In Broadcast - January 2015 - 28

www.inbroadcast.com | Vol: 5 - Issue 1 | January 2015

InFocus

Advances In Camera Technology cont'd...
The Varicam 35 body has a workﬂow
which records RAW 4K, compressed
UHD 444 and high-speed HD as well
as proxies to a Codex machine and
removable P2 media.
Sony has been making all the
running in live 4K sports, most
famously with coverage of several
World Cup 2014 matches. Their
production isn't all about the cameras
of course, and Sony would be among
the ﬁrst to admit that the quad-4K
solution which pushes four streams of
HD-SDI around live production circuits
is a stop-gap until
4K IP can be proven,
but the F55 and F65
digital 35mm cameras
remain the front end.

acquisition. So much so that scripted
reality, observational documentaries
and children's, as well as drama, are
being acquired on cameras like the
Alexa, BMD Cinema Camera, Panasonic
GH4, Canon C500 and now, the Sony
PXW-FS7.
"The creative possibilities of shallow
depth of ﬁeld can now be applied
to documentaries," says camera-op
Dennis Lennie who works for Sony.
"The dynamic range in particular is
incredible." This XDCAM shoots 4K
Quad Full HD in 60 fps and 240 fps HD,
at up to 14 f-stops
and can be hired
from
Visual
Impact among
other dealers.
To
sate
d e m a n d
for
higher
production
quality,
lens
manufacturers
ARRI, Fujinon,
Optics
Sony PXW-FS7 XDCAM shoots 4K Cooke
and Canon have
These offer two adaptors to take developed new sets of 35mm-style
B4-mount lenses. One of them, the lenses for the TV market.
LA-FZB1 optically enlarges the 2/3-inch
"A cinematic shooting style delivers
image 2.6 times to cover the larger a more interesting image on TV than
sensor, without changing the angle of shooting 2/3-inch," explains Cooke
view but it does incur a 2.6 stop loss Chairman Les Zellan. "You have
of light. It supports all lens control greater control of depth of ﬁeld which
functions as normal.
makes pictures easier to watch on a
The new CION camera from AJA subconscious level."
which should be shipping by now is
Productions must weigh up whether
also being targeted at live sports (as to go with Prime lenses, which are
well as every other application from individually cheaper but take longer
corporate to commercials). For a to change, and zooms which house a
budget price CION records 4K 60p in range of focal lengths but can suffer in
RAW as well as ProRes.
image quality especially
"Interest in 4K acquisition is high if
used
because the format provides greater
inexpertly.
ﬂexibility in recorded footage and
in live by being able to dive into
the image for zoom or replay," says
Product Manager Andy Bellamy.
Spying rising demand for 4K live,
Red are also positioning its cameras
for studio work. The addition of a
new broadcast module systemised
by Nipros will take signals from a 6K
ARRI's Alexa 65 has a sensor three times
Dragon sensor and output 4 x HD SDI.
bigger than Super 35
"We can switch the signal live for
broadcast and we can put up to ﬁve
"If the style of shooting is with
HD sources at any frame rate and any blocked,
rehearsed
moves,
a
system frequency for POV applications, production will have little problem as
at a live concert for example," they will be using a ﬁlm-style crew,"
explained Nipros CTO Sal Sandoval.
says Richard Mills, CTO, Onsight. "A
The introduction of inexpensive live TV production or a studio multi35mm-sized single sensor cameras camera shoot poses problems as the
have gradually democratised ﬁlm-style zoom range of lenses is not as great

as TV lenses. For live work, a focus
puller may be required for greater
accuracy, but unless an
intuitive
relationship
is built with the
operator who might
be used to doing
everything themselves,
a misunderstanding may
slow things down."
UHD & Beyond
The big news from ARRI is that it
upgraded the Amira to provide incamera recording of UHD in ProRes.
Alexa shooters can also now upsample the image from the 3.2K sensor
to as near as dammit to 4K.
ARRI's view in any case has long
been that resolution is just a number
among other factors that are equally,
if not more, important. The mix of
light sensitivity and colour balance
along with pixel count delivers the best
looking picture, they argue, and many
ﬁlm and TV cinematographers agree.
It has, though, unleashed a
camera capable of 6.5K resolution.
Marketed for speciality large format
cinematography or VFX background
plates the Alexa 65 contains a sensor
three times bigger than Super 35 and
a dynamic range of at least 14 stops. A
new set of capture drives developed by
Codex shipping soon will offer 2TB of
record capacity, and enable recording
times of over 45 minutes. ARRI has
rehoused Hasselblad lenses to work
with the new sensor - offering eight
primes ranging from 24 to 300mm
plus a 50-110mm zoom.
Large format designs like this
hark back to a golden
age of ﬁlmmaking
where the epic
frame was used
for
ﬁlms
like
Lawrence of Arabia.
There is a view that
if cinema exhibition
is to survive then
immersive large format
screens are the future.
Filmmakers like Christopher
Nolan and JJ Abrams are
championing the format. Nolan shot an
hour of Interstellar on IMAX cameras
and the ﬁlm had an IMAX release
while IMAX 70mm cameras have been
used on a single action sequence on
Star Wars: The Force Awakens. IMAX
cameras have also been used on
Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol
and The Dark Knight Rises. Earlier this

Canon's EOS C100
Mark II features a Wi-Fi link

year Transformers: Age of Extinction
was the ﬁrst to be shot with the IMAX
dual 65mm 4K 3D camera.
The EOS C100 Mark II is the ﬁrst of
Canon's Cinema EOS range to feature
integrated Wi-Fi connectivity for the
sharing of footage and remote control
of the camera. Also released is a free
ﬁrmware update for the C500 adding
support for the ITU-R BT.2020 colour
space, for greater colour accuracy
through to the grade.

Smart Light-ﬁeld
Implementation
On a side note, the ﬁrst
implementation of light-ﬁeld data
technology for moving pictures is
now available as a plug-in for Avid.
Fraunhofer's light-ﬁeld technology
uses 16 smartphone camera modules
to produce a single recording
containing several different views,
which are then used in postproduction to recover the creative
opportunities that were not explored
on set.
Changes to shadowing, angle and
more complex effects can be realised
in post based on just a single shot. A
GUI allows the view to be horizontally
or vertically manipulated and a
virtual camera can be moved from
the front to the background, so
virtual camera rides can be easily
created with real ﬁlm shots.
Fraunhofer is running a pilot
programme with select Avid editors
to integrate this functionality into
existing post software.

A Light-ﬁeld
3x15 camera
array

http://www.inbroadcast.com http://www.usa.canon.com/cusa/professional/products/professional_cameras/cinema_eos_cameras/eos_c100_mark_ii https://pro.sony.com/bbsc/video/redirect.do?releasePid=K1BA2FIEHCqn http://www.arrirentalgroup.com/alexa65/ http://www.iis.fraunhofer.de/en/ff/bsy/tech/lichtfeld.html

In Broadcast - January 2015

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