Urs got back to me regarding the newtonmeter and the use of heavy lenses. Here is what he said:

"Hi Devin,

Thank you for your message and interest in our Roundshot VR Drive.

The torque according to the data sheet of the motor manufacturer is 28 mNm (=0.028 Newtonmeter).

The VR Drive can lift very heavy loads. One of our customers is going to do a test this weekend with a 8kg lens.

We will keep you posted on the results.

If the load is distributed more towards the outside then of course the required torque is higher.

We are currently implementing the .xml files. As for all our developments we cannot give a precise date of when this will be released.

Yes, all our customers will be able to update their software to enable the .xml output.

Many thanks,

Urs"

EDIT:

I'm a little bit shocked by how low the VR Drive 2's Newtonmeter is compared to that of Josef's head. I'm hoping somebody who knows more on the matter can shed some light on it.

Does anyone know what the Newtonmeter is for the different Rodeon VR Heads, or how much weight they might be able to handle? I'm not sure I understand the difference between them and the Rodeon VR Station.

Cheers guys,
Devin

Last edited by Brines (2011-06-10 17:26:01)

Today i tested the new VR Drive II with my Canon 300 2.8 lens mounted on a 1D Mark IV. This combo weights more then 4 kilogram. The VR Drive II did handle this combo very well (both motors, the x & y motor rotated the combo very well, it looked very smooth). I mounted the y-motor at a 90˚ angle on the VR Bracket (see page 18 of the VR drive  II manual on the website of Seitz). I also mounted the y motor at it lowest position, to get the most stable mounting. You have to be carefull that the lens doesnot hits the VR bracket is you let the camera turn down to much. To get more space you should mount the y-motor at a higher position. But this test was just to see if the drive could the the load. And i can tell you it did take the load without any problem. I made a simple animation of it.

Would i use this combo to take a Giga Pixels, i don't know, i did not make a Gigapan at this time. But i think i would use another lens, like the new Canon 70-300. It much lighter and smaller and has a very good image quality.

Last edited by Studio VR (2011-06-11 14:38:01)

leifs wrote:

Maybe Josef is measuring torque after the gearing.
4 newtonmeter is a lot. The motor in a small car has a torque in the range 50-100 Nm.

Leif

Yesterday Josef gave me the second version of the head. He now has implemented into the controller an option to choose 1Nm and 4Nm. 1Nm is faster and 4Nm is a little slower but stronger (meant for vertical). I mounted the same lens as you did - Canon 2,8/300mm - and a 2,8/400mm from a friend. Camera was an 1DsMk3 and a 5D2. Guess it was about 6-8kg after all. No problem - the head definitely can take more and is still fast and accurate.

best, Klaus

tived wrote:

Hi Klaus,

Any news on price and availability ?

Henrik

Availability i guess in about two months - people who manufacture the rails and mechanical parts are still calculating for small series. Price i leave to Josef :-) !

I´ll do some more videos over the weekend.

best, Klaus

i forewarded the thread to Josef- maybe he´ll tells some things.

best, Klaus

The 4Nm are appr. 0.4kg on a lever of 1meter, as 1kg is 9,81N. The torque should be meassured after the gearbox, as this is what you really get. So the motor torque must be multiplied by the gearbox ratio and reduced by the loss of friction you have in the gearbox. The friction depends on the kind of gears and the lubrication. So really useful torque figures can be found only by meassuring.

leifs wrote:

Sorry Newton !

(very deep voice coming from the sky): "Baahh - c´mon . . . don´t worry, be happy!" 

best, Klaus ( i didn´t even know a Newton Meter exists! )

Studio VR wrote:

Today i had some spare time and played with the speed mode of the new vr drive 2 ( with x- and y motor). I took my 5d mark 2 and put a 50 mm lens on it. I put the vr drive in speed mode (6sec.). Also i made a full spherical giga pano. Then i started the drive. It took 55 seconds to complete the full pano, only problem my canon 5d mark 2 couldn't keep up with it. The buffer ran full in raw as in jpg mode........ To complete the pano you should have 104 images.

Ok, then i tried it with my 1d mark 4 (1.3 crop camera) with the 50 mm, to complete the pano you have to take 168 images. It took the vr drive 72 seconds to complete the pano. The 1d mark 4 also couldn't keep up with drive in raw mode. But in jpg mode it was not a problem at all.

So, conclusion, the speed mode is nice, but it asked a lot of your camera gear, also the conditions have to be very good, you must have good light conditions. In the above test the shutter time was 1/1600, iso 640, f 4. I took the test in my garden with sunny conditions.

That is very very fast, What different speed settings are there, can you make it 1/2, 1/4.... slower?

Hey guys,

I'm looking to move 8kg of weight with this head, and my plan is, to create panoramas, shoot columns instead of rows--which would mean more up and down movement than left and right. For this, will it be problematic that the Y-motor on the head is so much weaker than the X-motor? Any advice would be so helpful.

Thank you,
Devin

Greetings from Bath UK.
I recently bought a roundshot mk2 after disappointments with several other less well made makes.
On a Nikon D3x It handles fisheyes and other small lenses easily. It has no trouble moving the camera with a 180mm either but I am wrestling with the optimal settings for that lens - In speed mode I keep getting "unable to reach release time" messages, I'm sure I'll get there but any suggestions from the more numerate members would be welcome.
regards
JL

Brines wrote:

Does anyone know if speed mode will support the papywizard xml files?

I guess Seitz might know it best . .

best, Klaus

Isn't the fastest time to save RAW images to Memory card on the 5D Mark II around 1.6 seconds. Buffer will fill up pretty quick. Shooting JPG's will of course change that.

This is my findings with a Lexar 300x Card. And it seems having a fast one than that one will not help.

Last edited by olihar (2011-07-29 18:35:24)

gddxb wrote:

(just one clarification - speed mode works in multi-row and full spherical panoramas)

Hi!

Gerald!

Thanks! Didn´t know that - never looked at it deeper because such short exposuretimes usually are unrealistic.

best, Klaus