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NAB Day 1 - AJA CION

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Great minds think alike - AJA comes out with their 4k, PL-mount CION (pronounced
scion) as in “scion of an old family”.

With a 4k APS-C sized CMOS global shutter sensor recording full 4k or UHD at 60p, as well as hardware-scaled 2k and 1080, to AJA’s SSD Pak storage units. These are available in 256GB or 512GB sizes, and as such the cost per GB will be considerably less, methinks, than the BM URSA. It is also more shoulder-friendly than the URSA, as it is about half the weight and size, and has a nice cushy leather pad built in.

It may be lighter, smaller and have less expensive media than the URSA, but it is slated to cost about 50% more - $9,000.

One of the nice features is a mechanical back focus adjustment which is accessed via a panel on top.
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NAB Day 1 - Blackmagic URSA

URSA1URSA2

Happened to walk right in the door by Blackmagic after reading Grant Petty’s email announcement of this year’s slew of schtuff. The green tints on the monitors in the first image is due to focus enhancement being on.

The URSA is a large, 15-lb. upgradeable body that comes in several lens mount flavors, sports a Super 35
global shutter 4k imager, a 10” side screen on the left side, and a 5” screen on the right side for setting, status and scopes. It will record Cinema DNG RAW and ProRes 4k to two CFast card slots, currently a spendy proposition, with cards like SanDisk’s 120GB CFast 2.0, which currently go for about $1,200 each. And 120GB doesn’t get you a whole lot of time at RAW or ProRes 4k rates.

It ships 4k 60p capable, but will be upgradeable to 120fps. The imager will be upgradeable as well. The first two units, the URSA EF and URSA PL (referring to their lens mount types) are slated to show “around July” for $5,995 and $6,495 respectively.
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4K Camera News

The new Sony 4k PXW-Z100 and FDR-AX1 4k cameras


Here's a clip from Alister Chapman at IBC about the new Sony 4k PXW-Z100 camera - and at about 2:30 they talk about why you would use the PMW-200 over this jobber!

http://www.newsshooter.com/2013/09/13/ibc-2013-sony-pxw-z100-and-fdr-ax1-4k-cameras/

So don't feel so bad!  You probably have a better camera!  Unless you have client clamoring for 4k…..

But seriously, 4k on a less-than-half -inch chip!?  I notice all the demo shots are wide, because if they shot close you would see how video-y it will look.  Still, pretty cool.

What I have been imagining is a camera like the EX3 with (3) 4k chips, or one big one.  Been looking again at the FS-700, as they have enabled the 4K capability on that, and it looks pretty.  Super 35mm sensor as in the F5 and F55.

A quick way to explain the Bayer sensor deal (almost all of these large single-chip cameras nowadays are Bayer sensors) is:

"One thing to remember is that because of the nature of a Bayer sensor you need the sensor to have a higher pixel count than the final desired resolution. Typically you want at least 30% more pixels than your target resolution. As a minimum for good 1080 you want around 2.5K-2.7K pixels."

That's also from Alister Chapman, a cameraman/blogger who knows his stuff.  So when the REDs of the world are bragging on their latest mega-mega-pixel sensor, you have to ask, "how many REAL pixels is that?"

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