Author: carlomacchiavello Page 5 of 18

Seeing how there are a thousand plus posts on the various technology and filmaking portals, I cannot help but notice how they are full of Fuffa, i.e., technological garbage, products that are toys in function of what they are supposed to do, or worse, innovations that are just the bad copy of existing products that have been forgotten.

The past needs to be maintained and remembered, to understand how today we are in a historical moment of embarrassing stasis...
the ever-increasing power in every field is accompanied by an absolute waste of resources: today there are octacore phones, which could potentially decode 4k raw files in realtime, that struggle to do normal operations because of operating systems that are increasingly flooded, heavy and not rewritten from the ground up every time.
A trivial example? The Silicon Graphics running Softmage3D on which the effects of Jurassik Park (a milestone film in CGI history) were made in 1991 were single-core computers, where the fastest had a 32bit processor at 250mhz, (in 1992 SGI was launching 64bit processors... we've been at a standstill ever since) and could mount a maximum of 256 Mega of ram, with a 7 gig mechanical-state disk... that is, not even the features of a subpar smartphone by today's standards.

However since we are here to make two thoughts, let's see for news in the kickstarters...

1) easier backup with ... Gnarbox a box for backing up photo and video cards, an innovative product? in short ...

a copy of a product I bought in 1996 called Photobox, a simple box with a 2.5 harddisk, a battery, inputs for a number of different types of cards, a mini display, and buttons to make backups of card contents, sequentially. Of course it had a 40-gig disk, but the biggest cards were 2gigs, and it would hold a boatload of photos and videos, because we're talking about an era when 3-4 megapixels was the average file size, and very few cameras had raw, only SLRs.

I remember the 2004 Epson model that even had the 640x400 monitor to see the backup content. It is funny to note that if you launched the backup on this type of product he would make a complete copy of the card, this modern one on the other hand he chooses the type of files to make backups of, so if have avchd files you will find the databases disassembled, if you use other types of files with different nominations than those chosen by the creators of gnarbox you will not have backups... however this one has wifi and the mobile app... but not the parity check system in copying files, translated with this one you have to check that it has backed up, the Epson one on the other hand has always had it...
it seems like an innovative product, but ... other manufacturers have been continuing to do them for years, and they are more secure, for example Nextodiusa.com but few remember or bother to search the net if something already exists.

2) faster to change lenses, keeping them side by side with triLenses
In a world where you are forced to move faster and faster giving the illusion that it is better--for others not for you--this product is proposed for those who do not want to open and close their backpack or photo bag but have three lenses on hand.

the idea might be good, but the two questions that arise for me are :
- a protection for the lenses that so are exposed to every element Dust, rain etc while out and about? not all lenses are tropicalized
- a protection from shock or a drop? if we drop the object we do damage to three lenses at once....
- what prevents trash of all kinds from accumulating on the vents and getting into the lenses?
- this object applies to fixed lenses without a stabilizer, because zooms and stabilized lenses with the movement of the hip (most mobile part of the body) experience stresses that can damage the zoom range or the stabilizer mechanism.
Let's say it is the classic design object, cool to look at but in practical use it has a thousand and one flaws.
You also double the number of stresses on the lens springs, which does not happen by holding them with the classic cap, so you age the locking mechanisms more quickly.
If you want to have more focal lengths at your fingertips, instead of getting these toys you invest in a single high-end zoom lens, for the sum of the three lenses, a fast lens, and you avoid all the downsides; the idea of putting my prime lenses on my hip, exposed to any insult from the people around me, who don't look and already bump into you because they are busy seeing their Facebook status, risking dropping you, and in the process hitting lenses worth a thousand euros each if it goes well... no thanks...

technology chasing each other, products disappearing and reappearing, useless kickstarters, etc etc useless remakes

how the world, even the network that theoretically does not forget, is made to make people forget and thus make things worse

My friend Ambrogio of Espero, a company for which I often teach courses in Filmaking, Video Editing and Postproduction, 3D with Cinema4D and Zbrush, says that I am the "historical memory of the industry" because I remember what they were like and what products there were in these fields, having followed their evolutions over the last 30 years,which allows me to work more comfortably, and make suggestions and pass on experiences lost during my courses.