Since 2021, the popularity of VR has been rising, on the one hand, Oculus Quest 2 is hot in overseas markets, and at the same time, more and more excellent VR all-in-one machines have been born in China, giving consumers richer choices, and VR players are showing a rapid growth trend. Nowadays, the screen resolution of the VR headset basically reaches 2K or even higher per mesh, and it is constantly iteratively upgraded in terms of screen material (such as flash LCD, Micro OLED), optics (such as short-throw optics), etc., which greatly improves the VR visual experience while promoting the weight reduction of the VR headset, and even has many headset cinema equipment dedicated to 3D movie viewing.
The explosive growth of VR users and the continuous improvement of vr visual experience are an important driving force for VR audio and video content. In the past two years, well-known film festivals at home and abroad, including the Tribeca Film Festival, the Venice International Film Festival, and the Beijing International Film Festival, have joined the VR unit, intending to discover more possibilities for artistic creation through VR, a novel narrative medium. So, what are the new opportunities for film and television creators? Through its own optical strength and innovative improvements to 180° VR content shooting and editing, Canon's EOS VR System may drive a new boom in VR film and television content creation.
Demand for live-action VR film and television content is growing
With the maturity of technology and continuous breakthroughs, the advantages of VR as an emerging media form have become more and more apparent. In its Global Entertainment and Media Outlook 2021-2025 report, PwC mentioned that VR will be the fastest growing media form in recent years, of which VR video will become the most promising revenue segment after VR games.
After the advent of the VR hardware wave in 2015, the industry generally recognized that VR content is extremely scarce, especially the lack of high-quality content. Shooting is the fastest way to produce content, which has spawned a large number of VR camera hardware and companies, in addition to startups, including Samsung, Google, Nokia, Facebook and other technology manufacturers have also entered the game.
Youtube 180° VR video
In vr-oriented film and television content, large video platforms have also supported VR (such as Youtube, Bilibili, etc.), and also gave birth to a series of live VR film and television applications, such as Next VR (which has been acquired by Apple), focusing on VR concert MelodyVR, and applications such as VR cultural tourism and VR education. At the same time, there are also many attempts in China, such as testing the waters of the Spring Festival Gala VR live broadcast and other creative projects
However, since then, the growth of VR live content has not met expectations, and the main influencing factors are:
There are many restrictions on VR real shooting, high requirements for time and place characters, cumbersome processes, and low efficiency, but VR virtual production does not have these restrictions;
VR camera hardware iteration is slow, not keeping up with the creator's shooting and post-production needs;
The VR video capacity is large, and the loss of network distribution quality is serious;
Traditional 2D film and television resources have replaced some of the demand.
Although the growth has not been as expected, the advantages of live-action VR videos have gradually been understood by everyone, and more and more applied to daily life scenes, such as offline performances (concerts, concerts, operas), sports events, documentaries, cultural tourism (scenic spots, museums), real estate services, etc., these scenes with recording and reproduction value prove that real-time VR videos have great potential in the future.
A revolution in 180° VR video shooting
VR video currently has two main types of 360 ° and 180 °, of which 360 ° panoramic VR shooting has many restrictions, such as lens language, lens movement method, every small detail will be magnified, which is different from traditional 2D shooting. Because of the complexity of the shooting, the technique of 360° panoramic video shooting is still being explored today. In contrast, the advantages of another 180° VR video shooting method are emerging.
As the name suggests, 180 ° VR can be understood as half of the 360 ° VR panorama, recording hemispherical content, its advantages are: only focus on the scene in front of the lens, the rear can be ignored; with 3D depth of field effect, the sense of immersion is stronger; less editing and post-production; the file size is smaller, conducive to network dissemination; to ensure the immersion effect at the same time, reduce the user's turn frequency, improve comfort and so on.
Two Canon ME200S-SH arrays
Coincidentally, Canon has also explored the direction of 180° VR VR video. In July 2017, Canon and 7D Technology used two Canon ME200S-SH cameras to form a binocular 180° VR shooting system to meet the shooting needs of professional users.
Canon EOS VR system
Today, Canon has brought its own VR shooting solution and launched a dedicated VR lens that supports RF mounts: the RF 5.2mm F2.8 L DUAL FISHEYE. It adopts a double fish eye design, is currently compatible with the EOS R5 full-frame special micro camera, supports 8K 180 ° VR video recording, in order to further simplify 180 ° VR video shooting, reduce the threshold of VR video shooting and production, and promote 180 ° VR video to the public.
The cleverness of canon's EOS VR system is that it simplifies 180° VR shooting into a combination of body + lens that photographers are accustomed to, and only a micro single camera + VR lens can complete 180° VR video shooting, which is an important technological change in 180° VR format shooting.
The EOS VR system simplifies the shooting and post-production process
At this point, 180° VR cameras have been extended into three categories. The traditional phase stitching mode requires two cameras to align and synchronize, and when shooting, it also needs to align the focus and exposure parameters, and the two video files need to be synthesized later; although the all-in-one machine does not need camera alignment, it still needs to align the focus and exposure parameters (Google 180 ° VR co-brand camera is a consumer-grade simplified version, without this setting), and the two video post-production need to be synthesized; and the Canon EOS VR system only needs a camera + lens, eliminating all complicated alignment operations, recording in the same CMOS, generating a single video, No material compositing is required, and shooting and post-production are greatly simplified.
Qingting network learned that in the shooting process, lens focus and exposure parameter alignment is more complex than the physical alignment of the camera array, because it is necessary to set up two sets of CMOS separately, so the consistency of the picture has always been a problem of 180 ° VR shooting, such as encountering left and right color difference can only be adjusted later, the whole process is very complicated, there are no small challenges for VR video creators. The above problems have been greatly simplified on the Canon EOS VR system, reducing a lot of preparation and debugging work, saving post-synthesis time, and the advantages are very obvious.
8K VR video recording, professional-grade choice
While bringing about changes in shooting technology, the RF 5.2mm F2.8 L DUAL FISHEYE itself is also worth paying attention to. As Canon's first VR-specific lens, according to Qingting.com, the RF 5.2mm F2.8 L DUAL FISHEYE adopts two sets of independent optical designs, maintaining a pupil distance of about 60mm and having a 190-degree field of view. The 3D parallax effect of 60mm interpupillary distance is achieved, and canon's consistently high optical quality is guaranteed. Each monocular lens has 12 sets of lenses, including 2 UD lenses to reduce dispersion, suppress aberrations, and ensure consistent clarity throughout the picture.
RF 5.2mm F2.8 L DUAL FISHEYE lens optical path design
The left and right sides of the lens have SWC coating, which is to prevent strong light from causing ghosting or glare, such as outdoor sunlight or indoor spotlights, etc., to avoid the situation that cannot be shot due to indoor and outdoor light, and to improve the flexibility of time. At the same time, the lens also adds a drip-proof, dust-proof structure, and the outer lens has a stain-proof fluorine coating to improve durability and meet the shooting needs of different scenes.
EOS R5 supports 8K video recording capabilities, equipped with DIGIC X processor can bring good noise reduction performance, greatly improve the picture details, light sensitivity performance, in order to meet the needs of commercial shooting. These professional-level film and television capabilities also bring better experience and picture quality performance to 180 ° VR shooting, especially suitable for 180 ° VR shooting with more event performances, sports events, cultural tourism scenery, education, real estate and other scenes. Even on everyday Vlogs there are decent effects, as these videos have decent visuals when played in 2D under a web page.
The picture taken by the EOS VR system
From the perspective of shooting specifications, the EOS VR system (with ROS R5) supports the highest canon Log1/3 mode 8K DCI 30 frames, 4K DCI 120/60 frames, 422 10bit video shooting, supports 8K resolution time-lapse photography, presents 3D 180 ° VR images in high resolution, and fully meets the needs of commercial VR video shooting in terms of functions, which is an excellent choice for VR video workers, professional photographers, creative photographers and other groups.
As mentioned earlier, another difficulty in VR video is that in the later stage, Canon also equipped the EOS VR system with corresponding transmission and conversion software.
The shooting link can be remotely controlled through the mobile phone application Canon Camera Connect or the PC application EOS Utility, or left and right image alignment, ERP real-time conversion and other functions, which can easily preview the real-time effect.
Canon also provides two software/plug-ins in the post-production process, and the newly developed PC software EOS VR Utility (some function subscription fees) can reverse the 180 ° VR video files shot left and right, ERP conversion, correction level or parallax and other compensation operations, and can also perform simple editing, 8K to 4K and other operations. In order to take care of users who use Adobe Premiere, you can also directly reverse the left and right through the EOS VR Plug-in for Adobe Premiere Pro (some function subscription fees) plug-in, ERP conversion and compensation operations, and then you can carry out the video editing process, making it easier to view and confirm VR videos.
In other words, the Canon EOS VR system simplifies the entire process of 180° VR video shooting and post-production through the newly designed VR lens, EOS R5 camera, and corresponding software.
At the same time, because the device is the camera that the camera is familiar with (currently compatible with the EOS R5), it can not only get started quickly, but also make full use of existing accessories, such as tripods or gimbals, etc., to maximize the use of existing equipment. The weight of the EOS R5 body + VR lens is only 1.08kg, which maintains a high portability and high versatility in professional VR cameras.
Compared with the innovation in hardware, we should pay more attention to the significance of simplifying VR video shooting and production to the promotion and popularization of VR video creation. The EOS VR system not only effectively reduces the difficulty and threshold of shooting, but also allows more photographers to quickly enter the VR video field, bring more high-quality content, and promote the application of 180 ° VR video in different scenes.
In the long run, canon EOS VR system has greater potential, that is, through the production of high-quality VR film and television content by professional photographers, it will further drive ordinary consumers to enter VR video creation, form a positive cycle of VR video creation, and jointly build a prosperous VR film and television content ecology. Now, the Canon EOS VR system is an excellent choice for 180° VR video shooting.