Well here’s yet another IBC round up. I didn’t get much time to look around the show, I was completely swamped helping people out on the Sony booth (it was great to meet so many of you). So these are just a few things that got my attention. I’ll start with the Sony booth as that’s where I was based.

Of course there was the new XDCAM HD PMW-150. I’ll be getting one for review soon, so full details will come elsewhere and you can read my earlier post with footage from the PMW-150 for more info.

Also on the Sony booth was the NEX-EA50 shoulder mount camcorder. The EA50 has an APS-C sized sensor, so it’s just a little smaller than a Super 35mm sensor. Being a sensor originally developed for stills it’s not quite as optimised for video as the sensor in an FS100 or FS700, but it does a quite reasonable job in most situations although you may get a bit of stair stepping and aliasing or moire in some shots. It is perhaps a little smaller than it looks in many of the pictures, but wow! When you pick this low cost camera up, it really surprises as it feels really well made. The body is nice and solid, the buttons and switches have a good feel. Given that this is an entry level camera I didn’t perhaps expect this high build quality. The demo units were fitted with the new E-Mount servo zoom based on the now familiar Sony 18-200mm f3.5-f6.3 zoom lens (sel18200). This lens will fit on any E-mount camera. The zoom speed is variable but the maximum speed is quite slow, so no crash zooms with this lens. I also noticed some focus shifts as you start to zoom and throughout the zoom range. This was expected, after all this is a very cheap servo zoom based on a stills camera lens and stills zooms are rarely par-focal (constant focus throughout the zoom range). If you used autofocus the lens would hold focus as you zoom, but this isn’t always going to be ideal. I was told by one of Sony’s engineers that they will be improving the focus look-up tables to minimise the focus shifts, but don’t expect it to perform like a $20k broadcast zoom. I think the EA50 will be very popular amongst videographers and schools/colleges on a tight budget but needing a professional looking camera.

Nearby the EA50 was one of Sony’s new HDR-AS15 “Action Cams”. There are two models of this tiny POV camera, one with WiFi, one without. Both have some great features. The lens is a Zeiss lens and the sensor is a back illuminated EXMOR-R sensor so the low light performance is very good indeed. It can shoot at up to 60fps at 1920×1080 and 120fps at 720p. It has an electronic steadyshot system as well as switchable fields of view giving 120 and 170 degree angles. Recording is AVCHD at 16Mb/s in normal modes and 24Mb/s in super slow mo modes on to micro SD cards. The really cool function is the WiFi option that will allow you to use a phone or tablet to align and control the camera as well as play back your recordings. There’s an underwater housing as well as a comprehensive range of additional brackets for things like helmets and handle bars. The price is going to be about £250 for the WiFi version. I’m not sure whether there will be a 25p/50p version but I liked it so much that I’ve placed a pre-order for one. Should be shipping at the beginning of October.

Moving on to post production, one of the biggest headaches for many of us these days is backup and archive. Sony’s optical disc system has always been a good, robust long term solution, but has been too expensive for many and the capacity of an individual disc somewhat limited. But now Sony have developed a new disc cartridge that contains not just one but up to 12 optical discs with total capacities of 300GB, 600GB, 1.2TB and 1.5TB. These cartridges slot into the ODS-D55U (great name… not!) Optical disc Archive unit which connect to your computer using USB3. Included with the ODS-D55U is a content management utility to help you backup and and archive your material or data. It’s much faster than LTO and you can access any part of the cartridge near instantly so excellent for online or near online storage.

The discs can store any type of data, not just video making this a very versatile system. The best bit however is that from what I could gather the disc cartridges won’t be all that much more than similarly sized good quality hard drives. With a projected shelf life in excess of 50 years and no need to spin the discs up regularly or store them in special environments I think this system has a lot going for it.

Of course before you can archive your footage you need to get it off your recording media.  If your an XDCAM EX or XDCAM HD shooter using SxS your options have been fairly limited. You can always use the camera as a very expensive card reader, the express card slot in a laptop (if it has one) or there are the various Sonnet eSata and thunderbolt adapters as well as the original Sony SBAC-US10 USB card reader. Well now there is another option from Sony, the SBAC-US20. looking much like the original US10 reader the new US20 has USB 3 so is much, much faster and does not require external power making it far more portable.

As well as the SxS card reader there is also the new PMW-50 field deck. This is a compact player/recorder with a flip up screen, two SxS slots with HDSDI and HDMI in and out as well as USB and Firewire. It can be powered by a BP-U60 battery (Sony also had the new extra capacity BP-U90 battery on show) for field operation and makes an ideal player for satellite trucks, OB units etc or as a recorder for mini cams or remote cameras. It supports all of the current XDCAM HD modes including 50Mb/s 4:2:2 and 35mb/s 4:2:0.

Moving on to some non Sony products but still related to XDCAM there is a new backup device from NextoDI. Not available just yet (October) this new box called the NVS-Air (NVS-2825) can back up from SxS and P2 cards as well as SD and compact flash cards via an adapter to it’s internal hard drive as well as an external USB 2 or USB 3 or eSata hard drive.

There are various levels of file verification and the ability to play back the your footage. There’s even a headphone jack for audio playback. The NVS-Air also has built in WiFi and you can connect wirelessly to it with almost any device with a web browser, such as a phone, tablet or PC to view and playback clips remotely. You can even move clips to a trash bin and add notes so that when you get back to the edit suite the editor doesn’t need to sift through any junk clips. Clip copies from SxS cards are extremely fast with a 16GB card taking about 90 seconds to back up. I have an older NVS2500 which has performed extremely well for over 2 years including trips up to the Arctic and I’m really looking forward to reviewing the 2825 in the near future.

My regular followers may be aware that I’m still looking around at video lights at the moment as I wish to update my lighting kit. One of my favourite types of light is the Tungsten Fresnel. A fresnel allows you to focus the light reducing spill and makes it easier to light specific areas of your shot. However tungsten lights are not very efficient and run very hot. LED fresnels are few and far between and often lack the punch of a tungsten lamp.

At IBC Brightcast were showing a new design of LED panel. Whilst not a fresnel in the traditional sense this flat, compact LED panel features a grid of LED emitters with lenses that allow you to focus the light. The BP18F allows you to adjust the light beam between 4 and 50 degrees. It’s very bright, to me it looked to be the equivalent of at least a 1K tungsten lamp. Viewed off-axis there was very little spill, so keeping ambient light levels low while just lighting small areas should be straightforward with this lamp. It can be fitted with barn doors for even greater control and can be dimmed by a dimmer knob on the rear or controlled using DMX. It can be powered from the mains or with a V-Lock battery making it very versatile.

There were some new products for FS700 owners. As well as the very nice but rather pricey 3Ality – Elements rig used on the FS700 on the Sony booth, which I would love to have but cannot afford, there were some lower cost items including a new top cheese plate for the FS700 from GenusTech.

As well as the GenusTech cheese plate range with new top plates for the C300 and F3, GenusTech were also showing off their new shoulder mount system which is very impressive and will fit a wide range of cameras. It has interchangeable base plates which are anodised in a nice looking gold finish. The shoulder pad and arms are heavily machined to minimise the weight and it uses standard Arri rosettes for the joints and links so it’s very adjustable and expandable. Genus also had a rather clever cage system for the Blackmagic Design Cinema Camera (which will get a much more useful micro 4/3rds mount later in the year). Although only showing a prototype on the stand this looks like it will really help turn the BMD camera into a more user friendly shooting rig. There are pictures below for those interested.

An  essential accessory for anyone shooting outside in Europe with winter just around the corner is a rain cover. Dutch company Camrade have always been quick to bring out high quality rain covers for new camera models and at IBC they had a pre-production rain cover for the FS700. The odd shape of the FS700 makes it hard to cover the camera whilst retaining the ability to see all the controls and use the EVF, but Camrade have managed to produce a rain cover that does just that.

It even zips up underneath for protection in extreme conditions. There are clear panels around the switch and control areas plus a removable sleeve for the viewfinder extension so you can use the camera with or without the viewfinder tube. A panel on the right side opens out to allow you to insert your hand inside the cover so you can easily operate the controls on the hand grip.

Of course Canon were showing the c500 outputting 4K on their stand and the images were very impressive indeed. Helped along by some of their very nice PL and EF mount Cinema lenses. Some serious money there but very nice all the same. However the amount of data that the camera produces is staggering and it requires dual 3G HDSDI outputs to transfer the raw image data to the external recorder or recorders. Convergent Design have new firmware for the Gemini that allows a pair of them to record the 4K C500 data. I’m not sure I’m ready to start dealing with those kinds of data rates just yet but I do hope to get to play with some of those lovely lenses on future projects.

So thats about it. As I said I didn’t get to see much of the show, I know JVC had some new cameras that I would have liked time to see but didn’t get a chance. One last thing…. How about a stunning 84″ 4K TV? This one from Sony was stunning, but I’ll need a bigger living room and deeper pockets first, its $25k!

Here are some pictures of some of the products mentioned above.

Genus shoulder rig.

Genus C300 top plate.

Genus BMD Cinema camera cage.

One of Sony’s big announcements at IBC was the launch of the new PMW-150. The PMW-150 is a 3x 1/3″ XDCAM HD422 camcorder with a 20x zoom lens. The lens is the same as the one on the NX5 NXCAM camcorder and gives a very useful 4.1 – 82.0 mm (equivalent to 29.5-590 mm on 35 mm) range which is reasonably wide and usefully long. It sits below the PMW-200 and above the PMW-100 in the current compact XDCAM HD lineup.

All 3 camcorders record XDCAM HD 4:2:2 @50Mb/s on to SxS cards or XQD* cards or you can also record XDCAM EX 4:2:0 @35Mb/s on to SxS, XQD*, Memory sticks* or SD cards* (*via adapters). They can also record standard definition DV and have a wide range of useful shooting tools like slow motion up to 30fps at 1080p and 60fps at 720p, timelapse and cache record.

Although having a 20x lens on the PMW-150 is very nice the focus, zoom and iris rings are of the round and round servo variety, so there are no calibrated scales for distance and focal length as on the lovely Fujinon 14x lens of the PMW-200. From what I could see from my time shooting with it on the IBC booth the PMW-150 produces a good picture for a 1/3″ camera not a million miles from the pictures from the PMW-200. So if you need that extra zoom range, or your budget won’t quite stretch to the PMW-200 this could be the camera for you. The extra depth of field may help less experienced news shooters, VJ’s and PA’s keep stuff in focus while on the move.

I did manage to grab some footage from all 3 cameras and you can see that in the clip below. What’s nice is how well the colours match between the cameras. Also Sony have significantly improved the image quality from the PMW-100 since I first tried a pre-production unit some months ago.

 

Hi all. If your visiting IBC then please drop by and say hello. I’ll be on the Sony stand as usual, helping man the entry level production area. Should have all the latest F3/FS100/FS700 toys to play with. I have some video shoots in the mornings at ends of the day, so middle of the day is the best time to drop by for a chat. See you there!

This came in from Convergent Design today. If your at IBC what have you got to loose!

(30 August 2012, Colorado Springs, CO) Convergent Design is excited to announce the great Gemini 4:4:4 Giveaway at IBC 2012! Visitors need only stopover to Booth 7.D01, have your badge scanned, and retrieve your registration nomination; no purchase necessary.

A winner will be randomly drawn on 25 September 2012 and awarded a FREE Gemini 4:4:4 recorder, including Nanuk carrying case with anti-static foam, transfer station, and two SSD’s. This is a complete unit, a $5995 value!

Make plans to visit Convergent Design and see our multi-camera set up, including the recently announced, not yet available Canon EOS C500 with Gemini 4:4:4 recording 4K Cinema Raw, the popular ARRI ALEXA with Gemini 4:4:4 recording ARRIRAW 60fps, IndieCam to Gemini 4:4:4 2KHD raw, IO Industries Flare 2KSDI rig recording stereo 3D to Gemini 4:4:4, and the trail-blazing nanoFlash recorder.

I’m sure this post will get some flack, but I really do think that Blackmagics marketing of the BMD Cinema Camera is pushing the boundaries of whats fair and reasonable. This isn’t a criticism of the camera itself, which for the money is a great deal and I’m curious to see how it really performs in the wild. This is a criticism of some of the over inflated statements that BMD are making about it.
In a recent magazine article it’s quoted that according to Blackkmagic “the Cinema Camera has been designed to eliminate the problems of….. …. limited contrast range, a maximum of an HD sensor, poor quality optics and lenses and poor integration with NLE software… …. with these limitations they cannot (the competition) be used for high end work or feature films”
Come on BMD, who are you trying to fool, do you think your potential customers are really stupid enough to fall for that statement? For a start 13 stops of dynamic range can be achieved with many current cameras. The BMD camera is no more than HD itself, the sensor is bayer, so even though it has 2.43K pixels (it doesn’t even have the headline 2.5K), the resolution is still only more or less HD. It has a Canon mount so will often be using exactly the same lenses as much of the competition and every NLE worth having these days works perfectly well with all the common codecs like AVCHD, XDCAM or AVC-Intra. Try using ProRes (as used by the BMD along with DNxHD and DNG) on a PC, it gets truncated to 8 bits and there is no way to render back to ProRes. By their own account the BMD camera is no more suitable for high end work than most of the competition. In the past I’ve come across senior BMD sales reps that have tried to sell me the camera because “it’s 2.5K which is so much better than HD”. When I’ve challenged this all I’ve got is.. “umm, I don’t know the answer to that, I need to discuss it with the factory”. Come on Blackmagic. Don’t treat us like fools, many of us do actually understand all this stuff. You have a good product at a great price, don’t use ridiculous over inflated statements that don’t hold water, it makes you sound like dodgy used car salesmen. Sell it for what it is, a very low cost HD camera that can shoot raw with interchangable lenses.

Here’s some more footage from Arizona. Shot with the FS700. Theres a mixture of timelapse shot using S&Q motion at 1 frame every second as well as lightning shot at 480,240 and 120fps.

 

Here’s a little clip I shot yesterday as part of my Arizona workshop. As we had some time between storms we took a little side trip to the Grand Canyon to try shooting aerials with the F3’s and FS700. This clip was shot with the FS700 using the 18-200mm stabilised kit lens. It came out really well, I’m very pleased. I did add some additional stabilisation using Premiere CS6’s warp stabiliser, but if the shot isn’t reasonably stable to start with this can add some blur. Fortunately the FS700 active steadyshot is very good so this was not a problem.

 

We kind of knew this was coming, a lower cost super35mm camcorder from Canon. Slightly smaller than the C300 but using the same sensor recording to AVCHD at 24Mb/s and with a built in LCD panel as opposed to an external one this really does look like a nice little camcorder. Follow the link below for the full details from the Canon web site.

http://cpn.canon-europe.com/content/news/canon_unveils_eos_c100.do

I won’t be posting much this week as I’m in Arizona shooting storms and the Grand Canyon. I’m shooting with the FS700 and getting some great footage and clips. Here’s a few frame grabs for you. Believe me when I say the footage is even more amazing. lightning at 240fps is ver cool!

I received an email from Convergent Design this morning outlining how the Gemini 444 recorder will support 4K, 10 bit raw at up to 30fps from the Canon C500 via a chargable firmware upgrade. If you’ve got two Gemini’s you can even record raw 4K at up to 60fps which is pretty impressive, but one hell of a lot of data (approx 1.5TB per hour). I only wish that Sony and Convergent would get together quickly to do the same for the FS700.

Here’s an extract from the email:

“As anticipation for delivery of the Canon C500 mounts, Convergent Design is happy to announce support of Canon 4K Cinema Raw on the popular Gemini 4:4:4 external recorder.

Gemini 4:4:4 is a full uncompressed recorder and 5″ monitor that records to two 1.8″ SSD’s. Convergent Design offers an ARRIRAW Option, as well as a Stereo 3D Option, both as paid upgrades. Rounding out it’s functionality will be a Canon 4K Cinema Raw Option.

The Canon 4K Cinema Raw Option will capture 10-bit Log Raw (.rmf) up to 30fps on a single Gemini, and up to 60fps using two Gemini’s. Likewise, a single Gemini supports HD up to 60fps, while two Gemini’s enables a blazing HD@120fps!
Convergent Design is excited about this release. “The picture quality of the C500 is astounding; beautiful and crisp. We enjoyed shooting with it. Paired with the Gemini 4:4:4 it is not only a powerful camera, but a compact and sleek option for big pictures from a hand-held rig. The size and cost of Gemini 4:4:4 makes it a natural fit,” says Amber Cowles, MarCom Director.”