Tag Archives: ssd

DJI Ronin 4D Delivers Cinematic Stabilized Slow Motion!

In what could be called a new paradigm or class of camera, DJI the drone maker has launched a couple of cinema full-frame cameras geared to professional productions that merge their Ronin gimbal products with their Drone pro Zenmuse cameras to create a massively appealing system for pros and enthusiasts that want no compromise stabilization with enough image quality to be able to use them in professional productions for TV and film.  The pricing at just over 11.5k for the 8k version and 7.2k for the 6k version is small potatoes for movie and TV studios but might put off some buyers. 

It is of note that a fully working system bundle is assembled at that price which is much better than other options. It includes the Gimbal, camera and body, 1TB SSD M.2 card, battery, touch screen and cabling. In cinema systems like RED and ARRI this is just the brain or camera body with everything else being added on top as ancillary costs. The frame rates on these cameras are limited to 120fps as the highest at 4k and 75fps at 8k.  They might not be huge but the quality and stabilization should make them quite useful.  → Continue Reading Full Post ←

Phantom TMX 7510 does 76000 fps in HD!

Phantom TMX 7510

The scientists at Vision Research are at it again at their favorite pastime of hyper slow motion gear creation.  The new TMX 7510 Phantom camera is the fastest ever in their arsenal with a mind-bending spec of 75 Gigapixels throughput which is capable of delivering 76,000fps  1 Megapixel resolution or slightly higher than HD at 1280 x 800px.

The camera features the first BSI or Back-side illuminated sensor ever used in a Phantom camera. This allows for much better low-light performance which is crucial for slow motion applications.  The camera tops out at a ridiculous 1.75 million fps frame rate at 1280 x 32px in standard width mode or 640 x 64px in Binned mode.  One second recorded at that speed creates a file that plays back for 972min or just over 16hrs in a 30fps timeline.  Yikes! → Continue Reading Full Post ←

Nikon Stacked CMOS Sensor Will do 1000fps in 4k!

Nikon Stacked CMOS Sensor

Nikon Japan has been busy creating the next generation of 1″ stacked sensors.  The latest is a 17.84 Megapixel stacked design with hyper-fast memory interconnect that shoots up to 1000fps at 4k resolution which is no slouch. The sensor is still in development but it will be a possibility to see it in a camera that could compete head to head with the Sony RX series which now dominate prosumer P&S sales.  It was announced at ISSCC (International Solid-State Circuits Conference) held in San Francisco, February 15, 2021.

The sensor works by shooting in buckets of 16 x 16 pixels as one block, and then subsequently 264 x 264 pixel blocks (4224 x 4224 pixels) are conformed to form the final image at nearly 18MP.  It is unclear at this time if 4k video will be a windowed resolution or a supersampled then reduced final image from the full sensor.  The market for this sensor goes beyond consumer cameras as it is aimed at other applications like self-driving cars and production lines. → Continue Reading Full Post ←

Blackmagic URSA Mini Pro 12K is Frame Rate Beast!

Blackmagic URSA Mini Pro 12K

The Black Magic Design URSA camera line has been one of our favorite high frame rate options for many years now as it is a blend of excellent quality at a relatively low price with the added bonus of RAW recording and ProRes options.  Now the company has announced the latest iteration of the camera with a monstrous pixel size of 12k or 80 Megapixels per frame. All of this in an APS-C super 35mm crop from Full Frame sensor that is built to satisfy the requirements of their Black Magic RAW codec or BRAW for short which is in this camera the only recording format available.

What interests us as always are the high frame rates and this camera does not disappoint when it comes to this spec. The only real problem we see is that recording is made only from 4k resolution and up, completely avoiding 3k, 2k and HD resolutions which could yield even higher frame rates with probably a huge crop in the 80MP frame which will probably yield a noisy and artifact prone image hence why they probably avoided recording down on those modes.

Blackmagic URSA Mini Pro 12K Main Specs:

High Speed Frame Rates:

  • 12K 17:9 full sensor up to 60 fps
  • 8K DCI full sensor up to 110 fps
  • 4K DCI full sensor up to 110 fps
  • 8K 2.4:1 and 4K 2.4:1 up to 140 fps
  • 6K Super 16 up to 120 fps
  • 4K Super 16 up to 220 fps

Shooting Resolutions:

  • 12,288 x 6480 (12K DCI)
  • 11,520 x 6480 (12K 16:9)
  • 12,288 x 5112 (12K 2.4:1)
  • 7680 x 6408 (12K Anamorphic)
  • 8192 x 4320 (8K DCI)
  • 7680 x 4320 (8K 16:9)
  • 8192 x 3408 (8K 2.4:1)
  • 5120 x 4272 (8K Anamorphic)
  • 6144 x 3240 (6K Super16)
  • 4096 x 2160 (4K Super16)
  • 4096 x 2160 (4K DCI)
  • 3840 x 2160 (4K 16:9)
  • 4096 x 1704 (4K 2.4:1)
  • 2560 x 2136 (4K Anamorphic)

Built in ND Filters: Four position ND filter wheel with clear, 2-stop, 4-stop and 6-stop IR ND filters

Effective Sensor Size: 27.03mm x 14.25mm (Super35)   80MP

Lens Mount: PL mount included. Interchangeable with optional EF and F lens mounts.

Lens Control: 12pin broadcast connector for compatible lenses and electronic control via EF mount pins on optional EF lens mount.

Dynamic Range: 14 Stops

MSRP: $9,995.00 (PRE ORDER HERE at Adorama)

Blackmagic Design Camera Update by Blackmagic Design:

https://youtu.be/sV8iFzpuecA?t=1808

The camera looks very familiar because it shares the exterior with other URSA Mini cameras but the inside components are completely revamped. This makes sense as DPs and other BlackMagicDesign camera users want to jump straight into a tried and true design without having to re-learn muscle memory or new controls. The cameras work well and are ready to shoot. Simply put if you have shot with an URSA Camera you are easily ready to shoot on this new 12k beast within a few minutes.

Blackmagic URSA Mini Pro 12K Test Footage and Highlights by Love What You Do: → Continue Reading Full Post ←

10k 72fps Camera to be developed by Spanish PNBE!

PNBE 10k Camera Slow Motion

The Spanish Association of Broadcast, Cinema and TV Producers or PNBE for short, is sharing some information about a camera they are custom building for the purpose of shooting a new series for Spanish Television that explores  Nature and Astrology “Or maybe Astronomy” which could be a translation error.  The new camera will be able to shoot at pretty remarkable specs like 10k and 8k video including higher frame rates at many resolutions that surpass anything in its class.

The camera needs to have extreme detail and low light performance with RAW capabilities.  Only a dozen will be built for the TV program but we assume they share the information in order to see if there is interest in the market for DPs and other professionals to own such a camera.  We were happy to see that the spec sheet is very detailed with both H.264 and H.265 support aside from RAW and Cinema DNG formats in recording.

PNBE 10k Camera Slow Motion capabilities:

  • 10k at 72 fps Progressive
  • 8k ws at 96fps Progressive
  • 4K 16:9 UHD at 120p-150p

No more information like support for lower resolutions was shared. Such a camera would probably be able to output 480fps at 1080p without taking a sweat if the sensor is fast enough to do it. We may know more as development continues.

Other Specs for the camera:

  • 6GBps write to achieve 16bit Raw of 10K at 72fps
  • M.2 PCIE 16TB Drive for up to 8hrs of recording
  • RAW,  H.264 or H.265 & CinemaDNG
  • USB SS 3.1 for fast transfers
  • HDMI 2.0 Monitoring
  • Stereo in/out audio ports
  • eSATA and USB Type C
  • Detachable Sensor Module for recording via fiber channel without being attached to camera body.
  • uses NVIDIA Jetson Xavier Embedded
    chip processing board 512 core GPUS
    (Volta), memory at up to 172 GBps, and the ability
    to encode 1*8K video in either H.264 or H.265 in
    real-time.
  • Max default native resolution: 9.600 x 6.900 pixels.
    ○ Other video resolutions: 1080p, 2K, 4K, 6K, 8K, 10K
    ● Framerate max res: 72 (raw).
    ● Detachable sensor: up to 2 meters or + depending resolution.
    ● Sensor size: APS-C
    ● Codecs: raw, raw S, cinema dng, h264 and h265.
    ● Internal media: SSD up to 16 TB
    ○ Max data transfer: 6 GBps (6000 MB per second)
    ● Aprox dimensions: 14 x 12 x 10 cm.
    ● Lense mount: Canon EF
    ○ with pin support for motorized aperture and focus.
    ● Power: 2 separate dc inputs of 12~15V. 20 Whr to 44 Whr.
  • Autumn 2020 unit production deadline for the TV Station.

These are the early development stages and this camera may change considerably by the time it is delivered. If they manage to hit every mark, they may be able to further extend the production run for other studios interested.  In the meantime visiting their official site below should be your first stop if you are interested. -HSC 

For more information, pictures and a contact form, visit the soon to be launched:  www.pnbe.org – The project is managed by Aitor Elorga.

 

fps4000 first 480fps 4k Footage Revealed!

fps4000 first 480fps 4k Footage

Warning: The parent company of FPS cameras “The Slow Motion Camera Company Ltd.” went out of business and entered liquidation proceedings. No further development of cameras is expected. More information here on Google Search

It’s been a while since we’ve covered the fps4000 camera mainly due to development time taking longer than initially estimated. However, Graham Rowan the engineer behind the camera has now posted the first 4k 480fps footage shot in RAW on the fps4000 camera which uses a sophisticated memory arrangement on the onboard super-fast flash RAM to be able to record lengths of time unimaginable before on slow motion cameras at high resolution.

This camera is a very different kind of technology from regular high-speed cameras that record to volatile DRAM.  The fps series records to flash chips that are soldered to the mainboard and allow a variety of frames rates and resolutions depending on the sensor used but all is saved on the flash memory as a non-volatile stream of data.  Modern SSD chips are so good at re-allocating reading and writing bits that the life of the components is now measured in decades of regular use instead of a few years.  The fps4000 is using this technology fully to enable memory bandwidth magnitudes greater at a significantly reduced cost.

fps4000 first 480fps 4k Footage:

First UHD video from the fps4000
3840 x 2160 resolution 
480 frames per second

The Blue & Yellow Macaw video above shows the quality you can expect from full RAW DNG capture on the fps4000 camera at it’s higher-spec of 1280GB SSD £5,000 British Pounds plus Shipping and taxes. The fps4000 in 4k is also sold as a 1/2 speed 250fps maximum 4k UHD camera with 640GB SSD at a lower price of £3,500 British Pounds plus Shipping and taxes.  You can clearly see the 4/3 sensor used is delivering excellent quality even with 3.9µ pixels. Notice the 720 version on the same sensor size has a 13.5µ  pixel size which should prove to be outstanding in low light.

Also, note that the camera is able to record 60 full seconds of slow motion at 4k UHD 480p full resolution. This type of recording length is unmatched in any professional high-speed camera solution. We have only seen this type of rec length on custom lab camera systems and it usually involved a fast SSD disk array with fiber channel connections.

Here are the fps4000 configurations:

The lens options are varied with the Micro 4/3 mount as you can use any m4/3 adapter to Canon, Nikon, Minolta, Pentax, and other systems.

We should be able to test a review fps4000 unit in the not so distant future. Shooting 4k 480fps will create a mountain of data that will probably need an expanded drive array. The quality, however, will be worth every bit of space.  -HSC

For more information on the fps4000 line of cameras and an order page you can go to the official website at: https://www.slomocamco.com/cameras/

  → Continue Reading Full Post ←