MISC Announcements
We find that while the video is simple, it does a good job in explaining the methods on Apple’s iOS and Android to get slow motion footage ready for posting on the web or social media. There is some basic editing and trimming for cutting the nonaction parts.
You can find the official video link here if needed: https://www.cnet.com/videos/make-slow-motion-videos-on-a-phone/
It seems Fox Sports have gone all out this year to capture the World Series of Baseball in all it’s glory using a variety of cameras including 8 super slow motion dedicated devices. While the majority of the 41 cameras they will use will be 30 HD game cameras i.e. 1080p for live play, the rest is a mixture of diverse high frame rate options for replay and call analysis as are flying wire cameras.
It is unclear which models of camera they will be using but Phantoms by vision research are mentioned which are among the most used for their ability to review a shot immediately without encoding the data and the ability to save to hyper-fast flash media, along with 360fps and 960fps options which are probably from other manufacturers.
With a few weeks of use around the world, the GoPro Hero 6 Black is becoming one of the favorite slow motion affordable cameras for all sorts of activities. While the quality is not the best out there compared to cameras like the Sony RX series, it is competitive within its price bracket. Aliasing and moire at 240fps are apparent but mostly non-intrusive for action shots. If you need it as a broadcast quality recorder then the slow-motion mode is not at the required level.
The camera does not have a 480fps mode or higher which could have been a fantastic surprise for high-speed fans. After all, GoPro had been the go-to camera for higher frame rates in the affordable category for nearly a decade. The Hero 6 Black is still an excellent option with the highly improved sensor, processing, codec, and frame rate varieties that should be able to produce anywhere from broadcast quality 4k 60p to pretty good 120 2.7k and 240fps web ready 1080p.
In Part 1 of this review, we looked at the body and design of the edgertronic SC2X camera. Touched on the mount and available frame rates including a few new changes and some video samples. Part two is all about using and understanding the abilities and limitations of the camera as a high-speed tool for Film, TV, Science, Sports, Medicine and other industries.
The edgertronic SC2X is the culmination of a lot of engineering prowess and expectations for a full HD 1080p capable high-speed camera that is both capable and usable for the most demanding image quality trials. The 1,910fps speed is ideal for capturing a plethora of human and physical events that do not happen in the blink of an eye but over a few seconds. Sports videographers and Nature shooters will feel right at home with the resolution finally being big enough for the minimum submission guidelines of TV production and Film post.
DJI has announced the Zenmuse X7 camera for the Inspire 2 Professional Drone. The camera shoots in Cinema DNG RAW which allows for the utmost quality for the demanding videographer with up to 60fps at 3.9k resolution. Interestingly it does not support 4k at that frame rate as probably there is a hardware limitation for that last few rows of pixels to be saved at that quality.
Of note is the 4k DCI spec up to 30p and ability to shoot and save in Apple ProRes in 4k and 2k with more option in H.264 and the newer H.265 codecs. The biggest deal, however, is the ability to shoot 6k in DNG format at 6K: 6016×3200, 23.976/24/25/29.97/30p, 12-bit, full FOV. This is a first for a drone camera of this size and should be the ideal format for ultra resolution seekers.
Last year we reviewed the edgertronic SC2+ affordable professional high-speed camera with a near 5000fps 720p performance and it offered the best price/performance yield in the high-speed camera world. The first edgertronic was revolutionary in price and features and was a big disruptor in the slow-motion camera space as many competitors that offered essentially the same performance, were left with price tags several orders of magnitude higher which limited their adoption to only a handful of users in some cases.
This year Sanstreak the company founded by Mike Matter the mind behind the edgertronic SC1 and SC2+ is now launching the edgertronic SC2X 1080p Full HD slow-motion camera, which offers performance that rivals the most demanding competitor products in the space of professional high frame rate capture. Software wise it shares an evolving code base with other edgertronic cameras that continually improve features, stability and user interface.