The 3 Legged Thing team reached out, to see how I might utilise the Ultra Plates within my kit. When I saw the 300mm Ultra Plate, I knew it would be perfect for mounting onto telephoto lenses for wildlife filming. But I realised it would also allow me to create an entirely different set-up; enabling me to do something I've wanted to attempt for a while. I've wanted to create a 360-degree rotating rig for some time, to try 3D scanning, but at a macro scale.
If you aren't familiar with 3D scanning or 'Photogrammetry', it's a technical term for essentially using a camera to orbit around an object, taking lots of photos from different angles. These images can then combine to create a photo-realistic 3D model and allow many creative applications. My idea was to take something super-small and simple, with unique textures and details, in this instance. leaves. Not only are they as unique as fingerprints, but it's easy to forget they play a small but important part in our everyday existence, breathing! Not to mention, the fun technical challenge of photographing them. Why not just do it by hand? You can scan objects manually, but with tiny objects at around 50mm, I wanted as much accuracy and detail as possible. Not to mention contending with a very narrow depth of field. Using stills is optimal, instead of video, as you get more resolution to play with.
The Setup:
Using the 3 Legged Thing Tommy tripod as a solid base, I sandwiched a Syrp Genie mini between the tripod and 3LT AirHed Cine. The Syrp Genie mini is a rotating motion control unit for photography, time-lapse and video. This unit was going to be an important part of helping me automate the scanning via time-lapse. On top of the motion control unit, I had the AirHed Cine with the 300mm Ultra Plate firmly clamped in the centre at zero.
The centre of the plate is at 0.
11 - 10 - 9 - 8 - 7 - 6 - 5 - 4 - 3 - 2 - 1 - (0) - 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 - 8 - 9 - 10 - 11
At one end of the plate, using the 1/4" thread, I mounted a 3LT LevelHed levelling base to put my camera on. At the other end, I mounted an L-bracket for my make-shift backdrop of some white card and some Blu Tack ¨, classy! This was my very rough set-up before fine-tuning. For lighting directly above the 360 rig, I mounted a 1000 LED panel, suspended from a boom arm on a short C-stand. This allowed me to stick a bit of transparent fishing wire from the centre of the panel with a bit of Blu Tack, and to suspend one of the leaves from the fishing wire.
Frame, Focus & Fine Adjustments.
With the leaf hanging from the light, I aligned this with the number zero etched into the centre of the 300mm Ultra Plate. Then I adjusted the plate back and forth, to test out the optimal distance of the camera to the leaf which allowed me to find my frame and focus. This is where I ran into an issue. Typically, my go-to macro lens is a Sigma 105mm lens, but the focal length was too long. I swapped it for a 24-70mm lens which also can be used for macro work. I was still struggling with the focal length and focus.
I removed the LevelHed and my camera from the first plate and paired up a second 300mm Ultra Plate together using the 1/4" thread. Now I had 620mm of Arca-Swiss length to play with including the L-bracket. Using the same process as I started with, I aligned the second plate with the backdrop at zero and continued to find the optimal position of the camera, for focusing. This ended up being around 420mm. I'd have struggled to have worked this out, without having the measurements easily visible on the plates. I'd have been guessing without them and it would have taken me much longer using trial and error. Having the LevelHed on hand, also made framing and levelling the camera nice and easy and allowed for minor adjustments.
Now the easy bit. The photographing / scanning... I let everything settle, as the leaves moved with even the slightest breeze or movement of air in the room. Then I set a time lapse of between 300-400 images to start, using the motion control unit remotely via the app. The entire rig seamlessly rotated 360 degrees around the leaf, below which was the central point of the Cine head. The camera with battery, lens, LevelHed, two 300mm plates and the L-bracket all weigh in at around 2.5kg, not to mention the majority of that being an off-centre weight. 3 Legged Thing's Cine Head held all of this in place rock steady with no sagging while everything rotated around it. A solid bit of kit!
Once all the shots were in the bag, it was time to start processing.
https://vimeo.com/917613971
Workflow Overview:
300-400 RAW images were captured on 360û Rig. These were processed using Adobe Lightroom & LR Time-lapse, and then uploaded to a 3D scanning processing software at 'highest quality'. Once the photo-realistic 3D model is processed, you can use their site to view the model from different angles and positions. You can also export different 3D formats for modelling purposes.
Closing Thoughts:
The Ultra Plates are solid! They're so good I used two. Having the measurements etched into both sides really helped me, rather than having to walk around the rig to see the numbers on the opposite side, and especially working in a confined space.
Having the centre of the plate starting at zero and working out sequentially on either side is a brilliant touch. This helped with making quick and easy notes, and removed guesswork when I already had 20 other varying factors going on.
I didn't use the cold shoe or the cable tidy in this instance, as my cable was below the plate, but I can see how this is useful in tying back mic or monitor cords. I could have used some smaller lights mounted to the plates to uplight the leaves from underneath better, rather than just reflecting with a big bit of card. This would have helped me with shooting at a lower ISO. This was my first attempt a 3D scanning anything and I am pretty happy with the level of detail in which I could capture in the leaves. I needed to have let the leaves settle for longer before photographing, as there is some slight fringing around the edges, where they had moved by a few milimetres. So this means more patience on my behalf. Now I have the 3D models I can fly around the leaves in multiple different dimensions and create some interesting post-production transitions bringing a new dimension to my work.
The Overall Setup:
The 360û setup I made, isn't just limited to 3D scanning, you can utilise it for video product shots as well.
The ability to attach a moving backdrop to the L-bracket means there are many options such as dropping in green and blue backdrops, allowing you to 'green screen' objects, opening up a world of product photography to you.
You don't have to use a motion control head to rotate this set-up. You could easily manually rotate a tripod head a few degrees for each photo, as the Cine Head has degree markings on the side. Alternatively for filming, just use the tripod arm to rotate everything.
Full Kit List.
3LT Tommy Tripod with the flat plate mount
3LT AirHed Cine
3LT 2 x 300mm Ultra Plates
3LT L-Bracket
3LT LevelHed
Canon 5D Mk4
Canon 24-70mm lens
Syrp Genie Mini
