is selling himself, the public and the idea short, in my opinion

Scot