CinePi - now this is interesting

[Marcio Kabke Pinheiro]

Can't post the link here because it is on CineD, but never heard it before, and though that is VERY interesting.

A cinema camera built with Raspberry PI, with the parts costing around $250 (if you use the super-8 sized Raspberry PI HQ camera - but there is a user that used a 20mp m43 sensor), including a 4-inch touchscreen, that records 12-bit CinemaDNG RAW in USB-C external drives.



https://github.com/schoolpost/CinePI/wiki/Build-Guide

[kye]

Looks like the project is progressing...  we've talked about it a few times before:

https://www.eoshd.com/comments/topic/44730-raspberry-pi-releases-an-interchangeable-lens-camera-module/#comment-354482

https://www.eoshd.com/comments/topic/61100-cinepi-2k-open-source-camera/#comment-471981

https://www.eoshd.com/comments/topic/73291-new-camera-with-global-shutter-for-rasberry-pi/#comment-563710

I don't recall the images being that interesting, but the 3D printed chassis reminds me of this thing, based on a deconstructed EOS M with Magic Lantern:

 

[IronFilm]

The new Raspberry Pi 5 just got released a couple of weeks ago. It's a very impressive new release, for instance it has 5 active PCI Express lanes (useful indeed for us video geeks). There could be some interesting new developments harnessing the new power of the Raspberry Pi 5 that were not possible with the older ones. 

[sanveer]

I've always wondered whether Mobile SoCs can replace Rasberry Pi kindda computing units. The only issues I can think of is size, price (perhaps more applicable for the 8 Series Flagships) and easy availability. A Qualcomm Snapdragon 7+ Gen 2 could be a great processor for something like a RAW shooting self made cinema camera. Though the SoC may be tiny and may not be as easily available over the counter, like in the case of Rasberry Pi kindda computing units. Qualcomm Snapdragon 7+ Gen 2 may have less issues with heat as well as superb  connectivity for uploading and sharing.

I am just wondering. I have no idea about any of this. 

[zerocool22]

Could one not just build a superior camera at the moment? Like full frame sensor, high fps, compressed raw ( not sure about ibis and AF)

[kye]

2 hours ago, sanveer said:

I've always wondered whether Mobile SoCs can replace Rasberry Pi kindda computing units. The only issues I can think of is size, price (perhaps more applicable for the 8 Series Flagships) and easy availability. A Qualcomm Snapdragon 7+ Gen 2 could be a great processor for something like a RAW shooting self made cinema camera. Though the SoC may be tiny and may not be as easily available over the counter, like in the case of Rasberry Pi kindda computing units. Qualcomm Snapdragon 7+ Gen 2 may have less issues with heat as well as superb  connectivity for uploading and sharing.

I am just wondering. I have no idea about any of this. 

Electronics are so complicated now that it's almost impossible to build your own stuff without having thousands, or tens of thousands, or hundreds of thousands of dollars of equipment.

My dad loves electronics and messes around with Raspberry Pi computers to make automated things (like a greenhouse where there is a fan and motorised window which he can control to keep a desired temperature range etc).  He had sometimes had issues building the little temperature probes, which are little chips that you mount on little circuit boards.  He printed out the circuit board pattern and etched the circuit boards himself, but when it came time to solder on all the components around it, he found that the surface mount resistors he'd ordered were too small for him to see!  

Not too small to pick up and work with (which they were) - they were literally too small to see on the piece of plain white copy paper he'd put them on.  To give you an idea, they would easily fit into the grooves on your fingers that make your fingerprints!

He had to order a new batch and hope that they were bigger (they were) but still very very difficult to solder by hand.

You could just say "use human sized components then" and that works sometimes, but with digital communications lines between chips, the length of the trace between the two chips matters, because depending on the physical length of the trace they work like echo-chambers with the digital signal bouncing back and forth, and also as antennas both broadcasting the digital signal to the surrounding areas and also receiving other digital signals from surrounding areas, so even just by putting two chips the wrong distance apart they can fail to talk to each other.

I wish it was easy, but it's really not.  

Plus, then you have to program everything.  Have you seen the code for Magic Lantern?  They're only modifying the firmware that Canon has written, you'd be writing it from scratch!

[sanveer]

2 hours ago, kye said:

Not too small to pick up and work with (which they were) - they were literally too small to see on the piece of plain white copy paper he'd put them on.  To give you an idea, they would easily fit into the grooves on your fingers that make your fingerprints!

Aaah ,very interesting.

I thought it may be too small for attaching it. Maybe larger node sizes help with keeping costs low as well as helping with working with them outside of automated factories

[kye]

18 minutes ago, sanveer said:

Aaah ,very interesting.

I thought it may be too small for attaching it. Maybe larger node sizes help with keeping costs low as well as helping with working with them outside of automated factories

My impression is that it's really about the right part for the job.  Physically smaller resistors are easier to fit into smaller circuit boards and around small chips with lots of pins, etc, but also have lower power handling, so it really depends on the application.

I think over time most electronic devices have a relatively constant number of parts.  As time goes on and we want more features and higher performance you'd want to add more chips, but as we gradually work out common combinations of functions we create chips that combine many functions into one.

For example, back when CD players were the thing, there would be a chip that read the signal off the disc, a DAC chip that converted it into analog signal, and then an amplifier that drove the CD player outputs which go to the preamp or amplifier.  Later on they made digital processing chips that sat in-between the signal chip and the DAC.  Later on they made chips that did all 4 of those functions.

So regardless of the thing you want, there's likely to be a number of chips that you need to have, you'll need to make them work together physically and digitally (with the right configurations etc) and you'll need a controller chip to enable the user to instruct the chips what to do (change modes, change settings, record, stop, playback, etc).

[kye]

Just found this...  read the caption under the picture - one of those little things is a camera - imagine the circuitry inside it!

https://spectrum.ieee.org/tiny-robot

[kye]

You can see the lens in this shot.

 

[IronFilm]

That camera is still too big to be my EDC camera. 

[kye]

1 hour ago, IronFilm said:

That camera is still too big to be my EDC camera. 

How do you know...  you could have literally dozens of them on you right now without knowing! 

[IronFilm]

I confess, I did once have it on me. But then was once out of breath and I inhaled too deeply near it, and accidently swallowed all of the cameras.