As he alluded to in a previous video, Josh from MAKE. ART. NOW.
sent me the 3D Focus module for the DJI RS 2
and today, we're going to see what has him so excited.
Let's get undone!
[offbeat music]
♪ Gerald Undone ♪
♪ He's crazy ♪
What's happening, everybody? I'm Gerald Undone
and this is the way. Alright, let's give Josh a call,
so we can compare our experiences using this thing.
[iPhone ringing]
[footsteps]
What do you want?
I got the, uh, what are you doing?
I was totally wrong. This IR blocking,
uh, sunscreen doesn't work.
This guy sent me a message the other day
saying he was going to test the IR sunblock
he's got to see if-- what were you trying to do?
So, it would focus on your face or not focus on your face?
You remember the last video we did
where we did a bunch of tests, and I wanted to see
if the IR-- so this $50, uh, sunblock
blocks near infrared, so it's, essentially,
anything that's blocking it is going to bounce,
it's going to reflect some of that near-IR,
and that's going to make the focusing work better.
But, this doesn't do it at all.
[Gerald laughing]
So, it's, in theory this would have been great
because, think about this, if you're filming talent
and you want to focus on their face and not on their shirt,
you put a little bit of this on there,
regardless of what time of day, and in theory,
it would pull better focus on their face.
But that's not the case, this doesn't work at all.
-I had a question for you, Josh. -Yeah.
Have you ever found yourself in a situation
where you could really use some footage but shooting it yourself
was either budgetarily
or logistically unfeasible, by chance?
What the hell is this? Are you, is this a sponsored--
Because, I mean, if that ever happened to you,
Storyblocks, you know, would have you covered with
just a great catalogue of, you know, a great collection
of stock footage. They've got a wide range of subjects,
unlimited downloads and 4K video.
Did you, did you know about this?
This is just an or-organic conversation.
Let me tell you how much he cares about this brand.
He put it at the beginning of his video. Man, my God!
I should also let everybody know
that Storyblocks is amply supplied
with not only stock footage but backgrounds,
overlays and After Effects templates,
and the interface is easy to use and navigate
and the clips are royalty-free
for both personal and commercial use,
so you can use them as much as you want,
wherever you want. Josh, did you know that?
Fantastic, that's great.
Exactly. So, if you want to take advantage of
a fantastic library of quality stock footage and effects,
make sure you check out Storyblocks
using the link in the description below.
Send royalty cheques to Josh Yeo at MAKE. ART. NOW.
I'll tell you what we'll do instead.
We'll put the affiliate link for the 3D Focus and, like,
the DJI stuff, we'll put the MAKE. ART. NOW. affiliate links
in the description below, 'cause you've, you've done way more
-work on this than I have. -So, we'll use mine? Woohoo!
So you deserve it. So, if you guys want to get
any of this stuff, this is a great gimbal, by the way.
It's a fantastic gimbal, the RS 2.
Editor Gerald here, and I'm not completely satisfied
with the disclosure this bozo provided.
So, let me clear up a couple of things.
This video is sponsored by Storyblocks, not by DJI.
DJI did send me the RS 2 gimbal so that I could make this video
with Josh, but my opinions are my own,
and DJI does not get any input on this video's production
or get to preview it before it's published.
Lastly, regarding the links in the description,
the link to Storyblocks is mine,
but I'll use Josh's affiliate links
specifically for the DJI products.
Apologies for any ambiguity, now let's get back to the video.
Alright, so where did we leave off, uh, with the testing?
You did the IR thing, I, I knew that,
I figured that was going to be bust, but I,
but I appreciated your courage on that one.
I think it's fair to point out that this does not operate
like a normal autofocus system at all.
It shouldn't even be considered in the same category
as autofocus. This is more of, like,
a specialty focusing device that is closer to, uh,
like a mediocre 1st AC. You know what I mean?
You think so? You don't think it's a good, a good 1st AC?
It can focus with pretty good accuracy
at shallow depths of field, like, we're talking razor-thin,
f/0.95, you can use manual lenses,
you can use anamorphic lenses.
I got a couple of these SIRUI anamorphic lenses
and I've been testing them out. They work great on them,
so we're talking about mediocre to pretty good autofocus
on lenses that, that have never had autofocus before.
So, it's very specific.
Interestingly though, I told you I was going to do that,
so right now I've got the 90mm Macro for Sony
and this is the a7S III and I threw this one on,
so that we can actually see cause you compared it
to the a7 III autofocus a little bit and you said that,
especially in the low-light situations that it was
actually doing better than the a7 III in some situations,
so I thought I'd throw on the a7 III and the a7S III
and use a 90mm Macro, which, for people that don't know,
I was able to get away with it because it has
a manual focus clutch, where if you use a focus by wire lens,
it is no good because you-- there's no stops
and the, when-- you mentioned this in your video.
This is a continuation video, by the way,
for those that are like, "What are these guys talking about?!"
Josh has already made, like, one or two videos on this,
so, you may want to watch those as, like, a primer.
I've already done all the homework so if you guys
want to jump on the train and figure out
what the hell we're talking about,
there's two videos you should watch,
and it's all kind of in there.
This is almost like a podcast more than anything.
In fact, we've been talking about, like, podcast ideas.
This is probably the closest we've come
outside of those live streams.
OK, so yeah, you can't use focus by wire lenses
because when you go to calibrate it,
it's just going to spin and spin and spin and you can't--
you need stops for it to figure it out, so...
With the 90 mil, it uses a focus clutch, so you can click it in
to hard stop mode, but we can also just click it back
to autofocus and then compare it and I had
some interesting results. So, it, I would say that it did a,
I would say it kept up with the a7 III, kind of,
like what you said. The a7S III definitely beat it,
but what was interesting is that I've never seen autofocus,
and I'm talking about in-camera internal autofocus,
work as quickly as this works. I did some, like, pop in
pop out tests and it's, like, immediate.
If you stick your face in the shot, it just, like,
snaps to your face and, and people say that all the time,
They say, "Oh, the autofocus is snappy", this is, like, unreal,
how fast it is. I mean, if that's something that you want
a specific thing for, then that does it. However, I did have
some, some issues in which the a7S III
has eye-detect autofocus. So, because this is a macro lens
and it's, like, a portrait lens as well,
you can get really close-- just in your face
has a lot of depth, and so, my big honker, uh,
with the a7S III, it knows to avoid my nose
and focus on my eye, but this thing, I don't know
if it was the way that I positioned it,
but it just focused on my nose and I couldn't make it
not do that because there's no, you know--
[Josh] That's actually interesting. You would not,
like, I wouldn't have thought that it would focus
on your nose because of the surface area,
like it would focus more on your cheeks or your forehead,
like, you've got to keep in mind what is,
this is sending out little packets of photons
that basically pull focus by bouncing off,
they have to reflect off of certain sur-surfaces.
So, like, surface area matters.
So, like, it focusing on the ridge
of your nose is, kind of, like--
What are you, what are you trying to say, Josh?
About surface area?
I mean I knew you had a, like, a decent-sized nose
but I didn't know your nose is that big.
Yeah, the pop in pop out stuff was fantastic
and it tracked, in certain scenarios,
it tracked better than when you, when you step outside
the bounds of what autofocus can do,
this thing still seems to keep working,
whether that's extreme, extreme low-light,
or issues where you're back-lit in weird ways
and overexposed and stuff like that,
it doesn't seem to care about any of that,
like you said, so, that's cool.
It's terrible for sit down interview shots.
-[Gerald] Right. -If you, like, this camera,
I'm vlog-- I'm vlogging here on the Sony a7S III.
It's pulling focus just fine, it's reading my eyes.
If I were to use this, it would read my chest.
Did you find that if you change your clothes? That--
So, colours do, kind of, matter, like, dark,
like black materials, like, that are really thin,
tend to absorb more of the IR whereas white material
that would be hard and dense, or metallic material
would reflect it, so you would have an easier time,
like I found the easiest thing to pull focus on is a car,
cause, an, an old car, cause it's all metal.
So, if you're into car stuff, like,
this thing is definitely for you.
There's also, uh, a height thing I've been noticing.
What I did is I brought a focus chart into the frame slowly
from the bottom to see how high up in the frame
I had to get before it would trip up.
I found I had to get to the top half, top third of the frame
to trigger it, which makes me think that it's just based on,
you know, height priority or something,
but I also noticed that, you know how it comes,
there's this little, um,
like, it converts the shoe, it comes with a shoe mount
and then into, like, a, uh, 1/4-20 with, uh,
with, um, Locating Pins.
I found that when I had that on,
the height that you needed to achieve was even greater,
so it works better in the shoe, but have you ever tried,
like, bringing it forward, or, or anything like that to, like--
So, alright, so funny you say that,
um, filming Anamorphia, we, obviously,
halfway through the shoot, we wanted to switch
to regular spherical lenses to anamorphic lenses,
and so, I was like, "Well, we might as well try this,
you know, 3D Focus, see how it works."
And what I found is that the 3D Focus was bouncing,
it was, the anamorphic lens is so heavy and so big
that it was actually bouncing off of the metal
and interfering so it was really, it wasn't giving me
good results. In fact, before I knew the tech,
I, I just thought that it just didn't work
with anamorphic lenses. So, what I found,
you know, a way to get over that is, like,
this little extension right here.
This is a hotshoe/coldshoe extension
and it was able, you know, you fit it on to the hotshoe
and then it just, you balance it right in front of the lens.
Could you use the regular cables
or did you have to use the longer cables?
Uh, no, the regular cables stretched.
I mean, it was, it was tight, but I mean,
I, I could have used longer cables but we were able
-to make it work. -OK.
I took this thing out to the desert, by the way.
Check this out. So, this is, uh, this is a $300 f/0.95 lens
that I got on eBay. This thing is, like, 10 or 15 years old.
Nobody cares about this lens, they totally forgot about it.
It's a Micro Four Thirds mount. I mounted it on the Pocket 4K.
I went out to the middle of Mojave Desert
to Red Rocks Canyon, and I did a couple of test shoots.
This thing pulls focus perfectly.
It's the exact equivalent style of shots that I got
with a $12,000 lens back, two years ago,
when I did that last Moondance Mojave shoot.
So, like, we're now talking about a whole influx
of creativity shooting under moonlight
where it's not going to cost you that much.
I mean, obviously, you've got the investment of the RS 2,
plus, you know, the focus module,
but then you're using a camera that doesn't have autofocus
and you're using a lens that has no shelf life.
It worked with the focus module and the tracking.
It was tracking me through a canyon and pulling focus,
and I'd say it was pulling perfect focus
like 50-60% of the time.
It's so weird, like, I've been doing
so many autofocus tests for these cam--
like, the new cine cameras and stuff,
'cause they all have autofocus now,
and I keep testing certain ways and then I tried
to test this thing and it kept breaking my brain,
uh, like expecting it to work a certain way
and then it works somewhat different, like, I tell you,
I took it out and I did some follow shots with it,
and that worked really well.
I was just walking around a path in the woods
and it was, like, as long as you keep your subject
in the center, it had, like, a great hit rate,
but I also found that it was weird if you try to point,
if you try to target it, it, it gets strange,
where with autofocus, you know,
if you point it at something, I find that good autofocus
systems almost, kind of, know what you want to focus on
and they usually do a pretty good job.
And then, when that thing leaves the frame, it, kind of,
slowly pulls to the background. This is, uh,
a whole different animal to that,
and so, you have to really be, you have to really,
I guess, plan how you, like, what you want to do,
and you probably have to do one or two,
kind of, practice ones just to make sure,
if I'm up here, what's it going to focus on.
It, it makes you think differently.
It's not meant, I don't think this device is meant
for the average run-and-gun shooter.
This is more stylized, it's meant for those shooters
that shoot anamorphic, they shoot with vintage lenses,
they shoot with weird, obscure lenses like, you know, this.
What, what is this? This Noctor f/0.95 Micro Four Thirds
and those use cases. This is, uh, this is clutch.
There is not another product on the market
and it's very, very helpful.
I think, I think that niche, you've dialed it in, is,
cause there's people who, like, are in love with vintage lenses,
right, and for them, if they're just a solo shooter
who wants a specific look with a vintage lens,
then yeah, I mean, what does this thing cost?
Like 169 bucks, and now, you can add autofocus
to your vintage lenses. That's a great value add.
-Yeah. -Especially if you have
a collection of these things. What's $169
to enable something in all your lenses?
But, it also doesn't hit that category where you're using
cine glass and you have somebody pulling focus.
So, it's that, it's that interesting market segment
that's not somebody who just wants to use autofocus
on their gimbal, like the a7S III is very capable,
um, just point it at things and it mostly works,
-but not vintage glass. -Also, for low-light shooters,
like if you guys watch, you know, my stuff,
I'm always filming, like, really low-light
and really pushing the boundaries on like--
You, you were like the target. Like, no wonder
-you're so excited about this. -[Josh] I know!
You're, like, the target person.
[laughing]
Dude, I almost passed on it
because when I first opened the box,
and I was, like, "What the hell is this thing?"
You know, like, they send you this little tiny, janky thing,
and you're like, how is this, honestly, how is this
going to work? And then, like, it's a steep learning curve,
if you don't hook it up correctly,
and you don't know how to calibrate it,
you'll just think that it just doesn't work,
but the science is there. It clearly works,
and when you know the science of, like,
what it focuses on best and you lean into that,
it works really well. You get really good results.
So, funny, in your, in your second video,
you did a bunch of tests and you talked about foliage
and water and that kind of thing,
so, uh, it's winter here in Canada,
I don't live in LA, so, I tried to do the,
the equivalent of that and I went out to the woods.
Uh, most of the leaves are gone and our water
is snow and ice, uh, so, I did, I did my Josh Yeo text--
like, surface tests out there and I'll report back to you.
So, snow, uh, worked, surprisingly.
Now, this was, kind of, frozen, and it depended more on,
like, how frozen and like, you know, crystalline it was,
um, that would, you know, dictate how well it would focus.
But, you can, I know you said water doesn't work very well,
but, like, frozen snow seems to work,
so that's interesting. And, the leaves worked,
but they were dead and on the ground.
Water absorbs infrared, near-IR. It absorbs it.
That's what evaporates water. So, like, what I want to know
is if you were filming a swimmer, you know,
a girl in a bikini coming out of the ocean,
is it going to pull focus on her face?
Or, what, or does she need to be dry?
You're back to your, like, sunscreen test again,
like, throwing water.
I mean, what, are you going to film snow or, like?
Like what are you going to film snow for?
Just manual, you know, pull focus manually.
And, obviously, I ran into big problems with,
with these, like, dead trees and sticks and stuff,
because if, if you have thin, little objects
and they don't have any, like, leaves on them,
I mean, that's just not going to work.
So, I had issues, uh, focusing on nature in winter,
if that makes any sense, because there's not enough,
like, you know, chlorophyll and, you know, to make it work.
Yeah, that's the other thing, that, is that leaves
are filled with chlorophyll and that, that rejects near-IR.
So, actually, a tree full of leaves is going to,
probably, pull focus better than... It's, probably,
up there along with, uh, a vintage metal car.
Well, I don't have those, Josh.
I have dead trees with no leaves on them, okay?
So, the best scenario that I found,
where it just worked really well-- if you wanted to, like,
showcase it working well, an isolated subject,
like a person, far away from, like, the background,
just, kind of, like, isolated, and it, it works fantastic.
You can run all around and point at it
and it seems to work really well, as long as you keep 'em
in the middle. You can't do, like,
off on the thirds, you know?
I mean, most of time, like, a lot of the stuff
I like to film is isolated, like, out in the desert,
-out in the middle of nowhere. -Man, you're such the perfect,
you're the ideal, this is your number one product, man.
I know, it's perfect. I can't say enough about it,
and so, it's, kind of, a great conversation
'cause we're both bringing to-- you know, your struggles
with it and my, like, total affinity for it.
Here's where I found my biggest struggles though.
Uh, people who know my studio, um, it's a--
it's a somewhat small space so there's a lot of, like,
dimensionality up close and tight,
and I found that I couldn't really get it to work too well
in, like, a tight space, which is obviously
the opposite of an isolated subject.
Um, and so I, for me personally,
maybe you can speak the opposite of it,
if not, but I, I couldn't really, I wouldn't recommend it
for, you know, shooting anything with a lot of objects
in a tight space, because you just don't know
-what it's going to do. -What I found
is that this is not ideal for product videography,
'cause that implies that the object is sitting on top
of another object, right? Like, a desk or a table
or whatever, and so, so the autofocus more--
most of the time, was bouncing off the table
and giving me false readings. So, product videography
is not really, it's not really a good use for it.
But, outdoors, you know, if you're one of
those travel vloggers and you, you do, like,
the whimsical thing where the girl's following you
or running her hands through wheat or whatever.
[laughing]
Like, this actually would work really well,
especially if you're trying to keep your budget down.
You know, you got a $1300 camera
and never had autofocus before,
and then you got another $300 lens,
and now you're getting autofocus
that no other camera on the market can get,
which is extreme low-light under certain conditions
with razor-thin depth of field, I mean, it's mind-blowing.
Yeah, I think that's, I think that's a good note to,
sort of, end on. It's, like, you know,
creatives who want to pursue different,
like, always trying to come up with, like,
a different kind of, like, creative take,
try something a little different, try, you know,
try something maybe they couldn't do,
then this is another tool that potentially could do that,
with some caveats, like you said.
Just don't think of it like regular Sony, Canon autofocus,
where you're like, doop, and you, like, tap on something,
or, like, "It'll get my eye". Don't treat it like that.
Treat it like a creative tool where you can do, kind of,
potentially interesting stuff with lenses
that you wouldn't be able to use otherwise.
Boom, there you go! See you later, Gerald.
["Gerald Undone Theme Song" by Omar Afuni]
♪ Diving deep into details is his thing ♪
♪ The biggest nerd you'll ever meet ♪
♪ In your entire life ♪
♪ Wanna give him a noogie ♪
♪ But he's twice your size ♪
♪ Gerald Undone ♪
♪ He's crazy ♪
♪ Gerald Undone ♪
♪ He's crazy ♪