Mobius Telephoto Dashcam

Trial & error and a bit of force.
I suppose the Mobius has only 90deg between options to attach the cradle. The GitUp F1 has 180deg. I started using tape because I found a good supply of tape on a roll.
 
I suppose the Mobius has only 90deg between options to attach the cradle. The GitUp F1 has 180deg. I started using tape because I found a good supply of tape on a roll.

Good idea to attach the F1 first and then play around with the M1's cradle, that's what I'll be doing (whenever the narrower one becomes available).

Tape has its advantages, for one all the cameras are on the same plane as the cradles don't need to be used. A lot more convenient too if one's swapping cameras frequently.
 
Good idea to attach the F1 first and then play around with the M1's cradle, that's what I'll be doing (whenever the narrower one becomes available).

Tape has its advantages, for one all the cameras are on the same plane as the cradles don't need to be used. A lot more convenient too if one's swapping cameras frequently.
With three cameras taped on, it can be hard to get the middle one off!

If I'm feeling really adventurous I can fix five cameras to that plate :p
 
Good idea to attach the F1 first and then play around with the M1's cradle, that's what I'll be doing (whenever the narrower one becomes available).

Tape has its advantages, for one all the cameras are on the same plane as the cradles don't need to be used. A lot more convenient too if one's swapping cameras frequently.

I often like to use Dual Lock tape for things like this. So, for example, applying Dual Lock tape semi-permananetly to the entire side of a cheese plate and then to each camera bottom allows for them to be securely attached, positioned and removed at will.
 
Moving the feeder across the garden and positioning the camera on a tripod, I managed some better photos with the 25mm f2.4 lens:
I remembered @Nigel also DIY a telephoto lens on Git2 before and shared some nice feeder photos, even developed a remote trigger for this.

If we develop a such telephoto lens, will be good?
G3 TELEPHOTO.jpg
 
I often like to use Dual Lock tape for things like this. So, for example, applying Dual Lock tape semi-permananetly to the entire side of a cheese plate and then to each camera bottom allows for them to be securely attached, positioned and removed at will.
I have tried using the velcro strips that come with the Mobius cameras to do this, but they never seem to be secure enough for my liking. Is your dual lock tape any better?
 
I remembered @Nigel also DIY a telephoto lens on Git2 before and shared some nice feeder photos, even developed a remote trigger for this.

If we develop a such telephoto lens, will be good?
View attachment 39148
I think that there is only a small market for using such a long 25mm telephoto on these action cameras.

As you know I am looking at how a dual wide & telephoto lens camera could work. However for that purpose I think a 6, 8 or 12mm lens will be a better option for wider consumer appeal.
 
I have tried using the velcro strips that come with the Mobius cameras to do this, but they never seem to be secure enough for my liking. Is your dual lock tape any better?


Dual Lock reclosable fasteners are extremely strong and secure. 3M claims the product can be used in place of traditional fastening methods such as screws, nuts or bolts. Unlike Velcro it won't allow for any camera wobble and it can be positioned and re-positioned precisely. It works on a similar principle to Velcro but instead of being hook and loop, each side consists of protruding mushroom shaped stalks that interlock when pressed together. I always keep some handy.

There's an old thread here that has some good discussion on Dual Lock Tape.

The only drawback to this stuff is that it is no longer available in pure black. (in smaller consumer quantities) For some unknown reason 3M switched to using a white adhesive backing from the original black backing so that for dash cam use it is no longer quite as stealthy as it once was. It is available in "clear" though. When I saw that the original black Dual Lock was disappearing from store shelves I bought up a supply to stash away.

duallock.jpg

dual-lock.png
 
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Dual Lock reclosable fasteners are extremely strong and secure. 3M claims the product can be used in place of traditional fastening methods such as screws, nuts or bolts. Unlike Velcro it won't allow for any camera wobble and it can be positioned and re-positioned precisely. It works on a similar principle to Velcro but instead of being hook and loop, each side consists of protruding mushroom shaped stalks that interlock when pressed together. I always keep some handy.

There's an old thread here that has some good discussion on Dual Lock Tape.
Thanks for the advice, and pointers for further reading. Now I understand why you & others have been praising this stuff, whereas I was struggling to get velcro to work.
 
Here is my comparison video. In AWB mode of course the camera adjusts for sunlight vs incandescent light, but in Cloudy and Custom 1 (all values set to 256) it doesn't adjust.

I think what Dashmallow is trying to tell you is it doesn't dynamically adjust. It's a simple camera.

It has a presets for each type of lighting scenario that is programmed (a limited number probably of sunny, dull, night, incandescent and fluorescent at a guess), and simply detects the type of light and then applies the nearest corresponding preset. That's why Tony M's videos show a colour cast. The preset for a sunny day doesn't match the colour balance that leads to a neutral result taking into account the lens coating.
 
I think that there is only a small market for using such a long 25mm telephoto on these action cameras.

As you know I am looking at how a dual wide & telephoto lens camera could work. However for that purpose I think a 6, 8 or 12mm lens will be a better option for wider consumer appeal.

Good point Tony, and the big issue as well is quality. eg the Treeye lenses Tony and Dashmallow have been using cost around $14 per lens. I'm sure as a manufacturer Viofo could get that down a bit. However, for a relatively cheap camera, it represents a substantial chunk of the budget for a budget camera. Not so much of an issue with a more expensive camera, but it all depends on where you see your market. Also, a lot of the improvements seen in Tony and Dash's experiments come from the fact the lens appears higher quality than the stock lens and not just the fact it is telephoto (although telephoto helps maintains pixel density at range (hence the increased recognisably) and reduces external reflection from the narrower fov).

I would suggest the Treeye lens would be unsuitable for the mass dashcam market as there are too many variables for the average idiot to get wrong such as focus vs zoom. The average idiot needs a lens with 2 rings - one for focus and for for zoom, and are easily adjustable to maintain focus. Given small dashcam screens, the latter probably hints at a need for some kind of computer aided (in dashcam) manual focusing app that marries an onscreen letter or line being in focus on screen, with the focus of the lens.

Tony I think is quite right, that for the mass market, a prime lens that can be factory set for focus is a better bet. However, if you want to see the kind of results Tony has seen, then the lens needs to be one of a higher quality design / construction.

Some time ago now, I pointed out the advantages of not having an overly wide lens despite the current ever wider trend. I think the options here are either have a single lens with a narrower fov, but not too narrow again making this a narrower but nevertheless wide angle lens say 90 or 100 degrees fov, or have 2 lenses (1 wide and 1 zoom) and 2 pictures recorded. The zoom on the latter can afford to be of a much longer focal length than a single narrower lens of course. You'll never get the same distance results with a wide angle lens, even a narrower one.

Just jumping aside from the direct topic above, I'd still be interested on the quality from to see the Treeye lens vs a really expensive extremely low distortion very high resolution (high mp rated) rectilinear lens such as those sold by Backbone (or their Chinese direct from the manufacturer trade equivalent). It would be interesting simply to see a quality vs cost comparison (although obviously care would have to be taken to choose a lens that truly represented quality. Cost on the other hand is easy!).

BTW, one last point, someone above mentioned somewhere (I can't troll the whole thread to find it), that Tonys f1.6 lens had a greater DOF than his f2.5 lens. This is absolutely not the case and a case of misinterpretation of the results. A smaller aperture always gives a greater dof. If there's more background blurr in the f2.5 photos, then it's almost certainly down to the hyperfocal point and where / how the lens has been focused - I refer you back to Dashmallows diagram.
 
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I think what Dashmallow is trying to tell you is it doesn't dynamically adjust. It's a simple camera.

It has a presets for each type of lighting scenario that is programmed (a limited number probably of sunny, dull, night, incandescent and fluorescent at a guess), and simply detects the type of light and then applies the nearest corresponding preset. That's why Tony M's videos show a colour cast. The preset for a sunny day doesn't match the colour balance that leads to a neutral result taking into account the lens coating.

He was telling me wrong... It does dynamically adjust with changing conditions
 
He was telling me wrong... It does dynamically adjust with changing conditions

No, you didn't understand what I was saying. The camera does have automatic white balance but it is based upon preset RGB values built into the firmware so as to achieve white balance according to those built-in pre-sets, such as with each A-B-C lens setting you choose. The ability to change the RGB numbers manually is a separate function to the preset RGB values programmed into the camera for White Balance.
 
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Jak what you're suggesting is not dynamic. Dynamic would be constant adjustment based on changes to the lighting curves. That would involve constant reassessement and either a very clever algorithym or thousands of profiles each one subtly different. I'm not sure any camera has that due to processing considerations.

The mobius is simple like a point and shoot camera - my understanding is it attempts to assess the white balance according to the lighting conditions and then applies the most appropriate pre-set, whether that pre-set is correct or not. In other words its dumb like most cameras out there. The only difference to my knowledge between simple and mopre advanced SLR's when it comes to white balance is SLR's have more pre-set profiles and so can adjust to more situations thereby increasing accuracy. However, as you'll see in the explanatory web page below, even some top name SLR's get it wrong. The only real solution is to shoot in raw. Which you'll never get in a dashcam because the files are huge due to no compression being used: Raw HD video at 1080P uses 7.1GB per minute of storage space.

https://expertphotography.com/4-steps-to-understanding-white-balance/
 
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No, you didn't understand what I was saying. The camera does have automatic white balance but it is based upon preset RGB values built into the firmware so as to achieve white balance according to those built-in pre-sets, such as with each A-B-C lens setting you choose. The ability to change the RGB numbers manually is a separate function to the preset RGB values programmed into the camera for White Balance.

Well why didn't you say so to begin with?
 
Jak what you're suggesting is not dynamic. Dynamic would be constant adjustment based on changes to the lighting curves. That would involve constant reassessement and either a very clever algorithym or thousands of profiles each one subtly different. I'm not sure any camera has that due to processing considerations.

The mobius is simple like a point and shoot camera - my understanding is it attempts to assess the white balance according to the lighting conditions and then applies the most appropriate pre-set, whether that pre-set is correct or not. In other words its dumb like most cameras out there. The only difference to my knowledge between simple and mopre advanced SLR's when it comes to white balance is SLR's have more pre-set profiles and so can adjust to more situations thereby increasing accuracy. However, as you'll see in the explanatory web page below, even some top name SLR's get it wrong. The only real solution is to shoot in raw. Which you'll never get in a dashcam because the files are huge due to no compression being used: Raw HD video at 1080P uses 7.1GB per minute of storage space.

https://expertphotography.com/4-steps-to-understanding-white-balance/

What camera has what you call dynamic white balance? Every SLR, mirrorless, and other camera I've had only uses a set of preset values
 
Jak what you're suggesting is not dynamic. Dynamic would be constant adjustment based on changes to the lighting curves. That would involve constant reassessement and either a very clever algorithym or thousands of profiles each one subtly different. I'm not sure any camera has that due to processing considerations.

The mobius is simple like a point and shoot camera - my understanding is it attempts to assess the white balance according to the lighting conditions and then applies the most appropriate pre-set, whether that pre-set is correct or not. In other words its dumb like most cameras out there. The only difference to my knowledge between simple and mopre advanced SLR's when it comes to white balance is SLR's have more pre-set profiles and so can adjust to more situations thereby increasing accuracy. However, as you'll see in the explanatory web page below, even some top name SLR's get it wrong. The only real solution is to shoot in raw. Which you'll never get in a dashcam because the files are huge due to no compression being used: Raw HD video at 1080P uses 7.1GB per minute of storage space.

https://expertphotography.com/4-steps-to-understanding-white-balance/

What camera has what you call dynamic white balance? Every SLR, mirrorless, and other camera I've had only uses a set of preset values

@jackalopephoto is correct here. The camera is simply trying to match a set of presets, which are variable.

@c4rc4m ,the article you linked to doesn't actually explain much of anything and in fact gets its facts wrong. For example, the article states that "WB determines how ‘hot’ or ‘cold’ an image feels". This assessment completely ignores what happens if your image might be too green or too red such as under florescent lighting. The article incorrectly describes florescent light as "too cold" which is not accurate. There are various forms of florescent lighting and they put out a set of complex light frequencies that require a much more complex set of color corrections involving red and cyan to eliminate the sickly green of uncorrected florescent lighting on camera.

White Balance isn't really all that difficult really and doesn't involve "thousands of profiles, each one subtly different". All it knows is to try to bring the values back to whatever pre-set is designated in the firmware as "White".

This pre-programmed "WHITE" balance might be slightly yellow or slightly blue or slightly green or slightly cyan or red, or some combination. So for "Cloudy" the WHITE balance setting is biased towards yellow. For "Incandescent" the WHITE balance includes a strong BLUE bias. For the Mobius A lens versus B lens or C lens settings, the WHITE balance defaults are carefully tuned to the color characteristics of each lens. The camera is still set for "Auto White Balance" but it knows to adjust the values behind the scenes in order to achieve this.

So, the camera will always simply try to achieve whatever pre-set values were programed in for WHITE but if you use the manual RGB settings in mSetup, any pre-set RBG values no longer apply.

With the "RGB" color model when you mix RED - GREEN and BLUE colored light in the proper amounts you get WHITE (as opposed to mixing colored pigments as in printing). The only thing the camera knows is to match the pre-set values for WHITE. This is why whenever you see a standard RGB color wheel the center will be WHITE. This represents the hypthetical perfect mixing of the three colors of R-B-G light to create white light. When the camera achieves "White Balance" all the other color values fall into their proper position.

RGB.jpg

On an actual RGB "color wheel" you can see how the center is white with an RGB symbol representing WHITE BALANCE and the circle showing different combinations of RGB light values creating each color of the spectrum.

rgb2.jpg
 
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@jackalopephoto is correct here. The camera is simply trying to match a set of presets, which are variable.

@c4rc4m
White Balance isn't really all that difficult really and doesn't involve "thousands of profiles, each one subtly different". All it knows is to try to bring the values back to whatever pre-set is designated in the firmware as "White".

On WB I think you misinterpreted what I said. I said above that dynamic to me means constantly adjusted and I said no camera achieves that. What a camera does is match the current lighting conditions to the nearest pre-set balance and then applies that pre-set, whether it's right or wrong. I explained that SLR's are more accurate because they have a greater selection of pre-set scenarios but they still get it wrong. Please feel free to re-read my post above, it's unedited since you posted.

As for the article, I can't comment on the overall accuracy as I have to admit I didn't read it, and still haven't! I just saw the lines about presets when I scanned it and quoted it.

I assure you I know about white balance. I own, adjust and use high power RGB laser systems. Although you're coming at it from a completely different angle, you still need to understand colour balance.
 
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