Blackmagic Design announces the Blackmagic Cinema Camera 2.5k Sensor

Press Release

LAS VEGAS, Apr 16, 2012 (BUSINESS WIRE) — Blackmagic Design today announced Blackmagic Cinema Camera, a revolutionary digital cinema camera design that includes powerful features such as super wide 13 stops of dynamic range, high resolution 2.5K sensor, built in high bandwidth SSD recorder, open file format support, color correction with full version of DaVinci Resolve and a built in LCD with metadata entry, all in an attractive compact design for only US$2,995.

Many current generation video cameras suffer from a “video look” due to a limited contrast range, a maximum HD resolution sensor, poor quality optics and lenses, the use of heavy video compression for file recording and poor integration with NLE software metadata management. With these limitations, they cannot be used for high end work or feature films.

Blackmagic Cinema Camera has been designed to eliminate these problems so customers get a true feature film look, and at an affordable cost can shoot high end television commercials, episodic television programming and feature films.

Posted on April 16, 2012 by Martin in BlackMagic, News, Press Release 1 Comment

Nikon D4 announcement this week!

Nikon will have a new product announcements this week. US readers will get the official news around midnight EST on Thursday, January 5th 2012. It will probably be the new Nikon D4.

Here are some interesting new specs:

Full-frame 16.2-megapixel CMOS sensor
10 frames-per-second shooting at full resolution
The ISO range is listed again as 100 to 102,400, expandable to 50 to 204,800
Full-HD 1080p resolution video recording in 30fps and 24fps and 720p in 60fps
New 91,000-pixel RGB metering sensor
Face detection/recognition
100% viewfinder coverage
Illuminated function buttons
Dedicated video button
Includes H.264 B frame compression
Contrast detect AF in movie recording
Low-pass filter for video recording
Smooth aperture feature for video recording

Suggested retail price: $6,000

The new Nikon products will start shipping in approximately 30 days after the announcement.

Posted on January 5, 2012 by Martin in News, Nikon, Press Release Leave a comment

Cinematographer Sebastian Cepeda Interview

I have had the pleasure to interview cinematographer Sebastian Cepeda, the Director of Photography of the coming science fiction movie The Rift. Sebastian was born in Argentina and studied Fimmaking in the SAE Institute. He lives in Switzerland and he is starting his third feature film this year as a Director of Photography. Before leaving you with the interview I would like to say that I’m also delighted to share our 10th interview on Cameraman.com. Thanks for your support! I hope you enjoy it.

Sebastian Cepeda at work

Cameraman: How and why did you become a cinematographer?

Sebastian: I became a cinematographer because I love to tell stories and the best way for me to do that is with images. I’m a very visual person, writing was never my strong side, so I started drawing comics when I was around 10. Drawing comics was like storyboarding movies for me at that age.
Afterwards when I came to Switzerland at the age of 15 I decided to become an actor, but it was pretty hard in Switzerland. I had minor roles for TV as well as theater but then I realized that I wanted to be on the other side of the camera. I studied at the SAE Institute and had a Bachelor of Arts in Filmmaking. The school was good to learn some basics, but in my opinion the best way to become a Cinematographer is watching at a lot of movies, TV shows, music videos, pictures and other images. You get a sense for the lighting as well as framing. There are a lot of books too that were very helpful, one of my favorites is “Painting with Light” by John Alton.

Cameraman: Tell me about The Rift and how you got involved in that movie.

Sebastian: The Rift is a low budget science fiction/thriller movie set in America. I got involved in the project thanks to the director Robert Kouba. I was his teacher at SAE and thought him “Camera & Lighting”. So after having my class he asked me if I wanted to be the Director of Photography for the movie. We had a couple of meetings and I was very impressed with him, being such a young guy and so talented, and he thinks a lot with images like myself.

Posted on July 15, 2011 by Martin in Interviews 1 Comment

Canon T3i/600D Announced

Canon today announces the launch of the EOS 600D – a compact, lightweight Digital SLR (DSLR) that makes capturing exciting, fun and creative images easier than ever. The perfect choice for aspiring photographers looking for a combination of outstanding image quality and ease-of-use, the EOS 600D sits at the top of Canon’s entry-level EOS line-up, above the existing EOS 550D and the new EOS 1100D. Read more

Posted on February 7, 2011 by Martin in Cameras, Canon, News Leave a comment

Opposing Views Canon’s 4K Camera

Today Canon showed off an ‘engineering prototype’ of a possible 4K Camera under development, and while they are careful to state that this will probably never see the light of day without extensive rework, the various opinions around the device are heavily polarized. This was just too interesting to pass up.

Click www.vizworld.com for the whole story.

Posted on September 21, 2010 by Martin in Cameras, Canon, DSLR, News Leave a comment

camera