Yes, I know I talk about their products a lot but this is bloody brilliant and going to revolutionise the way I do motorised timelapses. It’s called Smartlapse and it’s not out yet although all the bits you need for it are. The pocket dolly, cineslider or revolution head with the Oracle controller.
Now let me explain what this is. With the current way of doing motorised timelapses you are limited to linear moves, one speed that stays constant throughout. That works fine, but wouldn’t it be nice to build up speed, keep it constant then slow it down. Or with the Revolution head move up, left, right or whatever you want with speed changes. The way this works is simple. With the current Oracle controller you can program real time moves into one of 3 memories, it will play back that move for you as many times as you want, great for compositing. Now smartlapse works in a similar way, what you do is simply record the move at normal speed then tell it to repeat the move over X number of hours, so it simply slows it right down. This is genius and I cannot wait to try it out! Kessler Crane are already short on supply of the Pocket Dolly, Revolution etc, with this they are gonna be hard to get hold of for sure!!
Eric Kessler did a very quick little test that you can see below. Rough and ready and the moves are all over the place, on purpose to show just what you can do with it. Also below is the little demo video I did of the Revoultion head linear timelapse and the Oracle real time movement.
First SmartLapse™ Proto from Kessler Crane on Vimeo.
This is from Eric “ok the rough proto of the SmartLapse™ is done and this was just a very quick test. I set a t2i to green square and then hit record on the Oracle. It took me about 3.5min to do this move in live mode then I told it to take 1 hr to play it back and that was it. This is a “Smart” system learning while you move! No more programing and guessing what you will get! This is “Live Mode” for Time Lapse. You will see I started out very fast then backed off and then I showed ramp up, ramp down, up, down left right and pause. Any thing you can do in live mode you can do in SmartLapse™ then tell it to play the recording over what ever set time you like. We hope to have this software upgrade for your Oracle availabe in 30 days No more boring linear TL’s!”
Test timelapse using Kessler Crane Revolution Pan and Tilt Head from Philip Bloom on Vimeo.
Shot from my hotel room balcony, testing out the timelapse on the new Revolution pan and tilt head. Those are boats leaving the 4th July fireworks near beginning.
http://tinyurl.com/kesslercrane
Kessler Crane Revolution Pan and Tilt head test shots from Philip Bloom extras on Vimeo.
A few test shots done using the Kessler Crane Revolution Pan and Tilt head.
14 comments
Looks great ! I’m pretty sure we’ll get to see these kind of moves in a big feature film soon.
If you like the idea behind smartlapse, you should check out the camBlock timelapse systems:
http://www.camblock.com/sect-media.php
They have really nice features, including a keyframeable setup.
Worth checking them out.
Also almost at the same time, “dynamic perception” is getting in the final stage of launching their product. It’s for timelapse purpose only (so no real slider in it), but offers some nice options, like shoot-move-shoot, step-motors in the future (for repeatability) and stop motion software integration, more axis to come…
Remember the Iceland volcano shots?
http://www.vimeo.com/11673745
This was done on a dolly by them.
Remember the Island volcano shots? This was done on a prototype by them.
It seems like there are some great timelapse products coming on the market!
I really hope Kessler will be doing stop-motion integration as well… this would be a perfect all-in-one solution!
Best,
Max.
Just a quick note. The open-source dynamic perception MX2 controller can in fact build up speed, keep it constant then slow it down.
I applaud Kessler for their efforts to push the timelapse envelope.
haha! wow! amazing! I love the music, and when it pans past you. I would love to play with this system!!!!
Wow, this is great!! I can imagine a lot of ways to use this.
Fantastic idea. I like how it softens the “motorized” linear look.
Any chance we can get some pics of the actual set up. Would love to see the ins and outs of all its parts and physical configuration.
it’s the same as the set up for the revolution head blog a few posts down…
Wow. I’m even more excited to be receiving my CineSlider & Timelapse bundle later this week!! Even more to look forward to with these cool toys? SWEEEEET! I wonder if they’ll charge for the upgrade.
wow this is pretty awesome and the best use for this I see is for locked down shots for compositing.
This will probably not be cheap though. (sigh)
Have you checkout their site. For what it is it is pretty damn cheap!
Nice gadgets! I made one similar to that and used it in some of our wedding sde.
http://vimeo.com/13636648
All DIY,hope you like it and thanks for watching!
That’s great! Could you tell it to take a set amount of frames to complete the move? That is, it would split the movement into frames and advance to the next frame when you told it to?
Ah, I see that this is probably what Max is talking about above.