Birds Eye Perspective - How to question

Contexter

On a 5by5 by 4(height) site I need to accomplish some sort of birds eye observation of a group of dancers - does anybody have expertise on this and would be willing to share some pragmatic suggestions - (as with all things dancing: my budget is limited) - ?

Thanx and greetings from Ostkreuz

Benedikt

Skulpture

CCTV camera above them on a rig?

dbini

that's how i do it: cctv cam on a magic arm, BNC down to a Canopus or Dazzle capture device. there's a little latency, but its not unusable.

Contexter

.... I have a Kinect and even a 10m usb cable ... does anybody have experience with lenses for the kinect ? Seems kinect optical range constants don't match ...

gapworks

Hi.

last time i needed such thing i used a wide angle lens for an ipod 4 and epocam HD. Worked great on an adHoc network and with the new multi cam app from epocam u even have a better resolution.

then all u need is a windshield car holder to mount your iphone or iPod.

best

peter

ps: http://www.olloclip.com/product/

primaldivine

If you are just after a live video image to work with and not doing video tracking, the kinect is not the best lens option for you, but what is the ceiling height? And how easy is it for you hang overhead cameras? Are you on Mac or PC? Some options are Mac only,

Fred

Super wide lense, using a cctv lens on a camera with a 1/3 sensor you can use a 2.8mm to 10mm lens , the 2.8 end is a little fish eyed and warped at the edges but will give you a good image (a 2.8 mm lens 4 meters away will give you a 6.7m x 5m image), you can use this calculator to check out what lenses to use for different distances and coverage. You will need to find a cctv camera with a changeable cmount lens to go this way). Peau producitons sell a lens like this for 60 bucks but you can find cheaper ones)

http://polarisusa.com/pvi4

(go to calculator mode)

Use a lens calculator to work out the lense for your camera, I dont think you will get wide enough with the kinect wide lens and they don't provide any data on their site as to the exact details.

You can use a camera like this

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Dedicated-Micros-480-TVL-DM-CAM-BC4-Color-CCTV-Fixed-Security-Box-Camera-NEW-/141228833507?pt=BI_Security_Fire_Protection&hash=item20e1e4fae3

If you are still using analogue video (still better than kinect, but you can get HD versions cheap too)

Fred

DusX

@Fred, what type of video outs do these cameras offer.. I didn't see any listed on ebay?

Contexter

... Turns out I have have this http://www.makayama.com/moviemount.html moviemount thing - so

this http://makayama.com/shop/index.php?page=shop.product_details&category_id=1&flypage=flypage_images.tpl&product_id=7&option=com_virtuemart&Itemid=1

should do the job , am I right ?

Please correct me , if I'm wrong ...

Contexter

http://appologics.com/airbeam to get it somewhere, and "Syphonized" ....

Fred

These have a composite out.

Fred

I can't find any specs on this lens. The angle that you want to get for the dimensions you gave is pretty wide. You can get all sorts of wide lenses but without the specs of the lens and the focal length of the setup it is pretty hard to the what it will give you.

Contexter

@Fred - me too, can't find any specs ... seems the lens fitting of the case is 37mm and that's all about requirements - not more than 0.5x wide angle conversion is recommended -

just googling - I have no idea what would be the best -

any reccomendations ?

Fred

Well a 1/3 sensor and a c or csmount lens at 2.8mm will do the job. Otherwise find something that you can find real specs on.

Contexter

THANK YOU !

vanakaru

this wide angle lens is more like attachment for video camera(DVCams have commonly 37mm filter thread) and is not usable really.

I would go either CCTV camera or iPod Touch (4gen at least) if you have one at hand. Security cams are sometimes very cheap second hand(10 whatever) and usually come with 2.8 lens for obvious reasons. Also these are the most reliable to work with. Look at your local auction sites.

But how much quality you need?

This happens to be surprisingly good quality for the prize and ease of use.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/CCTV-Bullet-CCD-Color-Camera-SONY-1-3-Sensor-/360353006845?pt=UK_CCTV&hash=item53e6b684fd

gapworks

I must tell you the wide angle lens on my ipod4 worked great , covering 6 x 6m on a ceiling height of 4m ! epocam supplied the rest.

best

peter