Products
Teradek RT MDR.S Motor Driver
Teradek RT MDR.S is a tiny receiver+control unit to drive lens motors. I guess the “S” in MDR.S could stand for small or stylish. You can control a single motor or daisy-chain up to 3 motors—for focus, iris and zoom. Short cables minimize clutter. MDR.S works with Teradek’s CTRL.1 single channel or the CRTL.3 three channel hand unit. Maximum line-of-sight range is 5,000 ft. MDR.S is ridiculously lightweight: a mere 2.4 oz. read more…
Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 6K G2
June 23, 2022. G2 is for Generation 2.
Blackmagic Design launched their Pocket Cinema Camera 6K G2 today, the second generation of the original Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 6K introduced in October 2019.
What’s different?
The new Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 6K G2 is almost the same as the Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 6K Pro (launched in February 2021) — lacking only the internal Clear, ND.6, ND1.2 and ND1.6 filters. The body is the same. Both cameras have an adjustable, tiltable 5-inch 1500 nit 5” 1920 x 1080 LCD touchscreen display. They both accept Blackmagic’s superb Pocket Cinema Camera Pro OLED EVF.
SIGMA 16-28mm F2.8 DG DN | Contemporary Zoom
SIGMA’s optical prowess continues to impress. Their new 16-28mm F2.8 DG DN | Contemporary Wide-Angle Zoom Lens (at left) is almost the same size and weight as its companion 28-70mm F2.8 DG DN | Contemporary Zoom (at right). If the best lens is the one that’s light and small enough to put in your jacket pocket, and has exceptional imaging quality, then the 16-28 is the wide zoom you’ll want to join the 28-70 that was released in March 2021.
Both lenses are for Full Frame mirrorless cameras and come in Sony E-mount or Leica/ SIGMA/Panasonic L-Mount.
Wide and fast zoom lenses are usually not this petite. The 16-28mm F2.8 DG DN | Contemporary maintains sharpness to the edges, with no shading (darkening of the edges). A few weeks ago I was gushing over the rectilinear, unbending lines of SIGMA’s 20mm F2 DG DN | Contemporary prime. Now, here’s a lens that’s wider, is almost as small, and is a zoom. read more…
AbelCine Spring Tech Showcase NY
The AbelCine Spring Tech Showcase, at their Industry City, Brooklyn location took place on Saturday, May 21. It was an enjoyable, focused, not-massive, local event — a full day of exhibits by the major camera, lens and lighting manufacturers, panel discussions and tech sessions. It was the premiere of the new BLACKWING7 amber skin lens variant from TRIBE7. Jay Holben was there, signing his definitive and encyclopedic The Cine Lens Manual. Canon showed their new T2.4 Flex Full Frame zooms. Tim Smith showed how seamless and simple it was to customize Angenieux Optimo Primes with their swappable internal element, swappable irises, front and rear filters. Motion Impossible’s remote controlled, modular, motorized Agito dolly glided through the halls, navigated by Ben Dair, Chief Product Officer. read more…
Koerner PNW Lens Summit 2022
Koerner Camera Systems hosted the 4th 2022 Pacific Northwest Lens (PNW) Summit on May 13-14 in their large Portland, Oregon rental headquarters. Michael Koerner, the company owner, called it “A celebration of cinema-lens technology and education.” Cooke’s Danny Haikin, who flew in from London called it “A wonderful, massive lens geek-out.”
Around 30 exhibitors displayed their products, mostly lenses. More than 300 industry visitors arrived from as far away as New Zealand.
A day before the main event, lens technicians attended hands-on lens training classes taught by lens maestros. Instructors donated their time, so the technicians attended the training for free. read more…
SmallHD Cine 18 Monitor
These are the shots that try focus-pullers souls.
ECU, 4K, Full Frame, 135mm prime wide open at T1.4. Which eyelash do you focus on?
Your 7-inch monitor is great, but seeing such fine detail requires the eyesight of an eagle. What you may want is a larger 4K monitor of size and resolution to guide you in the realm of eyelash-thin, millimeter depth of focus.
As depth gets smaller, focus-pullers get larger monitors.
The new SmallHD Cine 18 4K High-Bright Monitor addresses the sweet spot between your favorite Cine 13 on a stand and the Cine 24 that sits on an Inovativ cart. read more…
Phantom Droll Booth – FDTimes at NAB
FDTimes will be at NAB 2022. Pick up copies of the April 2022 edition in the publication bin at the entrance to Central Hall.
Make yourself at home in our unoccupied FDTimes booth # C6244. But, unfortunately I will not be there nor will it be staffed. Too busy preparing the June 2022 edition. See you soon! read more…
Canon 20-50 & 45-135 T2.4 FF Zooms
Canon announces “the launch of a new series of lenses for the company’s EF Cinema Lens lineup — the Flex Zoom Lens series.” Watch what they say: “The first lenses in the series are the CN-E20-50mm T2.4 L F/FP wide-angle zoom lens and the CN-E45-135mm T2.4 L F/FP telephoto zoom lens.” Does “first lenses in the series” mean that more Full-Frame Zooms are on the way? I would guess yes. You won’t have to flex your muscles to work with these new Canon Flex Zoom Lenses. They are very light (less than 7.5 lb / 3.4 kg). They are very compact: shorter than 9.7″ / 246.4 mm. And they are amazingly fast for compact Full-Frame zooms: T2.4 maximum aperture for both, without ramping. The Flex zooms come in EF or PL mount, designated by the product name of F for EF, and FP for PL. The EF mount provides electronic shading and chromatic aberration correction when used on Canon’s EOS R5 C with an EOS RF-to-EF mount adapter. The PL mount has the latest /i3 Technology.
DJI Ronin 4D 6K Updates
Here are additions and changes to the FDTimes November 2021 report on DJI’s Ronin 4D. New firmware, when the camera ships soon, will let you: Use the Remote Monitor to view and control the main monitor interface with “Mirror Control Mode.” Stream a clean video feed via HDMI and SDI ports on the Remote Monitor Expansion Plate with no overlaid… read more…
Tags: DJI Ronin 4D 6K Updates
Otto Nemenz gets 37-102 Ultra Compact
Faster than you can say, “Otto Nemenz,” this photo just arrived. Band Pro delivered one of the first Angénieux Optimo Ultra Compact 37-102 Full Frame Zoom lenses in the Americas to Otto Nemenz International yesterday. Above, left right: Amnon Band, Alex Wengert, Otto Nemenz with 37-102, Dan Lopez, Fritz Heinzle. read more…
Canon EOS R5 C
You spot it right away. On the front, it says EOS C. C as in Cinema. On the left side, there’s a big red shutter/start-stop button. The Canon EOS R5 C Full-Frame hybrid video and stills, mirrorless, RF-mount 8K camera is here.
From the front, the R5 C looks very similar to the R5, which launched on July 9, 2020. If you said that the R5 was essentially a remarkable 45 megapixel still camera that also did 8K video, well, the new R5 C is a remarkable 45 megapixel camera equally adept at both stills and video. read more…
Easyrig’s new STABIL Light
Easyrig’s new STABIL Light is a spring-loaded arm that smooths your moves while working with an Easyrig Minimax.
It supports cameras and gimbals from 2 to 7 kg. This includes many of the newer, lighter, smaller packages: ALEXA Mini, Mini LF; Sony FX6, FX9; Canon C300, C599; RED V-RAPTOR, KOMODO; DJI Ronin 4D, etc.
Easyrig Minimax is a vest and backpack with shock absorber that supports your camera weightlessly from a fixed bracket overhead. STABIL Light is the accessory L-shaped, spring-adjustable overhead support that replaces Minimax’s rigid arm.
With Minimax alone, the camera would move up and down as you walk or run. With Minimax + STABIL Light, up and down movement is absorbed. So, when the script calls for the camera to follow the good guys chasing the bad guys along a narrow path through a dense forest, Minimax + STABIL Light + gimbal + camera will glide you smoothly through the scene. read more…
Tags: Easyrig STABIL Light
Blackmagic URSA 12K Camera Update 7.7
Blackmagic URSA Mini Pro 12K gets an update. Blackmagic Camera 7.7 Update provides improved color balance, improved demosaicing for better shadow detail, improved demosaicing to reduce moire effects on fine patterns, improved USB-C camera connections and Blackmagic RAW 2.2.1. URSA Mini Pro 12K’s sensor performance is improved with adjustments to its demosaicing algorithm to offer a more neutral color balance and enhanced clarity in shadow areas. Blackmagic Camera 7.7 update for URSA Mini Pro 12K provides a more neutral color balance for better skin tones and a natural highlight rolloff. read more…
Configuring KOMODO
Like a Lonely Planet geeky guidebook, not as amusing as Mark Twain’s The Innocents Abroad, less strenuous than Survivor, here is a quirky travel guide of a RED KOMODO’s journey to Film and Digitial Times. The accessories and methods listed here are not comprehensive. In fact, they are the result of things that happened to be shipped, arrived and tried. (This article first appeared in FDTimes Aug 2021 Issue 109, pages 32-44.)
Sony VENICE 2 Report – older version
Four years and nine days after the original VENICE camera first launched five miles from Venice Beach, at Sony Pictures Culver City, VENICE 2 arrives in 6K and 8K. Except for a completely flat base with big air vents, they look very similar to the original VENICE. The design is clean and understated.
Not understated is the performance of this camera. Sixteen stops of exposure latitude retain highlights and reveal shadow detail. Skin tones are smooth and gentle. Images are elegant, natural, with a quality that seem almost tactile and impossibly three-dimensional.
If you have used the original VENICE, the learning curve is almost instantaneous. This is a familiar friend.
Download the free 64-page VENICE 2 Special Report (8 MB PDF) by FDTimes.
SUBSCRIBERS: Download the high resolution 64-page VENICE 2 Special Report (22 MB PDF) by FDTimes. read more…
Cooke Varotal 30-95 and 85-215 T2.9 FF Zooms
Cooke is back in the Varotal zoom lens business. These things seemed to go in cycles. Horace W. Lee designed the legendary Cooke Speed Panchros a century ago, in 1921. A half century later, in 1971, Cooke introduced the 20-100 mm T3.1 Varotal zooms, designed by Gordon H. Cook. Primes returned in 1998 with the Cooke S4 series. And now, Cooke announces two new Full Frame Varotal zooms: 30-95 mm T2.9 and 85-215 mm T2.9. They come in PL or LPL mounts. read more…
Panasonic LUMIX BS1H Full-Frame Cine
October 7, 2021. Panasonic announced their new full-frame cube-style LUMIX DC-BS1H. Panasonic’s Matt Frazer said, “Picture an S1H mirrorless camera put into a box. Hence the B in BS1H.”
Matt asked why I call it a cube and not a box-style camera. The reason goes back to Fritz Gabriel Bauer’s sassy comment, “A camera is just a box onto which you put beautiful lenses.” That’s a tongue-in-cheek statement from the guy who developed the innovative Moviecam cine cameras. Surely, a good cine camera is much more than a box.
And so, the good BS1H is much more than a box. It is also more than just an S1H mirrorless hybrid still/cine camera stuffed inside.
Both share most of the same specifications: 24-megapixel full-frame (35.6 mm x 23.8mm) sensor with Dual Native ISO, 6K full-height recording, wide dynamic range, V-Log, anamorphic desqueeze, and more. read more…
DJI Ronin 4D
This is one of the most captivating cinema cameras since, well, the birth of cinema. I hear howls calling for superlative deleted, but please indulge this attention-grabbing opening line for a few moments. The DJI Ronin 4D is like a polymath of primordial portable 1895 Lumière Brothers Cinématographe, mixed with 1970s Aaton LTR, styled by a dreamed-up team of DaVinci, Gaudí and Ive, commingled with stabilizers, Lidar, integrated wireless video and wireless control, inspired by Inspire 2, Zenmuses and ancestral Ronins. It is an astonishly seamless cinematographic system. Download the free 22-page FDTimes DJI Ronin 4D Special Report. 22 pages. 5.3 MB PDF. read more…
Tags: DJI Ronin 4D
ELSIE Leitz Cine Lenses
You may ask, why is Elsie Kühn-Leitz the cover story of September FDTimes and why are the new Leitz lenses called ELSIE?
Rainer Hercher, Managing Director of Leitz-Cine Wetzlar, explains:
“The story began when we discussed the naming of our lenses. Previously, we had followed the Leica tradition of naming lenses according to their apertures. Summilux-C were T1.4. Summicron-C were T2. But then, at a certain point, we wanted to honor the fundamentals that the Leitz family started in 1849 in Wetzlar.”
For the story of Elsie and ELSIE, please see pages 1 – 24, FDTimes September 2021 Issue 110 – free download here. read more…
Tags: ELSIE Leitz Cine Lenses
Angénieux Optimo Ultra Compact Zooms
An Angénieux 37-102 Full Frame Optimo Ultra Compact Zoom was hand-carried from the factory in Saint-Héand, France to its USA premiere in New York. The 37-102 is the first of two new Angénieux Optimo Ultra Compact Zooms. The other one covers 21-56 mm. If the 2.7x zoom range sounds familiar, you probably have been using the iconic Angénieux Optimo 15-40 and 28-76 Super35 Spherical zooms, introduced 16 years ago. And so, the US launch was celebrated at the Salon de Ning rooftop outdoor event space on the 23rd floor of the New York Peninsula Hotel. read more…
