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May 2018

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www.postmagazine.com 33 POST MAY 2018 SPECIAL REPORT: CAMERAS his year's NAB Show in Las Vegas, with more than 1,700 exhibitors, offered its fair share of manufacturers featuring the latest and greatest in camera technology. Both on the show floor and off, Post editors had a chance to see some brand new rollouts making their NAB debuts, as well as others that had been introduced earlier in the year. Technology advancements and refinements in color science, live streaming, 4K and more were also a big part of the conversation. Here's a look at some of the latest releases being offered by the industry's leading camera manufacturers. BLACKMAGIC DESIGN POCKET CINEMA 4K CAMERA Blackmagic Design's Bob Caniglia showed Post a working prototype of the company's Pocket Cinema 4K Camera at NAB last month. It's a handheld digital film camera with full 4/3 HDR sensor, dual native ISO with up to 25600 ISO for low-light performance as well as 13 stops of dynamic range. The camera also eliminates ex- pensive external recorders, as it features a unique new USB-C Expansion Port, which allows custom- ers to record using the internal SD/UHS-II and CFast recorders or directly to the same external disks they will use for editing and color correction. The compact body style of the camera is well suited for shooting independent films and docu- mentaries, travel blogs, Web videos, much more. Highlights include an MFT lens mount, large five-inch touchscreen monitor, 10-bit ProRes and 12-bit raw recording, 3D LUTs, four built-in micro- phones, mini XLR audio input with phantom power, Bluetooth wireless camera control, HDMI on-set monitoring output and more. Fourth-generation Blackmagic Design color sci- ence lets customers shoot HDR images in film, video and new extended video modes. The new extended mode combines the latitude of digital film with an optimized video file. This gives customers working on fast turnaround projects a solution for shooting great looking images that don't need a lot of color correction or post production work. The camera will ship in September for $1,295 and will include a full version of DaVinci Resolve 15. PANAVISION MILLENNIUM DXL2 CAMERA Panavision's (www.panavision.com) Millennium DXL2 8K camera made its NAB debut at last month's show. Technology leaders from Panavision and its subsidiary Light Iron (www. lightiron.com) were on-hand to share their vision and expertise during panel discussions through- out the conference. The DXL2 is the evolution of a unique camera ecosystem, built by Panavision based on the input of cinematographers whose feedback contrib- uted to the DXL2's many significant advances. Introduced earlier this year, the DXL2 features a Red Monstro 8K VV sensor with 16-plus stops of dynam- ic range, improvements in image quality and shad- ow detail, a native ISO setting of 1600 and ProRes 4K capture at up to 60fps. Images are presented on the camera in log format using new Light Iron Color 2 science (LiColor2), which streamlines the 8K pipeline and provides quick access to high-quality raw images. Additional features of the DXL2 include a custom-made, integrated PX-Pro color spectrum filter offering a significant increase in color sepa- ration and dramatically higher color precision to the image; a built-in Preston MDR; 24v power and expanded direct-to-edit features. Hands-on demonstrations of the DXL2 took place at the Vitec booth and at the Vitec Creative Solutions area during the show. NAB attendees also had a chance to hear direct- ly from Panavision's post production innovator Light Iron during several discussions throughout the NAB Show, including the Avid Connect confer- ence, a Varicam presentation at Panasonic's booth and a special panel on filming in Georgia, as well as a live, on-camera interview with Light Iron's di- rector of marketing, Laura Pursley, on Post TV (see Post's Website and Facebook page). RED PAIRS EPIC-W CAMERA WITH NEW GEMINI SENSOR Red Digital Cinema (www.red.com) recently in- troduced their new Gemini 5K S35 sensor for its Epic-W camera. The Gemini 5K S35 sensor leverag- es dual sensitivity modes to provide greater flexibili- ty for a variety of shooting environments. Whether creators choose to shoot in standard mode for well-lit conditions or low-light mode for darker environments, the Epic-W with Gemini 5K S35 sensor delivers a high level of dynamic range and produces cinematic quality images. The sensor delivers high low-light performance, allowing for clean imagery with less noise and better shadow detail. Operators can easily switch between modes through the camera's on-screen menu. The sensor offers an increased field of view at 2K and 4K resolutions compared to the higher resolution Helium sensor. In addition, the sensor's 30.72mm x 18mm di- mensions allow for greater anamorphic lens coverage than with Helium or Dragon sensors. "While the Gemini sensor was developed for low- light conditions in outer space, we quickly saw there was so much more to this sensor," explains Jarred Land, president of Red Digital Cinema. "In fact, we loved the potential of this sensor so much, we want- ed to evolve it to make it have a broader appeal. As a result, the Epic-W Gemini now sports dual-sensi- tivity modes. It still has the low-light performance mode, but also has a default, standard mode that allows you to shoot in brighter conditions." Built on the compact DSMC2 form factor, this new camera and sensor combination captures 5K full format motion at up to 96fps, along with fast data speeds of up to 275MB/s. Additionally, it supports Red's IPP2 enhanced image processing pipeline in camera. Like all of Red's DSMC2 cameras, T

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