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Now We're Talking Cameras

I had a production camera, the first one in Europe, on my shoulder last thursday at an AV tradefair.
Looks good, nice balance.
Asked Andy from AJA lots of questions.

Soon there will be testvideo's focusing on skintones (he said to me)

I'm curious what Direktorik thinks.
I only touched it for a few minutes... :P

Maybe we should try to get a few (borrowed) ones for the Community Project :P
 
Had this on my shoulder over the weekend. I liked it. Relatively light and nicely balanced (though they seem to be only demoing CP.2's, which leads me to believe it's going to be difficult to balance with anything a bit heavier, especially cine zooms).

Comparing it to the Amira, I find the CION to be much easier on the shoulder, and I could probably 'run-n-gun' for longer with it. That said, the Amira will be easier to balance and the picture will ultimately please me more (of course the two are hardly in comparable price categories). The CION had a Cineroid EVF on it, which looked absolutely awful and had ridiculous frame delay - I actually couldn't believe they would let it go out on a demo like that. That EVF is unusable - though I've never used it before so I don't know if it's more the EVF or the signal it's getting from the camera.

The tiny LCD on the side is also pretty ridiculous - you could never really use it to actually shoot with, so you'll need to look into third party monitoring solutions.

The image I was really less than impressed with, but it could easily be the funky REC709ish LUT they have - they're not supporting extra LUTs, which is bad news, especially as the LUT they have on it looks disgusting. I'm sure you'll be able to get more out of it in post, with it recording a log ProRes (at up to full 4k @ 60fps!)

Checked out Blackmagic's URSA and was less than impressed. It's huge, bulky and IMO feels cheap (something that the CION doesn't). I wouldn't even want to try and put that on my shoulder. The image looks no better than previous versions. The 'multi-station' thing is interesting, but it strikes me more as a concept camera, rather than something that will be used by many productions.

If I were looking to but a camera in the sub- 15k range, I'd probably not look too far past the CION, but it will really depend on the picture that comes out of it (I'm yet to see much) and also how well it balances with the lenses I like and will tend to shoot with.
 
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I was reading this and it occurred to me: wouldn't it be just neat if we, or you all, could get together and start-up a company to design, develop, and produce the camera that you lovers of filmmaking here on I.T. would love to have?

I mean, the problem with that is then you wouldn't have time for your filmmaking --being too busy running a camera company, 'n' all. ;)

Look how the Bolex people did it too. Though that, sadly, would be a cautionary tale of what not to do.

The point is, I for one would like to put you I.T. camera people's heads together and come up with a kickass camera...a family of kickass cameras that naturally every filmmaker would want.

Sure, I suppose you'd all want as much of the cutting edge technology available and coming down the pike that you could fit in. But one way you might set your cameras apart from the herd is to rigorously design and to implement the best ergonomics that filmmakers want when actually shooting.

If only we had a fortune like Jim Jannard had to make that happen.

I know. I was only dreamin'. =)
 
I forgot about this thread.

I loved it. Shot BTS for a major TV series (signed a NDA). A great ENG
camera that is easy to use. Like jax, I found the little side LCD to be
pretty worthless except for on-the-fly composition when off the shoulder.
I used a Sony EVF so didn't have any issues. Not a fan of the Cineroid's
anyway.

I'm not much of a tech-head - I'm more of an operator than a DP - I
loved the way it balanced with a Fujinon HD lens. It's a really versatile
camera body and I loved the footage I got. I might buy this one.
 
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