>> ^Payback:

The camera is on it's side. The scan lines are perpendicular to the rotational axis. By the time the camera takes one sweep of video, it's physically spun a few times, so what you're getting is a strobe effect which grabs info from all over the place.


This is what is causing the really wide angle view. It looks like the camera is catching nearly a 360 degree view of the horizon (you can see from the thumbnail pic that there's an almost complete sine wave in the horizon).

Who the hell thought this would be a good idea in the first place? And I'd love to see a video of their face when they first played this back and it wasn't just a load of blury bollox

Very interesting. The sine waves are because you are seeing a very wide angle image and the axis of the blades isn't perfectly perpendicular to the horizon. The wave is controlled by the angle of the axis of the rota, not the speed. Altering the speed a little would move the position of the peaks of the wave across the image, but not alter the height of the waves.

At the points in the video where the axis of the rota is pependicular to the horizon the horizon appears as flat. This is because as the rota spins the horizon appears in the same place in the image throughout the rotation. As the helicopter learns the camera will at some points be looking below the horizon, and at others it will be looking above the horizon, hence the sine wave effect we see. The high points in the wave are when the rota is looking low, the low points when the rota is pointing high.

If the axis of rotation of the rota is parallel to the horizon you get the vertical lines of ground/sky/ground/sky, since this is what the end of the blade is pointing at as it rotates

Oh fuck me... that is just total fear. I do think it is exaggerated slightly by the wide-angle camera, but still looks fucking horrible to do.

This needs a wide-angle lens, and I need some cough syrup.
And if you have no idea what I'm talking about,

How dare they cut to a wide angle, while that spider was getting his only shot at stardom!

I was looking into doing the same thing years back, but programming became the thing that paid my bills, homeslice. I think you're a talented filmmaker, so I wish you the best, brother.

I'm not married, but I can speak from vicarious experience that most people want coverage (two cam coverage is typically enough, though if you can go up to three, you're doing better than most.).

And, don't listen to Dag, wide angle lenses are easy to shoot with (typically no focus issues), but they make people look like aliens (great for cinema, terrible for weddings). What bride wants to look like an alien, I ask you? You want to keep the viewpoint close to something the human eye understands or something longer... for 35mm that means a 50mm lens. What does that mean for a video zoom lens? I have no fucking clue, but you can easily just zoom in a bit tighter than the broad wide setting and do well, I'm sure.

Speed and cost. I actually know a thing or two about this, believe it or not. Let me just say that most professional wedding-ographers do well to create a streamlined process. Those that make decent money understand what they need to get (footage) and how to cut it quickly. They also offer packages where they charge more for various mediums of delivery (e.g, DVD, VCD, Web, photos, VHS, etc.). The more options, the higher the cost.

Also, a big thing they want is for you to disappear in the background and NOT be a part of their wedding, but when they see the final video they want to see that you were there amidst the crowds. Hence the longer lens comment above.

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

Complete coverage - including the honeymoon. Break out your wide-angle lens.


No, I suppose I would want it all webified, nicely accessible online albums and the ability to easily share with other people.

Ha ha

Was that epic sarcasm or did you miss the whole idea that it was a video of masterful use of miniature-faking (filming life-sized objects and making them look like they were miniatures)?

In reply to this comment by messenger:
Abuse of the wide angle blur effect, especially when things that were closer were more out of focus than things that were further away.

Excellent realistic full-scale water effects. Can't imagine how that was done.

Lame music.

Abuse of the wide angle blur effect, especially when things that were closer were more out of focus than things that were further away.

Excellent realistic full-scale water effects. Can't imagine how that was done.

Lame music.

Man, that would have been so much cooler with a wide angle lens. Still so cool!

So, I notice that there is a swarm of people around this man shortly after he gets out of his car, many are even in what appears to be police uniforms. But, where are the cop cars? Even in the wide angle near the end of the video there are only two marked cars?

I agree that sometimes being too critical can be annoying, but what you have to keep in mind with a film like this, is that it's not just a story but more so a work of art.. like in The Great Gatsby for instance in the beginning where Gatsby looks over at Daisy's house seeing a green light signifying go. I mean the fact that with both the opening scene and later in Danny's chase a wide angle shot is intentionally used to make both objects appear minuscule seems a bit to coincidental. Even the timing in which both the ball and axe strike seems to be in agreement as if it'd already been planned out. It's connections like these that directors use to differentiate and convey their art and i dunno, it seems kind of silly for a studio to waste a bunch of money on shinin' up the floors for no purpose, but i definitely could be wrong.

Actually, the interface between the positive and negative index regions can be used for viewing. See the attached video in my original post.

In reply to this comment by hatsix:
^ The camera is for viewing the outside world, as it would be impossible to see anything inside the cloaked area (if light bends around your eyes to make you invisible, then it can't go into your eyes so that you can see).
A camera would allow for wide angle, recording, and infrared viewing, vs. looking out with your own eyes.

^ The camera is for viewing the outside world, as it would be impossible to see anything inside the cloaked area (if light bends around your eyes to make you invisible, then it can't go into your eyes so that you can see).
A camera would allow for wide angle, recording, and infrared viewing, vs. looking out with your own eyes.