Bradley Eybe mini remote camera

Bradley Engineering is introducing a new integrated mini camera, The Eybe, at NAB that should ship in May, with orders already in from broadcasters in the US and Britain who were involved in its development.

New slomo PoV with Polecam + Pico

High-speed cameras are small enough now to be usable on a hand-holdable jib arm, such as the lightweight Polecam, for use in places and ways they couldn’t have been previously.

The LMC Antelope Pico Point-of-View camera is particularly suitable for live sports production, and has been used for the German Bundesliga and Winter sports – a Pico was used on a white Polecam (to disappear into the background) at the start gates at the Alpine Skiing World Championship in Schladming. Polecam’s Founder, Steffan Hewitt (pictured above at BVE), also recently used the Pico in China, to cover the Rory McIlroy/Tiger Woods Duel at the Jinsha Lake Golf Club in Hengzhou.

“We had a full-size Polecam, with the Pico, and a Telecast Fiber PoV system – because the distance between the holes and the truck was kilometres, so we had to use fibre,” he explained.

The camera was primarily used above the players as they tee’d off, for slow-motion shots showing how their swings differed, for replay analysis. Because the system was so light, Hewitt, who was on his own, was able to just jump in a golf buggy between holes.

The Pico, which can deliver up to 340 frames per second from its 2/3-inch sensor, “worked great. It looked really good,” said Hewitt. “It’s the only really small high-speed camera that I know of.”

As it was on the Polecam, he could drop it right to the level of the green, where it was possible to see all the undulations that aren’t evident at normal camera height.

The current version of the Pico works with a pair of cables, but the next one will just require a single coax cable between the camera head and the CCU. “This will allow us to have much greater distances between the two, and use a longer Polecam,” he explained.

It will also be able to do live broadcast HD as well as slo-mo at the same time, so you can continue shooting HD while the high-speed shots are being cached for replay (which the current version can’t do), making it a much more practical proposition. “The new Pico will genuinely be live friendly.”

Given these developments, which should emerge at NAB in April, “I’m really excited about doing the high-speed stuff,” he added.

The slightly larger Phantom Miro slo-mo camera, from Vision Research, can also work on the Polecam (Vision Research were showing just such a package at BVE - pictured above), but it can’t be used as a direct feed for live production, although it does go up to 1,500fps.

Using the Polecam, operators can position the camera in places it wouldn’t normally be easy to go, such as over water, into a bird’s nest or in dangerous areas, to get close to the action.

One Polecam, being used with a Pico to cover a Bundesliga match, got closer to the action than it should have. During the warm up, the operator was rehearsing a shot above the goal, when one of the players used it for target practice, hitting it straight at the camera in beautiful slow motion.

“It completely bent the head in half. It cost £2,500 to completely rebuild the head, mainly with new parts,” said Hewitt.

By David Fox

Vinten Vision blue3 tripod head

Vinten will show the third pan and tilt head in its Vision blue range at BVE in London next week. The Vision blue3 sits between the original Vision blue (payload range 2.1-5kg/4.6-11lb) and the recently launched Vision blue5 (5.5-12kg/12.1-26.5lb), balancing intermediate payloads of between 3.0-6.6kg (6.6-14.6lb), making it ideal for 1/3-inch chip camcorders and DSLRs.

The Vision blue range has all of the key features associated with Vinten’s heads, such as infinitely adjustable Perfect Balance and LF drag technology to provide smooth control and consistent movement quality.

“The Vision blue range has been designed to make the filming process effortless, enabling the camera operator to release his or her creativity. The new Vision blue3 completes the range and brings uncompromised professional performance to the broadest range of users, regardless of the payload of the camcorder and its accessories,” said Andrew Butler, Vinten’s strategic planning and project manager.

The Vision blue3 will be shown publically for the first time on Vinten’s stand #F022 at BVE 2013, which takes place at Excel London on 26-28 February, where, as usual, we'll be taking part in some of the free seminars.

Bradley Bonds with Skyfall + Skytrac

Bradley Engineering’s new U4-F remote pan and tilt head for digital cinema cameras was developed for the new Bond movie, Skyfall, primarily for use in cars (notably M's Jaguar) with the Alexa M split-head camera, but it could also have applications in sports production.

It has ten gears for very precise slow or fast movement, and uses a traditional style wheeled controller. What excited some visitors who tried it at IBC was how smooth it is, thanks to in-built processors, which would make it perfect for an object tracking system.

For sports applications, “our head could be used to automatically have a camera smoothly follow a player around a pitch,” said the company’s founder, David Bradley. “This hasn’t really been possible [before], because in order to make it smooth you have to have a very high data rate, but our head takes care of it. It works out the positions in between and gives a very smooth move.”

Also new is Bradley’s high-speed Skytrac Lite, which was originally designed for possible use on a natural history production, as it is small and can be battery powered.

However, the first one has been sold to Remote CameraSolutions (which also commissioned the original Skytrac HD used for Sky Sports golf coverage), and has been used for ITV and Sky Sports, including the Speedway World Championships, where its top speed of 75mph (120kph) enabled it to keep up with action.

The dolly alone weighs about 4kg. Add a GY236 gyroscopic remote head and it weighs about 9kg (plus batteries and downlink). But it would be possible to order a lighter, more basic version.

“It is simple, lightweight and easily portable,” said Rory Watson, head of special projects, Bradley Engineering (pictured with the Skytrac Lite).

At IBC, Bradley also showed two of the Torchcams it developed for the BBC to cover the Olympic Torch Relay for some 8,000 miles (almost 13,000km) around the UK - which were used in and on a converted horsebox (pictured above). 

It made four of Torchcams: a Gimball 2 (self-levelling) that was mounted on top of the OB trailer for wide shots; a smaller GY236 head, used for long-range shots of the runners; and two HD10 fixed cameras.

By David Fox

Sony PMW-F5 + F55 4K cameras

Sony has announced two new 4K cameras (the PMW-F5 and PMW-F55), plus the impending arrival of the 4K upgrade for the NEX-FS700, as it begins to get serious about moving beyond HD. The new cameras will use a new codec: XAVC. All the cameras use single Super35-sized CMOS sensors.

Sony started its move into 4K (4096x2160 pixels) with the F65 last year, and now has a range of 4K-capable equipment, including domestic and professional LCD and projector displays.

The high-end F65 is well regarded in the film industry, and the camera has been used on such movies as Oblivion and After Earth.

In fact, the F65 is now going beyond 4K, following its version 3.0 upgrade it will also be able to shoot 6K and 8K Raw (it uses a full 8K/20-megapixel sensor). It will also be able to shoot at up to 120 frames per second in 8K. It can be fitted with a new 0.7-inch OLED viewfinder (the first such for this type of camera), and has received several other film-related additions, such as anamorphic lens support.

However, as the F65 moves even further upmarket, the F55 and F5 should slot seamlessly in underneath it.

Open codec architecture

The cameras will support four codecs: XAVC, for high frame rates and 4K, MPEG2 at 50Mbps, MPEG4 SStP (Sony’s SR Master codec) and Raw 4K “by the switch of a button, depending on what job you want to do,” said Olivier Bovis, Sony’s Head of AV Media.

The F5 and F55 will need the new AXS-R5 recorder for Raw, but everything else will be recorded internally on a new, faster, memory card: SxS Pro+, which will support higher frame rates and bit rates – it is about 20/30% faster than an SxS Pro card at writing/reading and comes in 64GB and 128GB versions.

The F55 will be able to simultaneously record both MPEG2 50Mbps and XAVC 4K to the same SxS Pro+ card, which means you can have a readily usable 50Mbps version for offline editing in a 4K production, or just hold an archive of 4K shots for the future while shooting for today’s broadcast standards. You should also be able to record Raw 4K at the same time to the R5 recorder.

Internally, the F55 will be able to record HD (1920x1080), 2K (2048x1080), QFHD (Quad Full HD - 3840x2160), and 4K, while the F5 will be limited to 2K and HD, but once you add the R5 both will record Raw 4K and higher frame rates.

The F55 “has a very wide colour gamut [same as the F65] and high frame rates: up to 180fps in 4K and up to 240fps in HD,” said Bovis. It also has a Global Shutter to avoid any rolling shutter skew effect or flash banding. The F5 will shoot at up to 120fps in HD. The F65 can shoot at up to 180fps at 4K and up to 240fps in 2K Raw.

The cameras are promised to offer a wide dynamic range (14 stops), high sensitivity, and low noise.

Viewfinders + monitors

Thanks to a new digital interface, the PMW-F5 and F55 will also be able to use the new DVF-EL100 1280x720 OLED viewfinder. There is also a new 3.5-inch 960x540-pixel LCD viewfinder (DVF-L350), offering 10x the contrast of previous Sony LCD viewfinders plus a flip-up eyepiece for direct monitoring, and a 7-inch 1920x1080 LCD on-camera monitor (DVF-L700).

The PMW-F55 can also connect to Sony’s new 4K 30-inch 10-bit LCD monitor (PVM-X300) for on-set monitoring, dailies and editing using four 3G-SDI interfaces to monitor pictures at 4096x2160 resolution at up to 60p while recording and playing back XAVC 4K images. It can also be connected directly to the 84-inch BRAVIA 4K LED TV for monitoring, but at a resized horizontal resolution of 3860 pixels.

Batteries + rigs

The F5 and F55 also use compact new Olivine (Lithium Iron Phosphate) batteries that promise twice the lifetime of conventional Lithium Ion cathodes and provide an hour of power for Raw recording when using the R5 with either the F5/F55 (Raw is more power hungry than the other codecs). There is also a new 2x faster battery charger.

The cameras will also have a new shoulder rig, “so you can easily use it shoulder mounted. It’s very modular in how you want to use it,” said Bovis.

PL-mount lenses

The F55 and F5 cameras come with a PL lens mount, for use with high-end cine-style lenses, but Sony is also launching six new CineAlta T2.0 PL-mount lenses for the cameras (20, 25, 35, 50, 85 and 135mm).

Each is certified for 4K and is designed to minimize geometric distortion, vignetting and breathing. A 9-blade iris should deliver pleasing bokeh (out-of-focus effects), and the focus rings rotate 240°. For easy lens changes, each has the same external diameter, matte box diameter, and gear locations for follow focus and aperture. All are the same lenght except for the 135mm. 

The cameras are fitted with a native FZ mount (but the PL-mount adaptor is supplied), so users will also be able to fit other adaptors for Canon EF, Canon FD, Nikon DX, Nikon G, Leica M and even 2/3-inch B4 lenses.

Availability

The F5, F55, F65 upgrade, and lenses should be available by the end of January, but 2K and QFHD recording for the PMW-F55 and 2K for the PMW-F5 will be available through a firmware upgrade. Frame rates higher than 60fps will also require a firmware upgrade.

Prices should be announced in November.

NEX-FS700 + HXR-1FR5

At its introduction, last April, Sony promised that the NEX-FS700 would be able to record 4K, and soon it will, using the new HXR-1FR5 interface unit, which has 3G HD-SDI input, to deliver Raw data, and the new AXS-R5 recording unit – which uses a new generation of Access Memory Card with 512GB of storage. It will also require a firmware upgrade.

Although the FS700 can already record high frame rates in HD, it won’t have that feature in 4K, where the available frame rates will be 23.98p, 25p, 29.97p, 50p and 59.94p.

The HXR-IFR5 and firmware upgrade should be available between April and June 2013.

By David Fox

Hague Camslide Easyglide + PH200

Hague Camera Support is one of those companies that always manages to come up with an affordable bit of kit to buy on a tight budget. [I own one of its DSLR Camframes]. If you need a camera mounting doohickey the Hague website will usually have what you need.

Here at IBC it is showing its latest low-cost slider, the Camslide Easyglide, which offers smoother movement thanks to new internal low-friction bearings. The system, costing from £180, is designed to be simple to set up and includes an extra wide track and 105mm-wide/100mm-long carriage for extra stability.

It supports up to 8kg and comes in lengths of 1m or 64cm (which can be joined for extra length). The camera can be fastened directly to the carriage, or an optional video or ball levelling head can be used between the camera and carriage. The slider can be mounted on a tripod, table or floor.

It is also showing an “affordable” remote control power head that it claims is about half the price of some of its nearest rivals.

The new PH200 Pro Remote Pan + Tilt Power Head is said to be ideal for use on tripods or jibs (such Hague’s K12 Multi Jib), has variable speed as well as a joystick remote, and supports cameras weighing up to 5kg.

IBC Polecam Competition

Steffan Hewitt of Polecam

If you fancy owning the new Blackmagic Design Cinema Camera and a Polecam Starter Pack - you should head to the Polecam stand C49 in hall 10 at IBC. 

Polecam have a simple competition to win more than €10,000-worth of equipment oh, and a Pelicase to hold it all in.

“We want them to be able to put it on a tripod, add their batteries and be ready to go,” said Polecam CEO, Steffan Hewitt. “It could be the start of somebody’s career.”

The guys at Polecam are always very welcoming and if you go with a bunch of business cards you can have five entries in the competition. If you can't make it to IBC then online visitors get one entry. There are also 101 runners up prizes of bottle openers - which double up as a Tripod Screw adjuster.

Good luck.