Lidar

This $12 iPhone app gives you remote focus and LiDAR autofocus on your Blackmagic cameras

Aug 21, 2022 by John Aldred 2 Comments

No matter what camera you use, the ability to focus remotely is a wonderful thing. And if you’re filming yourself, it can often be invaluable. I’ve spoken about it before in the Weebill 2 Pro Plus Kit review. And while I tend to avoid it when shooting video, I’m not to big to admit that there are times when autofocus can also make your life drastically easier.

Autofocus is a feature notably lacking from Blackmagic cameras, but this iPhone app gives it back to you using your iPhone’s LiDAR sensor to determine the distance to the subject and telling your camera to focus to it. And, yeah, you get regular remote focus pull features, too. It looks like the app’s been out for quite a while, but has kept itself below the radar (their Facebook page only has 5 followers). YouTuber Michael Tobin discovered it, though, and has made a video showing how it works.

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CDA Tek’s LiDAR module lets you get fast autofocus on any camera – even in the dark

Oct 27, 2020 by John Aldred Add Comment

It’s taken a while for this one to come to market, having first been teased in July 2019, and it’s still not quite there, but it’s close. Originally shown off as an early prototype alongside the Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 4K, the CDA-Tek AFX, as it’s now known, works with the Pocket 6K as well, communicating with either camera over Bluetooth, requiring no external cables.

But the AFX also has an extra trick up its sleeve. It now also allows you to add LiDAR autofocus support to any lens, including manual focus ones, thanks to new communication protocols added for the Tilta Nucleus-M and Nucleus-Nano focus motors. It’s being launched via Indiegogo, already having hammered its goal with 30 days left.

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DJI’s LiDAR module gives you autofocus even with f/0.95 manual focus lenses

Oct 22, 2020 by John Aldred 2 Comments

One of the biggest problems I hear people talking about when it comes to gimbals it the lack of autofocus. In an ideal world, we’d either be able to hold the gimbal with one hand and easily move the focus wheel manually with the other or we’d just have a separate focus puller to deal with it for us so we can concentrate on the composition. But it’s rarely that easy for most of us.

It would be great if camera autofocus was perfect, but it isn’t. DJI’s is about to release a LiDAR sensor module to go with their new RS2 gimbal, which sits on top of your camera and talks to the RS2’s focus motor to let you get autofocus on your gimbal with just about anything. MAKE.ART.NOW’s Josh Yeo took it for a spin with the Mitakon Speedmaster 50mm f/0.95 III.

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Man says Laser from self driving car nuked his Sony a7R II

Jan 13, 2019 by Udi Tirosh 2 Comments

We know show lasers are dangerous to cameras. Heck, we all remember that RED sensor getting fried from a direct laser hit in a light show. With self-driving cards anticipated to rule the roads, the world may become a totally unsafe place for cameras.

Ars Technica reports that During CES Jit Ray Chowdhury, an autonomous vehicle engineer at the startup Ridecell, took some photos of a car equipped with lidars made by AEye. He used a $1,998.00 Sony a7R II. Later, Mr. Chowdhury noticed that all the photos he took after taking that car photos had a couple of bright purple spots on them. Each spot being the center of a cross-like purple pattern.

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