Not meaning to highjack your thread, Laurence, but I just wanted to say thanks for that Kjaerhus Audo link, a few days back. I really love that 'Classic Master Limiter' I haven't tried most of them yet, but that one alone was fantastic.

Could be wrong, but I don't think you can go super-wide and not get barrel distortion.

What about that technology that merges dozens of still photos into a 360 degree view?

Even with a 0.7, there is curving when the edge of the video frame is close to a vertical line. ANYTHING wider will distort even more.

Here's my 2 cents... you are shooting video, so why do you NEED to see the entire room in one shot? Utilize your chosen medium... pan, tilt, and zoom. That's the whole reason you're not using photos!

Have a look at: http://www.open2view.com

I did a shoot today with the my regular Sony zoom through .7 wide angle lens. It was a regular sized house rather than the barn sized mansions I usually shoot, and the .7 was fine really. Yeah, maybe I'll just stick with that.

Yes, the http://www.kjaerhusaudio.com/Kjaerhus audio plugins[/link] are just fantastic. The free ones are some of the best ones out there and the paid ones are even better. The free audio limiter is just wonderful. I use it probably more than the one they sell just because it is so easy to set up and most of the time, that's all you need.

Century optics 0.7 is what you want.
No zoom through but for real estate you won't need it.

Laurence, there a couple of different approaches that yield superior results than using wide angle lens.

One, is to build a panoramic pic using digit stills, PS2 does a good job
, but Realviz Stitcher v5.5 or Stitcher unlimited is better. Then load up the p.pic into vegas and do your panning .

Or as above, and produce a QT Panoramic movie where the user determines movement.

I bought http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?O=WishList.jsp&A=details&Q=&sku=287710&is=REGthis[/link] Century Optics .65 wide angle lens several years ago. It's a full zoom through, and if specs had any bearing on performance it would be perfect. Unfortunately, the image quality really sucks. It blurs the edges about halfway into the center of the image when you go full wide. I used it one time then set it on a shelf. I haven't even wanted to sell it on eBay because I don't want to have somebody mad at me.

Anyway, this experience has soured me on Century Optics products.

As far as stitching panoramic images together, I have tried that, but I get the same kind of distortion that I see on all the real estate sites when they do it. Yuck.

Totaly not answering your question... There are super wide lenses in 35mm filmmaking that don't produce curved edges -- i was working once with Zeiss 10mm lens and i was getting perfect straigh edges.

Yes, it CAN be done, the new 3.9mm Digiprime should fill the need and empty the pocket very nicely. I think though once you can go that wide your next challenge would be lighting. You've got to light a larger area and you've got less space to do it in.
For a good sell of real estate dolly and crane shots work very well and that kit will cost less to rent for a day than a set of top shelf prime lenses.

Bob.

How are these audio plug-ins better than the ones in Vegas? Vegas is know for top notch audio? Why buy Vegas and then have to buy very ordinary (not special FX) plug-ins?

Pretty common knowledge that the plugins that ship with Vegas are very pedestrian. SF9 ships with some better ones from iZotopes so even SCS know the limitations of their plugins and that's sensible. A full suite of top shelf plugins will cost you way, way more than Vegas.

Bob.

How are these audio plug-ins better than the ones in Vegas?

They're more wideangle.



Seriously, limiters (and other plug-ins) all sound differently, some warmer, some more clear, etc.

Sometimes you pay for quality, sometimes you buy another one just to match an instrument, or a particular voice, or a particular recording technique.

When you go to the Kjaerhus site and you're looking at the audio plugins, make sure you check out http://www.kjaerhusaudio.com/classic-series.phpthese free ones[/link]. They really are wonderful. They are not merely good for free. They are really good period.

As far as the paid Kjaerhus plugins go, the audio quality is the same. You just have more control. They have a complete voice processing one that is just wonderful. It gives you everything you need to get a good VO or sung vocal track in a single plugin. I also have their brick wall limiter, which again, doesn't sound any better than the free one (which is fantastic). It just gives you more control.

The Kjaerhus Classic series is not only free, it is very good quality as well. I personally like it better than the ones bundled with Vegas, but I certainly am not offended by anyone having a different opinion.

I also liked the Classic Master Limiter because it achieved something I was never able to get with any of the enclosed Vegas compressors. I put this one on my 'master stereo out' and it made any mix I already had, sound way better. It was super smooth, I couldn't hear any pumping or weird compression noises. The default CD setting smoothly brought up the overall level but kept my output to from going beyond -0.2 db, when they had been hovering at around -2.5db. It gave me the one missing ingredient in my mixes I've been looking for. Making it sound like it was Mastered. Everything about my previous mixes, sounded better with this Limiter.
There are jillions of audio products. Some are better than others, but quite a few just offer different flavors than other reputed products and it's just a matter of personal preference.

Laurence? What gves with the install?

I've got it in VSTplugins.

I've done a rescan but it ISN'T being recognised by V7?

What else do I need to do?

TIA

Grazie

Just tried it here, SF9 finds it OK, no joy in V7 despite rejigging the VST folder options and rescanning the same as in SF9.

Bob.

Wierd. These audio plugins show up in both SF9 and Vegas 7e. Works great here. You might want to make sure that the .dll files are in the correct folder. Since these plugins are free, they are not copy protected and can be moved around pretty easily.

I retried the Century Optics .65 wide angle lens on my CX-7 and it isn't perfect at full wide, but it is much better than it was on my HVR-A1. Switching between photo and video modes on the CX-7, you can see that the framing in the full resolution 4:3 photo mode is quite a bit wider. I think this is because of using a CMOS that is also designed to give higher resolution in stills than it can in video mode. Anyway, at full wide in photo mode, you can see quite a bit of blur at the edge of the frames, but in video mode it doesn't seem to get wide enough for this to be as much of a problem. Also, this particular wide angle lens seems to sacrifice a little focus on the outside of the frame in order to achieve straighter lines around the edges. For showcasing rooms this is actually preferable whereas if you were shooting people it is not. This is only at full wide anyway. Zoom in even just a little and the focus at the edges improves. I also like that this lens is quite a bit smaller and lighter than the Sony one and that you can use a .62mm UV filter to protect the glass.

I've also downloaded some footage and stills with ultra-wide lenses and can see that once you go past .7, none of them really look that great.

All my VSTs are in C:\Program Files\Vstplugins and both SF 9 and Vegas 7 had no problems finding them.


Mike

The Kjaerthus Plugins don't appear to work with Vegas 4.0e.
Neither copying them to the Shared Plug Ins/Audio folder nor creating a VSTplugins folder in Program Files works.
Anyone using these successfully with V4 or SF5.0b?
TIA
Ken

I dropped my dll files right into the VSTplugin folder in the Programs section. They appeared in Vegas immediately, after I looked for them.
I also cannot bring any VST files up thru Vegas 4.0. But I found WaveHammer in the Vegas 4 FX file. I thought that only came with Soundforge. I've never had Soundforge. Not even a trial. I don't remember ever seeing wave hammer in my FX folder before. Of course, I never looked and I had to scroll over, as it was listed last.

The 5.1 (Surround) version of Wavehammer has shipped with Vegas for a long time. The stereo version only ships with SF.

Bob.