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#DJILiDAR #LiDar #Autofocus
Would you use LiDAR? Where do you see it going? 🎥
It will, at some point, be integrated in cameras and then it will be great. Because then the camera can detect objects / persons /animals with the lidar and then go to phase detect to focus i.e the eyes.
can I use this on a canon with weebill 3s?
LIDAR needs to connect to the [mirrorless] camera to see through the camera's lens. Or, mount to the back of the camera to make use of the viewfinder/EVF or LCD.
You want us to tell you ho is the weaner? The one with global shutter.
Could this work with a dolly zoom?
LiDAR has been an absolute GAME CHANGER for my wedding videography. I can one-man cinema lenses in a run and gun setup. It’s nuts man.
is it safe for others' camera? ie cell phones? I've seen some instances where self driving cars destroying sensors, of course self driving cars use way more powerful laser than this but one can still wonder if it's safe or not.
Incredible eh?! What lenses and camera do you use?
@@SamHolland Yeah, dude! Been using the Lumix S5ii X (which basically a cheaper A7Siii and I like it more) paired with the SIRUI 75mm full frame lens (Which is just the sauce, man). I never change the lens cause 75mm anamorphic feels like 55mm so I can stay a little farther away and still get nice intimate shots plus the anamorphic is wide enough that I still like it for establishing shots. It's the perfect lens. I throw it all on the Ronin RS3 pro and run DJI mics. The real trick is I rent EVERYTHING (Besides the mics). $400ish bucks for a weekend wedding AND you can use it on the weekend. I'm honestly kind of hoping the competition in my area doesn't catch on to this too soon hahaha.
@@andrewkemp8677 Isn't Sirui all cinema lenses? And aren't they manual focus only? If so, are you a manual focus god?
@@OK-em9ed that’s the beauty of the LiDAR autofocus my friend! Hook it up to the focus motor and calibrate it and it is DANG good auto focus for being on cinema lenses.
The lidars strength is the ability to focus in the dark.
lol, why would need to focus on anything if there isn't enough light to expose the image properly? seems absurd to point this out.
@@mr.frandy7692long exposure, light painting, people take pictures at night all the time
@@mr.frandy7692idk long exposure?
@ndy7692 long exposure?
@@backwardshalos6036 If you're doing long exposure you would stick to the same focus point throughout so it's not really needed there right?
I'm SO glad I've finally seen someone else with this problem of the motor gear slipping off when calibrating. Couldn't figure out for the life of me what it was, but turns out it is to do with how you rig the rod that the motor is attached to. Has to be super tight and firm!
Using this with an older film cameras and manual lenses would be interesting
Yeah and maybe even with manual macro lenses )
Yes, the product has so much potential. The DJI implementation is not quite refined enough for production. Ideally, if the solution could be separated from the gimbal to make it more versatile. Also, if a secondary container box could be available to prioritize the tracked subject. As you mentioned, the tech is in its infancy. Thanks for the content.
Thank you! 🤩🙏🏻🎥
Thanks for the informative video as usual Sam, and feel better. I recently had my S5 Mk1 stolen and had to go back to using the G7 and ...god I miss it. It'll be a while before I can afford a new mk2. :(
As soon as I played the video, I instantly was like "he's sick, isn't he" - hope you feel 100% soon! And another great video as always :)
I really like the colors of the outdoor shots! looks nice :P
Panny colors are incredible!
If got my mate printing me a custom mount for the LiDAR that just slides onto the Smallrig Mini Matte Box. Its an awesome little print what makes this so more easy to use
Wow. Is it possible to get the STL (3d printer file)?
@@pascalr.531I’d like to know as well
To fix the focus motor calibration issue, you can actually send the end points manually. Perfect for lenses that don’t have hard stops
lidar has the advantage when it comes to focus in dark places, yes you want light for the video, but imagine a moving shot through dark and into light, it'll track in the dark well, and already be dialled in as subject moves into light - rather than being "kinda" there and then breathing/snapping on when it finds the target properly and can use the phase/contrast focus.
probably a second version of this lidar could be awesome!
On a somewhat related topic: I've read somewhere that due to the collaboration between dji and lumix, that with certain dji gimbals the camera video can directly be used for tracking. Have you tried this? I still have an old dji gimbal where you had to mount your phone to the camera hotshoe to use the dji app for tracking. This works great for solo filming to film myself walking around the countryside, but it is very difficult to balance and limits the gimbal range.
Yes, I wish they would use the lidar for rough AF, like tracking really fast moving subjects, and use internal AF when the subject is still enough to lock onto the eyes. I think they also could have used the HDMI output of any camera to do CDAF. Isn't as good as PDAF, but when you have a lidar working alongside it, it should not hunt back and forth
Thank you!
1:44 / Hi Sam, thanks for the very informative video. A short addition. You have shown that the gimbal tracks the person by pressing the front button. This also works without lidar with the S5 II and the S5. At least on my RS3 Mini when it is connected to the gimbal by cable. But apparently not as good as with the lidar. Stay healthy.
Pierce will be pleased you used "Streets ahead". Other than that egregious error (ha ha), this was a really useful video. Excellent point about the low-lighting focussing capabilities of LIDAR, I'm regretting getting the RS3, instead of the Pro (especially also because I'm shooting with a Z8 now).
position the focus gear under the lens and try to push the lens upward when you set it up. it will prevent gear slipping.
Putting constant pressure on your lens mount is a great way to eventually break it. If all your rigging is secure and the focus motor gears are compatible with the lens’ gears, you won’t have any slippage. If not, something’s loose or the gears don’t match. In which case, just fix the core issue.
For that gear grinding maybe you can use a double carbon fiber rods set-up. Smallrig makes one, there's a bottom plate that goes under the camera and a lens support that goes, well, under the lens and the rods go through both on each side, it should give you plenty of rigidity and support for both follow focus and lens. The whole system is pretty cheap, it's like 50 with the carbon fibers rods.
I see the main advantage of this lidar tech with manual or vintage lenses. But what I'd really like to see is using the already great autofocus functions of current cameras controlling an external follow focus motor. It would be much easier to set up (because the camera can "see the result" and "learn" the lens on the fly) and an amazing feature for manual, cinema or vintage lenses... I should really get that idea patented! ;)
highly doubt it will be usable unfortunately, since modern in camera AF relies on high speed linear motors that provide high speed feedback loop to the phase detect sensors, the phase detect sensors work the best when the image is near focus, a lot of manual vintage lenses have really high (slow) damping focusing rings, which makes it very difficult and slow to close the camera phase detect sensors loop, meaning that it will have a very hard time tracking subjects; whereas in this dji system the lidar sensors have a separate high speed feedback loop via the lidar, the system simply outputs focusing commands to the lens without relying on any inputs from the camera. you will likely still need to build this lidar tech into a camera for your system to work
@@v000000000000vWell, if a camera manufacturer would decide to do something like this, the focusing software would need to be adapted to account for the slow follow focusing motor... if the Lidar can do it, I don't see why the built in camera focusing software couldn't drive the motors until the picture is sharp... but I admit, I don't know how phase detect autofocus really works... such a system I proposed may need to work differently after all. And camera manufacturers probably don't have much of an incentive for such tech... they probably don't care much about vintage or manual lenses... it was just an idea... ;)
@@TheCruisinCrew the limitation is that you can't move vintage lenses quickly, think of it this way: the camera is looking through a blurry out of focus image, it has to move the focus to try to see if the image is getting clearer or fuzzier, however the subject you're trying to focus on is also moving, and since you can't focus quickly, how do you know if you're moving in the wrong direction or if the subject is moving away / close to you? this will just lead to endless hunting of the image, and you will never be able to track any moving subjects it's just physics and controls system, modern lenses use up to 3-4 motors hooked up directly to the glass elements to move the focus as quick as possible
@@v000000000000v fair enough... well, I guess we always have these Lidar solutions getting better and cheaper over time as well as the Techart LM-EA9 adapter (I guess that one has fast enough motors... ;)
@@TheCruisinCrew yeah for sure, even iphones and ipads have lidars so it's just the matter of time that we seem in camears imo
There's a great Lidar mounting bracket from CheckSix that attaches right to the front of the baseplate, giving you the same perspective as your lens. far better than mounting on top.
Awesome video! I just have one question regarding the use of SIRUI anamorphic lenses. Does the auto tracking on that gimbal work with an anamorphic lens, or does the unstretched image being fed to the gimbal make tracking unfeasible?
I love that you're saying "streets ahead."
Really great video Sam. Lidar is on the ...Radar
Thanks brother 🙏🏻🎥🤩
Lmao LiDAR on the radar
Awesome & Thanks Sir :)
Yeah, it kind of gives you auto focus but it just chooses from the centre of things. It’s like the old canon C100 everything in the middle is in focus and that means everything it can’t decide for ground from Background. It’s just whatever is the closest to the lighter gets in focus and that’s not always what you want, it’s a long ways from being useful to be honest
My experience with filming and auto-focus has been a series of washouts and anxiety as the camera wandered off on its own, getting confused and looking like a robot was hunting for targets. Add to this some of the logical inconsistencies with IBIS - I gave up on the in camera magic. I am super interested in matching lidar with stabilised manual lenses on cameras without IBIS.
Very interesting video, Sam, and hope you're feeling better. There were a few times when the Lidar seemed to hunt - perhaps this was because you were on Setting 1 for the Autofocus speed? More to your point on the Lidar not seeing what the Lumix was seeing, I wonder whether positioning it at the edge of the lens would solve the problem? It would be very interesting to see a test. There's also the issue of adding Lens hoods and Matt-boxes - they would block the Lidar - so it seems that DJI would have to implement a combination of Through-the-lens and Lidar focusing on, say, their Ronin 4D 8K Camera. Your thoughts? Finally, in case you're looking for ideas for another video, may I suggest a comparison between the Ronin 4D 8K and Sony's upcoming Burano, with both using Sony GM lenses? Two different beasts with different purposes, but that's what would make it all the more interesting. Thanks much.
Thanks for reviewing. Tske care yourself.
Thank you 😊🎥
would be cool to see the lidar for the lumix cams
I've watched so much Camera Conspiracies, that I thought you were saying "Panny Boy", when you were actually saying "Danny Boy" lol
😂👏🏻🎥
I returned mine a while back. Raven Eye wasn't tracking properly because of the height distance of the lens from the LiDAR unit. Never received any help from DJI worth a damn.
This would have been better off with the S5 and S1h. S5ii already has better autofocus with phase detect. I hope Lumix does a firmware update on S5, S1h to be compatible with this without needing focus motor.
Used lidar for 3 indie flicks last year on circular and anamorphic cine lenses with Reds. Kind of mind blowing to be honest. It was so good I had to get it for my FX3. It’s absolutely amazing to use for action sports where it’s hard to pull focus. I’m preaching lidar from the rooftops here! 😂
Did you use DJI brand or another brand?
would be very curious to see how the non dji lidars perform, the fact that you have to have to have a dji gimbal is a bit of a dealbreaker for me. i like the idea tho, especially if your working alone and dont have the option to manual focus on a stabilizer or something for example
if the focus motor is catching like that it means the gears werent flush. I find i have to press mine in firmly when i set up my focus motor.
it was a toss-up with Ravineye, so I might try lidar next time! Hope you feel better soon.
Just off the top of your head looking back on your experience what would you call the reliable range of the LiDAR
Now with the sort of stagnant camera upgrades... I can imagine in the coming future there will be built in LiDAR or depth of field. Then with the data, you can translate it into 3D space. It would be a game changer for film making, VFX, 3D, Scanning, so on.
This would be useful for anamorphic lens when you don't have a AC. I have the RS3 Pro With the Lidar... Never used it though.
Hope you are feeling better mate. I think it's a bit overkill for my use case as a part-time youtuber but it's been interesting seeing your trials and tribulations.
Thank you 🙏🏻 yeah I like sharing the little tests 🤩🎥 it’s fun. Thank YOU for watching
The PDMOVIE LIVE AIR 3 SMART PDL-AFX-S Lidar system is excellent, cheaper and it's standalone / you don't need to muck about with gimbals. Super easy to calibrate lens - takes about 1 minute. A much better solution than DJI.
Yes but its also a 1 dot AF, the dji has 1000++ + camera, so your not limited by the «center» composition like the pdmovie. But both have strengths and quirks
@@AL3XFPV I know what you mean - and I agree that all Auto Focus systems have quirks and some work better for certain things. Also, the PDMovie unit can be mounted on top, on the left side or the right side of the lens - so you don't have to be limited to the .
I wonder how good this will be with multiple lidars -- will it interfere and one camera would think the other camera's lidar as focus point?
Josh from Make. Art. Now made a video on this topic, he did figure out a DIY hack to make sure that LiDAR and Camera have similar POV.
Can you use lenses that don’t have a minimum and maximum focus end point? For eg the calibration button requires the lens to have a 0-100 rather than a digital focus that turns endlessly.
i obviously think the LIDAR is gonna win. made my comment @1:06. LOL. love your videos
Hehe it’s still great! Winner hands down in low light. Thank you 🤩🎥
Is it just me that was not lucky to make connection btw Lidar, gimbal and camera? I cannot get these things to work. I had prompt to calibrate the lens, which I proceed with, but the motor does nothing. I've refreshed firmware in everything, rebooted a thousand times, tried other USB cables, nothing. Weirdly, though, it will calibrate within the gimbal. But not connecting to the high bright / handles and doesn’t make changes on the camera’s focus, Any thoughts?
can we use this on Lumix S5? every one is using it on S5 mark II. But can we use it in the original S5?
LIDAR needs to connect to the [mirrorless] camera to see through the camera's lens. Or, mount to the back of the camera to make use of the viewfinder/EVF or LCD.
Currently on a Black Magic platform. Need auto focus really badly, but dont want to spend $5000-$10000 for another platform. Looking into lidar but it still pretty clunky.
Can lidar beat photo taking? If you just record everything's movement, you can retake photos afterwards, right?
Would this solve my issues when filming action sports like football?
i am tempted man because i find it pretty annoying investing in a wireless 1st ac setup especially when you start doing cool stuff. dont tell me about focussing manual when filming on a gimbal and controling it, its pretty much impossible to focus on the frame and gimbalmovement AND keeping everything in focus. i think il give the lidar a shot.
I had a moto g4 which came with a laser detector ( basically a lidar ) on the rear camera. And honest for the time, these shots were amazing ! some of the best point of shoot focus photos ive ever taken to this day. And this was from 2016, on a budget phone and a Motorola at that. So I assumed when the LIDAR was announced on the iPhone, it would make the photos dramatically better. While the iPhone itself takes great pictures, I don't think they are making use of the lidar. I tried covering it up once and basically had the same shot. weird, Im truly surprised at apple not doing much with the lidar at all yet they keep it around for some reason on iPhone and iPad Pros !? I don't the the Vision Pro which arguably could use such tech the most even has a lidar on it. It just seems to use cameras. So I am doubting the validity of Lidar, at least in mobile devices. Still surprised however at how the Moto G4 did it back then, the G5 got rid of the sensor too apparently. and I compared by G4 with my friends G5 and the G4 were better photos ! So some how Moto discovered it in 2016 but mysteriously gave up on it.
can i use the Lidar without the gimbal with no issue?
Old rangefinder yellow spot split focus vs SLR focal plane mirror focus tech v2
No one will ever convince me autofocus, whether it be contrast, phase-detect, or LiDAR, is better than a trained hand and a good focus wheel. Does it take a while to get good at doing manual focus, especially as a one man band, yes. But the results, when done properly, will always give you better creative results than autofocus could. Focus as a creative and narrative tool is more and more getting lost in this era of admittedly amazing autofocus.
Do we need a Sony LiDAR with their expertise in AF?
Can it work on ronin rs2 ?
Could one reason it's only focusing on the camera and not the field in the distance is that it's range is only 14m (according to the DJI website)?
Well in theory, it should set the focus to infinity right? 🤔 it used to work for me. Maybe I just need to check for firmware updates again. I thought it would be worth pointing out these little quirks. Thanks for watching and commenting 🤩🙏🏻🎥
A cheaper edition of the "hybrid" you speak of is just Laser A/F, no? Older cameras with a red light to help focus on anything but the best lighting scenarios 😂
It's good for canon RF
LiDAR kills any autofocus in low light
this is why iPhone got an perfect focus in the night with the lidar sensor
50 years later... active AF strikes back?
it's an absolute game changer but how safe is it for other cameras? LiDars are also known cause for destroying camera sensors
If it is eye safe it is probably sensor safe and you are not pointing it directly into the lens. The light bouncing back is orders of magnitude less than what it is firing out.
This feature is going to be standard in any camera. If iPhones have one why cameras aren't.
Autofocus is always going to be better because it is a closed loop system. It can get arbitrarily accurate focus.
Bro, is the auto focus of the Panasonic s5IIX better than on the Panasonic s5?
It is much much better because OG S5 using only slow contrast based autofocus, and S5II is using phase detect autofocus.
@@ryszardzokowski812 thank you, I have Panasonic S5, I want to change to 5II or 5IIX!
Imagine a lidar with an HDMI input so it sees what the camera sees.
Panasonic, please put lidar to camera body :)
I just want a depth map view on a monitor to pull focus with rather than have lidar do it automatically.
No wonder autofocus in iPhones works so well especially in dark
Hey Sam! Where ru based?
LiDAR will win... would be a fairer contest with a Sony, perhaps?
I wonder why cameras can't feed AF data to a focus motor directly via USB. It's 2024, the technology is there.
what is lidar
all of this test doesnt matter at all. no one in all the internet have tested 2 o 3 person setting with a lidar. they just test one person in the center. like thats the only framing in all cinema...
That difference of pov is called parallax i guess.
Lemsip bro. Lemsip. Tastes rank but gets the job done.
I've had the RS3 PRO (with Sony fx30) with Lidar for a month now, and I've been having calibration issues with this device. For the first 10 days, I tried to set it up perfectly and failed. I have cine lenses from Samyang. The motor often jams, and it keeps spinning until I disconnect the power - the same problem you had in the video. Indeed, it works great in the dark, the idea is excellent, but configuring it is a nightmare. I don't know which lens to choose for the Lidar, I don't have a big budget, but I would like to fully utilize it now that I've purchased it. ;)
I can beat the auto focus on the Lumix S5 with just my hand 😂
This just normal due i use from the RS2 until now. Recommend you put your gimbal on the table or some place stable instead of handing on your hand kzhead.info/sun/hLOboaiag3mKpH0/bejne.html
Broadsword calling Danny Boy.
Research Kambo and never become sick again… ohh only while doing Kambo 😂😅 (If you ever come to Holland 😉 I mean The Netherland. Your welcome) 🙏🏼 🐸 🙏🏼 Great video! (Again).
LiDAR will win.
7:36 lol was that a Community reference?
I’m here brother ❤
👋🏻
bro just found out what Make Art acc did
lidar, IS autofocus tho?
great
Lets face it, once SONY / PANASONIC / CANON will launch a camera that can be hooked to a Follow Focus motor driven by the camera itself, Lidar might not be needed anymore. Techart doing something in this spirit for stills driving a motor focusing small M or M42 lenses. Question of "when" because I do think the technology is already there. It's gonna be the next "big thing" for next gen cams. As for Lidar, I own one, I love and hate it. Hate it primoarly because DJI ecosystem is incomplete. Operating the tilta ring and swiching Manual to Autofocus using tilta grip handles is not possible because.... software. Lidar needs: 1: a proper dedicated 5inch display that is hooked to the camera using it to control it. Both for using Ronin and Handheld. 2: It also needs to track objects and not only faces. 3: A proper and uptodate ECOSYSTEM with their partner Tilta
lidar
Lumix is absolutely the top turd for autofocusing. Of course Lidar would beat the Lumix-Turd-AF!
Sorry but isn't LIDAR similar to "old" DSLR AF ? Technically it was superior but the improvement on mirorless AF and the fact that it can detect subjects made it more reliable (a perfect AF is useless if it's pointing on the wrong subject, eye-af was a game changer because it would automatically pick what it was needed not because it was better at focusing)
Never understood why youtubers feel the urge to announce it when they have a cold. Nobody gives a rat's ass 😛
Comparing a industry acclaimed method of manual lens focusing with one of the worst implementation of phase-detect autofocus is just a mindboggling clickbait.
yea too much work no thnx
Wastage of money its beter for the company to focus on making good autofocus right from the camera itself.
😂 that gear grinding! - 2000 dollars lens destruction confirmed. Please attach next lens for annihilation.