is it planned to get some military certification?


you write its a prototype...
whats the timeline to final product?
any changes planned?
some ideas about prices? about available accessories (batteries, rails, some sort of lightning rod planned )?

Liebe Gruesse,
Georg

Last edited by gkaefer (2011-05-04 22:51:26)

Hi Klaus,

thanks for info.
I'm absolutely interested in...
(because of battery grips capability and heavy lenses and fast movement...)
Georg

klausesser wrote:

8) it´s fast.
.....

more to come.

best, Klaus

How fast compared to Merlin with T&C controller or compared to the Merlin with Papywizard on N800/810 pand Bluetooth connection?

Could you erhaps do a comparative shoot and report the difference when you have the time and motivation?

great Klaus,

I can't wait to hear more!

remember postage to Australia ;-)

Henrik

Klaus, is it the Josef's project we've been talking about???

Best

Thierry

mountaintb wrote:

Klaus, is it the Josef's project we've been talking about???

Best

Thierry

Yep! Some finetuning and it will be done.

best, Klaus

Last edited by klausesser (2011-05-06 11:50:26)

gbasile wrote:

i could be interested also, is it easy to set up with new camera/lenses ? and what about creating a new shot/pano ?
Georges

It´s very easy to set up:

At home you ONCE conect the controller to your PC or Mac (using a VM an Win) and tell it which camera(s) and lens(es) you want to use. The controller creates a list. The list can contain several several different cameras and sveral different lenses (i stored a Canon and a Nikon and about 12 different lenses).
In the field you just choose your camera and lens from the list you have on the touch-display and choose "sphere", "angle" or "mosaic".
In "sphere" mode the TC shoots a sequence related to camera/lens. In "angle" mode you point your camera to an object and tell the handheld which angle it has to cover - let´s say you want 90° h and 70° vert. It starts up left and ends down right taking your aimimg point as center.
In "mosaic" mode you move the head to a start point and an end point and then press "go".

The clue is the very easy and quick selecting of what you want or need to do.

Switching cameras/lenses in the field is very quick and comfortable this way: just choose what you want from the list you gave it at home. That´s all.
Even switching from a battery-grip camera to a non-battery-grip camera is very easy: Just slide the horizontal bar to a marker.
The controller provides an extra feature to automatically move the camera look straight downward to see the correct Nadir-point which is represented by a mark in the slider - just slide it so that you have the mark aligned with your center focus field. This is done in seconds.

Picture shows the center mark (Triangle) The bar carrying the mark is fix, the rest including the vertical arm slides lateral.

Last edited by klausesser (2011-05-06 14:00:44)

The motors and gears are VERY strong. I had a heavy 600mm Nikon on it - no problem at all. Will try to borrow an 800mm for testing.
As i said before: vertical it´s 4Nm, horizontal 1Nm.

One point must be very clear: this is nothing for weak tripods . . I use my old steel-Gitzo No.5 and that suits very well.
Guess a big Berlebach will do fine also. I´ll test a Carbon Gitzo on weekend.

This device meets professional demands - at a hobbyist´s price. It will not be as cheap as the Merlin of course
And - not to forget: it´s a complete system with hard- and software coming from one hand. Firmware-/programm-updates are sent by email and are easy to apply without more computer-skills than to open a tool and hit "ok" . . .

best, Klaus

tived wrote:

it is really sounding exciting Klaus,

how tall will the vertical bar be? can you rotate a large lens? e.g. a 70-200mm?

Henrik

25cm to center of vertical axis. Don´t know how long your lens is. Guess you wouldn´t use long lenses for spheres - would you? Longest lens for full spheres i ever used was my old 2,5/105mm manual Nikon AIs. Quite compact. 298 images of 21MPx each is a word . . . - about 5GPx and very sharp@8/11, very few CAs. "Feels" smooth.

best, Klaus

gkaefer wrote:

1.
I dont like that devices are hanging on their own cabling...

So don´t i. That´s why we inteded to have two places for "velcroing" . . - and some more on the backside of the horizontal bar.
Guess that will be sufficient.
To fix cables i usually take Velcro-straps.

best, Klaus

gbasile wrote:

the ease of use sounds great.
could be interesting instead of a remote to be able to use iphone/ipad instead, with no wire.

If you´re willing to write an app - do it! Basically i guess it should be possible to attatch a BT --> serial interface and conrol the head using an iPhone-/Android-app as well as PapyWizard.

best, Klaus

gbasile wrote:

i have no skills for that, i'd love to ;-)

So don´t have i! . . . and also would love to have it Heard it´s rather complicated. I guess reducing it to a wired connection - which can be very long - is clever. The less sources of possible failures the better. I tested the Merlin with the tethered hand-controller several times on a high pole and it worked very well. Didn´t ever miss BT or WiFi.

best, Klaus