Impressed with adapting the Gimbal to a super-duper stabilized PTZ platform. Never thought about gimbal as a PTZ substitute. Thanks so much for producing this video. RS3 on the stand, at near full extension in a breeze, was a little scary to see, but the video footage speaks for itself. IT WORKS!
@@RyanSomerfield Here's my usecase: We have bunch of canon XA-series camcorders that we use for livestreams and other ENG events. Putting one of them on a gimbal as a PTZ would be great as we have gimbals and no wish to invest in additional cameras for PTZ. The Canon CA-series cameras can be controlled via LANC using a Canon RC-V100 but that remote has range limitations with the dedicated LANC cable not to mention that a single remote costs more than several of the cameras we use. Technically it should be possible to build a device like the Middle Things APC-R that could control the gimbal and output LANC instructions to the camera for zoom, focus and iris control instead of the bluetooth used for the BMD-cameras.
@@ivarmh that’s actually a really good thought, I’d contact them and put your case to them, in theory they could write something to control via the SBus output. There might be a sbus to lanc adaptor option.. I have used rc to lanc before I’m pretty sure, or via the aux usb c port? Could be possible!
We were just talking about this system the other day....definitely on my radar to jump into especially for my corporate work where quite often the client doesn't want to pay for extra cameras and/or operators but still expect the world. Great review Ryan.
Thank you so much for doing this deep dive. These are all. amazing products. that can really revolutionize the way some one runs their business Yet there's very little information about them out there. There's not raving reviews from 30 youtubers and deep dives. So thank you for taking the time. My biggest question is how stable is this setup? Can I trust it to run a live stream through? if everything's set up properly? will the program crash and I'll lose camera control, etc. And if you install all the software on a little mini Macmini or something, and have your own mobile network set up and ready to go, how easy is this to deploy? / How reliable? is it when being set up and taken down multiple times a week?
I'm always having issues getting the DJI focus motor to stay stable on this setup do you have any settings you recommend? I'll just randomly lose zoom function
Thanks for the video. Can you tell me, when you were doing the outside sample shots at 14:53 and you were doing a pan/tilt, were you using the middle remote outside to do that, or using a different kind of control? Thanks.
Correct, was running everything on wifi, my laptop with the middle control plugged in and the APCR was on wifi also, it was a bit flaky but thats only because my house is double brick and wifi barely works outside anyway.. but got it to work, obviously a wired connection would be ideal, or antennas actually facing the devices :)
@@RyanSomerfield Awesome, thank you. In another video by Middle Things, he's demonstrating movement using a USB gaming joystick, but the pan/tilt is quite steppy/jerky and not usable to my taste. This looks far smoother. I'm wondering if the middle remote has a more precise encoder or something. A lot of people talk about video quality of PTZ cameras (rightfully so), but what most seem to not ever touch on is the quality of the movement of the cameras. I'm hoping this Ronin solution will meet my needs. There seems to be zero sample footage of this setup online anywhere except for the 2 seconds in your video (of which I am grateful). Thank you for sharing.
@@daltonrandall4348 in his videos he does run thing at full speed mostly. I haven’t tried a usb joystick but I was able to get super slow movement out of the middle control and atem panel so I’d assume you could do slow on a usb joystick too. Just wind down the max speed
@@RyanSomerfield There's no way I could show up to one of my gigs with a plastic gaming joystick or an xbox controller, so it's moot. 😂 I just wanted to verify you were using the middle remote on your outdoor shoot. The footage (what there is of it) looks nice. 👍
I have a similar setup but I can’t get the joystick from my advance panel to work, I have the panel connected to the network and everything works but idk if I’m missing a step?
Great use case Ryan. I have thought of mounting a PTZ on a light stand but this is much better. Question: What light stand did you use for the outdoor test?
Can you smoothly zoom and focus from one preset to another, while the camera is live? In one of Middle Things videos they show the presets, but the focus didn't seem smooth at all. This would be very important to know, so that we can decide if it is the right fit for our use case.
I honesty didn’t play much with presets.. mostly full manual, but would also depend on the lens and lens mount. MFT in theory would be better than EF because of how it sends lens data.. but I’d have to set it up again which I wouldn’t be able to for a while sorry!
Great video mate - I have a question, how are you keeping things in focus in this setup? Did you find a continuous autofocus solution or are you operating the AF yourself?
are you talking about the PTZ setup? depends on the shot really.. im using it mostly personally for wide shots which is pretty much set and forget, i do have the option of the lidar focus as well as just manual operation too depending on whats happening so a few options which is nice
@@RyanSomerfield yeah in a PTZ setup - if I had three of these going at once, it would be awesome if they could do continuous autofocus to keep up with presenters that love to roam around a stage or move around in their seat
@@RyanSomerfield hmm, that's the thing - it's a bit of a hack versus sony or canon's eye/face detect AF (but those PTZ cameras with a similar sensor size to a Blackmagic camera cost like 2x-3x as much!)
@@decryption277 I mean the tracking on the dji is decent, I believe you can trigger when to start looking at someone, but when someone else enters the frame etc it can get confused..
Its pretty solid, Make sure your setup is perfectly balanced, the better the balance the better results you will get, super thin cables for vision etc is ideal too. it can be a little fiddly to setup but once its up its great!
Not sure if you mentioned it anywhere but how do you connect all of this power wise? Is there a way to have all of this powered consistently for fixed setups?
The Middlethings APCR is powered from USB from memory, so any sort of 5v should do the trick. It can also be powered by the RS3 Pro via the connection cable if you are using the gimbal
Ryan, this is great and you almost answered every question I had lol. I do have one question though. If I were to pair this with a broadcast G2 with a Fujinon broadcast servo lens, is it possible to use blackmagic internal camera controls to control that zoom functionality remotely? There’s a BMD zoom control so I’m curious if you can with APC-R If not, is there a workaround for that? Looking to control an Ursa G2 broadcast on a Ronin 2 ultimately for full PTZ
If not using Blackmagic cameras, I’ll be using canon, is there a way to wire connect about 3 DJI gimbals to the Middle remote without having to have the APC-R devices? Or another device that will do it? I just need PTZ control of 3 cameras and using the DJI gimbal and follow focus looks like the best device to use with my cameras.
I believe you will need an apcr for each gimbal as it’s a single cam bus connection to each gimbal. In theory you should be able to use the motor for focus but by standard it does zoom (because it’s intended to use internal focus on the lens with Blackmagic camera)
Great video Ryan. Did you get a chance to test activating Active Track through Middle Remote. Does a phone need to be connected at all times for the Active Track to work? How does it go tracking a presenter pacing around a stage?
i havent put it in into a full stress test, but did test turning it on and off and seemed to work straight away, obviously different scenarious will make a difference, but would still want someone close by to be ready to take over when it gets confused :) doesnt need the phone from memory, it just activates active track on the raven eye system (which you might want to pre program with whatever settings you need) but you can probably do that on the touch screen too
you know what, I didn’t even think of talking about that.. it is expensive yes. But compared to a comparable PTZ camera it’s actually quite affordable.. and each of the items have multiple uses rather than just one job. Which is a win in my books.
What I really wan to know is what is the minimum $ needed to get this system up and running. I know the controller is $595 here in the USA, but don’t know what else I MUST have to get my RS to be my PTZ setup.
@@charleshoughton if you’re talking about a rs2 or rs3 pro, you would need the gimbal adaptor too and in theory that’s the minimum you would need. You could control presets from the software or companion, or an atem panel. And of course the middle remote is a great option too.
Why you have so few views is beyond my comprehension. The way you explain and present everything is rock solid, man. Great work!
Appreciate the kind words! Glad you enjoyed :)
Impressed with adapting the Gimbal to a super-duper stabilized PTZ platform. Never thought about gimbal as a PTZ substitute. Thanks so much for producing this video. RS3 on the stand, at near full extension in a breeze, was a little scary to see, but the video footage speaks for itself. IT WORKS!
So how do you mount the APC-R to the gimbal? I have yet to find anyone or any articles talking about mounting points on the APC-R. Any thoughts?
Good informative piece as always Ryan - many thanks, John.
Would love to have a similar solution that would work via LANC for Zoom and foucs for Canon or Sony camcorders
Hmm interesting thought! You talking about atem talking to it/the apcr?
@@RyanSomerfield Here's my usecase: We have bunch of canon XA-series camcorders that we use for livestreams and other ENG events. Putting one of them on a gimbal as a PTZ would be great as we have gimbals and no wish to invest in additional cameras for PTZ. The Canon CA-series cameras can be controlled via LANC using a Canon RC-V100 but that remote has range limitations with the dedicated LANC cable not to mention that a single remote costs more than several of the cameras we use. Technically it should be possible to build a device like the Middle Things APC-R that could control the gimbal and output LANC instructions to the camera for zoom, focus and iris control instead of the bluetooth used for the BMD-cameras.
@@ivarmh that’s actually a really good thought, I’d contact them and put your case to them, in theory they could write something to control via the SBus output. There might be a sbus to lanc adaptor option.. I have used rc to lanc before I’m pretty sure, or via the aux usb c port? Could be possible!
@@RyanSomerfield That would be fantastic!
We were just talking about this system the other day....definitely on my radar to jump into especially for my corporate work where quite often the client doesn't want to pay for extra cameras and/or operators but still expect the world. Great review Ryan.
Thank you :) yeah it’s an interesting system for sure! As mentioned, it wasn’t what I was expecting!
Thank you so much for doing this deep dive. These are all. amazing products. that can really revolutionize the way some one runs their business Yet there's very little information about them out there. There's not raving reviews from 30 youtubers and deep dives. So thank you for taking the time. My biggest question is how stable is this setup? Can I trust it to run a live stream through? if everything's set up properly? will the program crash and I'll lose camera control, etc. And if you install all the software on a little mini Macmini or something, and have your own mobile network set up and ready to go, how easy is this to deploy? / How reliable? is it when being set up and taken down multiple times a week?
I'm always having issues getting the DJI focus motor to stay stable on this setup do you have any settings you recommend?
I'll just randomly lose zoom function
Thanks for the video. Can you tell me, when you were doing the outside sample shots at 14:53 and you were doing a pan/tilt, were you using the middle remote outside to do that, or using a different kind of control? Thanks.
Correct, was running everything on wifi, my laptop with the middle control plugged in and the APCR was on wifi also, it was a bit flaky but thats only because my house is double brick and wifi barely works outside anyway.. but got it to work, obviously a wired connection would be ideal, or antennas actually facing the devices :)
@@RyanSomerfield Awesome, thank you. In another video by Middle Things, he's demonstrating movement using a USB gaming joystick, but the pan/tilt is quite steppy/jerky and not usable to my taste. This looks far smoother. I'm wondering if the middle remote has a more precise encoder or something.
A lot of people talk about video quality of PTZ cameras (rightfully so), but what most seem to not ever touch on is the quality of the movement of the cameras. I'm hoping this Ronin solution will meet my needs. There seems to be zero sample footage of this setup online anywhere except for the 2 seconds in your video (of which I am grateful). Thank you for sharing.
@@daltonrandall4348 in his videos he does run thing at full speed mostly. I haven’t tried a usb joystick but I was able to get super slow movement out of the middle control and atem panel so I’d assume you could do slow on a usb joystick too. Just wind down the max speed
@@RyanSomerfield There's no way I could show up to one of my gigs with a plastic gaming joystick or an xbox controller, so it's moot. 😂 I just wanted to verify you were using the middle remote on your outdoor shoot. The footage (what there is of it) looks nice. 👍
I have a similar setup but I can’t get the joystick from my advance panel to work, I have the panel connected to the network and everything works but idk if I’m missing a step?
Great use case Ryan. I have thought of mounting a PTZ on a light stand but this is much better. Question: What light stand did you use for the outdoor test?
Can you smoothly zoom and focus from one preset to another, while the camera is live? In one of Middle Things videos they show the presets, but the focus didn't seem smooth at all.
This would be very important to know, so that we can decide if it is the right fit for our use case.
I honesty didn’t play much with presets.. mostly full manual, but would also depend on the lens and lens mount. MFT in theory would be better than EF because of how it sends lens data.. but I’d have to set it up again which I wouldn’t be able to for a while sorry!
Great video mate - I have a question, how are you keeping things in focus in this setup? Did you find a continuous autofocus solution or are you operating the AF yourself?
are you talking about the PTZ setup? depends on the shot really.. im using it mostly personally for wide shots which is pretty much set and forget, i do have the option of the lidar focus as well as just manual operation too depending on whats happening so a few options which is nice
@@RyanSomerfield yeah in a PTZ setup - if I had three of these going at once, it would be awesome if they could do continuous autofocus to keep up with presenters that love to roam around a stage or move around in their seat
@@decryption277 you could use the dji tracking and focus tracking using the lidar, until it freaks out of course :)
@@RyanSomerfield hmm, that's the thing - it's a bit of a hack versus sony or canon's eye/face detect AF (but those PTZ cameras with a similar sensor size to a Blackmagic camera cost like 2x-3x as much!)
@@decryption277 I mean the tracking on the dji is decent, I believe you can trigger when to start looking at someone, but when someone else enters the frame etc it can get confused..
How stable is this set up? Just ordered everything and the new mini APCr.
Its pretty solid, Make sure your setup is perfectly balanced, the better the balance the better results you will get, super thin cables for vision etc is ideal too. it can be a little fiddly to setup but once its up its great!
Not sure if you mentioned it anywhere but how do you connect all of this power wise? Is there a way to have all of this powered consistently for fixed setups?
The Middlethings APCR is powered from USB from memory, so any sort of 5v should do the trick. It can also be powered by the RS3 Pro via the connection cable if you are using the gimbal
Ryan, this is great and you almost answered every question I had lol. I do have one question though.
If I were to pair this with a broadcast G2 with a Fujinon broadcast servo lens, is it possible to use blackmagic internal camera controls to control that zoom functionality remotely? There’s a BMD zoom control so I’m curious if you can with APC-R
If not, is there a workaround for that? Looking to control an Ursa G2 broadcast on a Ronin 2 ultimately for full PTZ
If not using Blackmagic cameras, I’ll be using canon, is there a way to wire connect about 3 DJI gimbals to the Middle remote without having to have the APC-R devices? Or another device that will do it? I just need PTZ control of 3 cameras and using the DJI gimbal and follow focus looks like the best device to use with my cameras.
I believe you will need an apcr for each gimbal as it’s a single cam bus connection to each gimbal. In theory you should be able to use the motor for focus but by standard it does zoom (because it’s intended to use internal focus on the lens with Blackmagic camera)
Great video Ryan. Did you get a chance to test activating Active Track through Middle Remote. Does a phone need to be connected at all times for the Active Track to work? How does it go tracking a presenter pacing around a stage?
i havent put it in into a full stress test, but did test turning it on and off and seemed to work straight away, obviously different scenarious will make a difference, but would still want someone close by to be ready to take over when it gets confused :) doesnt need the phone from memory, it just activates active track on the raven eye system (which you might want to pre program with whatever settings you need) but you can probably do that on the touch screen too
Hopefully middle control will be able to control Sony cameras just like blackmagic cameras
I believe they are working on that!
Did you speak to pricing? It’s a pretty expensive piece of kit.
you know what, I didn’t even think of talking about that.. it is expensive yes. But compared to a comparable PTZ camera it’s actually quite affordable.. and each of the items have multiple uses rather than just one job. Which is a win in my books.
What I really wan to know is what is the minimum $ needed to get this system up and running. I know the controller is $595 here in the USA, but don’t know what else I MUST have to get my RS to be my PTZ setup.
@@charleshoughton if you’re talking about a rs2 or rs3 pro, you would need the gimbal adaptor too and in theory that’s the minimum you would need. You could control presets from the software or companion, or an atem panel. And of course the middle remote is a great option too.