IBC is like NAB with better food and worse weather. It’s a wrap for the 55,000 geeks, gawkers, grips, and gaffers who spent 5 days in the caverns of Amsterdam’s RAI convention center. Best sandwiches at RAI: salmon on fresh baguette behind Hall 9. Best daily happy hour: Transvideo (Chateau Margaux 1997 Grand Cru Classé, smoked duck, paté). Best afternoon snack: Servicevision (Jamón serrano, Onix Priorat). Best Tequila Don Julio at a booth party: Band Pro.

Best lit and art-directed booth in the history of IBC (and NAB): Sony’s F65 interior living room set, with a single source 18K coming through the camera-right window. Lots of contrast, the way it was meant to be–instead of the customary flat ring of fire that can be measured with a thermometer, not a light meter. Artfully lit by British Cinematographer Steve Lawes.

Here’s a quick rundown of some of the great new products. More to follow.

Cameras

• P+S Technik’s PS-CAM X35 is a workhorse camera with continuously variable frame rates from 1-450 fps. An interesting feature of the camera will be simultaneous shooting at both normal and high speed frame rates.
• Working models of ARRI Alexa Studio, with her brilliant optical viewfinder that incorporates anamorphic desqueezing and a full frame 4:3 35mm format sensor. This should spark interest in 2x digital anamorphic.
• Sony F65 surprised everyone with an astonishingly low price (much lower than previous CineAlta cameras) for this 35mm format 16:9 4K+ camera. You could sit in the front row of Sony’s screening room and not see any noise in the demo footage. (20 megapixel sensor, 16-bit, 14+ stops of dynamic range.)
• Aaton Penelope evolved from hybrid to digital-only. With a monocoque redesign, she’s lighter, smaller and less expensive, while retaining the bright optical viewing system and 3-perf format 4K sensor.
• I think there were only 1 and a half film cameras in the show: half an original Penelope hybrid film/digital, and an Arricam.
• James Cameron and Vince Pace were on stage at the Big Screen to talk about Alexa M (camera head separates from body) and their 3D rig.

Accessories

• An eyepiece from Estonia for DSLR and video cameras promises to be ready in a couple of months.
• PAG stackable batteries run in parallel and are hot-swappable.
• Vocas wooden handgrips
• 135 mm Primes from Cooke and ZEISS/ARRI
• Angenieux ADS/i metadata hardware box attaches to lens

Lots more to come as the backpack is unpacked and pictures sorted.