DSLR News Shooter | BIRTV 2011 – China’s answer to Red? The Kinefinity KineRAW S35 digital cinema camera for US$8000

China's answer to Red / Alexa? Either way more competition can only be a good thing (and it will probably be available before Scarlet)!

Website is here:

KineRAW-S35

Seemingly they also have an S16 sized camera with CCD sensor, and an S8 sized camera with a CMOS sensor (both with exchangeable lens mounts) in addition to the S35 CMOS camera.

All still vaporware at the moment I guess.

Re: S35 digi cinema camera for US$8000
 

Not to sound negative, but until any of these cameras are shipping, I ignore them. There have been so many (non-working, or barely working) prototypes and announcements of affordable, film-like digital cameras (stretching back before RED), that I just end up tuning them out.

It sounds cool, but I like that I can get a Sony NEX-FS100 with a Super 35mm (with a basic zoom lens) for around $5500.

Heath

Re: S35 digi cinema camera for US$8000
 

I agree with Heath.

Too many announcements without any concrete action. Hope there are more competitors to Red. Lets wait for the sleeping giant to wake up (read Canon).

Cheers,
Sabyasachi

Re: S35 digi cinema camera for US$8000
 

JVC is developing a 4K camera, too.

Heath

Re: S35 digi cinema camera for US$8000
 

I've got the FS100 with basic zoom lens. It is one freakin sweet camera.
Can't believe you can get it for the price it is. Course, I hope everyone
DOES keep coming out with 'cheap' super 35 cameras. Competition is how we
got the AF100 and FS100 in the first place. I showed the FS100 to a friend
of mine the other day. I am helping him edit a film, as he is an older guy
who hasn't really used NLE's before. He used to shoot on 35mm film in LA.
When he saw the image the FS100 put out he was literally flabbergasted.
He was telling me how lucky I was to live and work with all this new technology.
I'd have to say he is right.....

Re: S35 digi cinema camera for US$8000
 

Check out this comparison with the AF100, 5D and F3, candle light, from Moving Picture in Ft. Lauderdale:

Moving Picture Electronic Services Presents: Producer's Cheatsheet August, 2011; MPES Camera Test

heath

Re: S35 digi cinema camera for US$8000
 

It's nice to know that the Sony F3 is better in candlelight than the Canon 5D but considering that it costs about 10X the price perhaps that is to be expected. Does it really look 10X better?

Re: S35 digi cinema camera for US$8000
 

Well, Canon is always fashionable late to every party.

You cant be sure of what it will be or when it will be released, but you can be almost guaranteed one thing with Canon: it will be the most expensive item in its class.

Re: S35 digi cinema camera for US$8000
 

Probably, especially with the S35mm sensor and Sony's usual color and gamma features. And less compression vs. the 5D Mk II, as well. But the 5D is great, too.

Heath

Re: S35 digi cinema camera for US$8000
 

First I heard it cost 10 times as much, perhaps nearly 6 times as much, although you'd also have to add a few accessories to the 5D to turn it into a video camera.

They're basically doing different things.

Re: S35 digi cinema camera for US$8000
 

A decent F3 package costs around $20,000, the 5D Mk II (still with a great, big sensor) costs around, what, $2000 without a lens? The Sony FS100 is affordable because it likely lacks features the F3 has, and it's NXCAM, which is more compression. XDCAM EX technology ain't cheap.

Heath

Re: S35 digi cinema camera for US$8000
 

A 5D is $2.5k at B & H, but it still needs accessories to make it suitable as video camera, which would still put the F3 in at roughly 6 times the cost. It really depends on the package on either camera.

Re: S35 digi cinema camera for US$8000
 

There are also limits between the two that you need to take into consideration. I'm more inclined to rent something like the F3 vs. buying, but that's due to me not being a full time filmmaker or video guy.

Heath

Re: S35 digi cinema camera for US$8000
 

Yes, it really depends on what use it for. If your market is at the F3 level, it has a lot of bang for bucks, comparing favourably with much more expensive cameras.

Perhaps the FS100 is the one that the 5D has to compete with, and the costs do start getting close when add in the accessories. It could depend on if you also want to use your video camera as a high end stills camera, but are prepared to compromise on the video.

Re: S35 digi cinema camera for US$8000
 

I'm looking at a chart right now, and the two DSLRs with the biggest sensors (and are relatively "affordable") are the 5D and the Nikon D3S, both around 36 x 24 mm.

Heath

Re: S35 digi cinema camera for US$8000
 

Haw! Guess it was inevitable that a post about a Chinese cinema camera would turn into the old F3 vs FS100 vs 5DMK3 debate. (Doesn't anyone rate the AF100)?

Re: S35 digi cinema camera for US$8000
 

The link I posted above to the candlelight shootout includes an AF100. I think the conversation drifted there, because these affordable S35mm (or close to it) cameras are available now, not vaporware. We have examples and user experience.

Heath

Re: S35 digi cinema camera for US$8000
 

I know one DP thought the AF100 was the camera to use unless forced into using a DSLR by the producer.

5Dmk3 seems to exists as a model floated around on forums. I really can't see any advantage for a full frame 35 sensor for video, unless it adds increased resolution and other pluses.

Re: S35 digi cinema camera for US$8000
 

Watch The Great Camera Shootout 2011: SCCE ~ Episode Two | Zacuto USA
It's not only the candlelight... It's also resolution/sharpness and colors...

Re: S35 digi cinema camera for US$8000
 

Please may Simon have his thread back? It's not simply about a "Chinese" camera; and definitely not about a hybrid DSLR; nor a pro-sumer camera; nor an ENG camera: it's about an affordable professional cinema camera .... well, in concept and intent at least.

My questions are: how robust is it?
How easy will it be to use? and
how upgradeable is it in hardware or software?

Re: S35 digi cinema camera for US$8000
 

A couple more questions.

I assume this is a bayer sensor?
If so, what are you left with after the de-Bayer process? Assuming this is the type of sensor used in this camera, you would think that starting at 1080P will leave you with at best slightly more than 720p actual resolution, not enough in my opinion to leave your with an kind of overhead for post production or "DCP "Cinema" style distribution.

Good for net, some TV likely, but not the big screen. Assuming it is a bayer type sensor that is, pardon my ignorance if I am wrong.

Larry

Re: S35 digi cinema camera for US$8000
 

I don't think we'll know anything until, if and when, a working prototype comes out.

heath

Re: S35 digi cinema camera for US$8000
 

I understand that the Chinese company involved has a background in making cameras for astronomy, so it seems to be them branching out into new areas of imaging..

Re: S35 digi cinema camera for US$8000
 

I'd buy that for a dollar.

Re: S35 digi cinema camera for US$8000
 

Looks like a hoax to me, I don't think a company capable of building anything even close to a camcorder would put up pages that say nothing and lead to nowhere.

KineRAW-S8p (tm) test footage video Re: S35 digi cinema camera for US$8000
 

The cameras from Kinefinity (tm) are not a 'hoax' as was suggested. They have been in development for almost 4 years now and are entering into G5 development depending on how you count the prototypes.

I have the KineRAW-S8p (tm) prototype in San Francisco shooting some calibrations for the viewfinder look tables and doing some other testing and checking the SSD and firmware revisions with my de-Bayer software that supports CinemaDNG based workflow cameras that record 100% True RAW data.

The KineRAW-S8p (tm) shares much of the same workings as the S16 CCD and S35 CMOS cameras, except that the larger cameras also are to support Cineform (tm) compressed recording and workflow. The DNG frames from the KineRAW-S8p (tm) can be processed into Cineform (tm) by a converter program if you want to work compressed or do a compressed proxy, that can also be done in any NLE with a H.264 proxy for an off line edit.

Here are the links to the first and second lens test demo reels,

#A2



#B1


Projection is that the S35 will start field testing in China in April 2012, maybe. Its working for the most part in the test prototype, some details of the re-design are being worked out now.

If you have questions about the cameras you can email Kinefinity (tm) about their KineRAW (tm) cameras at the contact in their web sites email for contact. People say they answer questions.

If you have any questions about my free de-Bayer and freeish DI/NLE/MIX/SCAN/FILMOUT/OPTICALS/GRADING software development for support of CinemaDNG based cameras you can contact me at the email at the top of every page at my web site, or comment on my Vimeo pages as Vimeo will email me about your questions there. If you email me be sure to put 'Its not a hoax? DVinfo user' in the subject line so I know you are not a junk mail, thank you.

Re: S35 digi cinema camera for US$8000
 

Many thanks, that looks nice, but I would like to see test shots that push the camera to its limits. Find out how it handles highlights, its dynamic range, the low light capabilities, how much skew there is etc. The sort of things you need to know when selecting a camera for a film.

Re: S35 digi cinema camera for US$8000
 

Maybe I'm a little dense, but according to the site the S8 camera records up to 2.5K but the S35 camera only records up to 2K? can you get native 2.5K resolution from a S8 size sensor?

Re: S35 digi cinema camera for US$8000
 

You may have the pixels, but there'll be trade offs In theory the Super 8 sized sensor should be wider than a 1/3" sensor, I guess it's more room than you'd find on quite a few mobile phones, some of which have 8 megapixel sensors

Re: S35 digi cinema camera for US$8000
 

Ah, that's the connection I wasn't making.

Re: S35 digi cinema camera for US$8000
 

The sensor is 2592x1940 pixels so its 4:3, the resolution I was shooting at for those two Vimeo videos is 2592x1104x12bit@24.000fps.

That mode also shoots at 23.976fps and 25.000fps

The camera shoots many modes, it also does 2400x1200 for 2:1 aspect ratio, 2048x1152 for 1.85:1 35mm filmout being 16:9 for making the Blu-ray and a bit more for the projector framing.

There is an oversample 16:9 ratio also, as well as 1920x1080x12bit@29.97fps, and 1280x720x12bit@59.94fps.

The 2.35:1 aspect has 48fps and 72fps modes to reduce rolling shutter on hand held shots.

They can add more modes the sensor is programmable.

The image area at 2592x1104 is a bit wider than Super8 but the diagonal is about the same, just a tad larger than 6mm diagonal of CS mount lenses, I have a CS mount zoom that seems to cover.

The lens mount can change for C, CS, or D mount for 8mm movie camera lenses, so you can use sharp movie lenses and Super8 Angenieux and Schneider lenses, 1/2" and 2/3" megapixel lenses, and sharp 16mm movie camera lenses, and maybe some 1/3" lenses if they cover and are sharp.

The maximum fps is 220fps now and the minimum is 1fps now, but the production camera may have more range.

If you are interested you email Kinefinity (tm) directly and talk to them about details.

I'm working an an anamorphic video now, shot 2.35:1 anamorphic mode that uses the true 'Panavision (tm)' Cineon (tm) and Celco (tm) resolution of 1828x1556 that is used for real movie so called 2K film scans. That is the same resolution used in film recorders to make 35mm printing negatives that you see in movie theaters.

The camera records 100% uncompressed full True RAW Bayer sensor data, the maximum recording rate is about 108MB/s but varies depending on the resolution selected, it ends up at about 9 minutes of non-stop recording in a 60GB SSD. The camera has two drive slots, so you can shoot to the SSD and then dump shots to a notebook 2.5" HDD in the other slot, and the clear the SSD and re-use it.

I was shooting with a 60GB SSD and a 500GB HDD. If you have more than one SSD you can swap the SSD rather than dump the shots in the camera, but you can also swap the HDD to make more than one backup all without needing to pack around a notebook computer while shooting.

Re: S35 digi cinema camera for US$8000
 

Geez, if the s35 is perhaps $8 grand-ish how much are the smaller ones going to be? The s16 version claims a roll-free global shutter on the web site too.

These have a sort of niche Mail-order-catalogue-DIY vibe about them that is pretty cool too. No doubt their scientific equipment background showing though. Using one might be a bit of a crash course in how video cameras really work (for me at least). But there's that 'red badge of courage', as Dan Hudgins put it, for having to do your own de-Bayering and what not.

Re: S35 digi cinema camera for US$8000
 

What wouldn't be pretty cool is a niche Mail-order-catalogue-DIY, assembly required, no tools included, Chinese instructions, foreign support kind of kit. I like bang-for-buck stuff as much as everyone else, but one can willingly trade only so much convenience for cheaper hardware, the price of which becomes increasingly insignificant considering the type of productions that typically desire 2/4k and RAW workflow.

A truly revolutionary camera should come with 24-hour worldwide support, overnight repair/replacement, and the option of hiring a technician who knows the thing inside out (and speaks your language too).

Re: S35 digi cinema camera for US$8000
 

The interface on the KineRAW-S8p (tm) is relatively easy to use.

The real time waveforms and histograms are useful in setting exposure and color balance. The 200% zoom lets you zoom in on a white wall or gray card to set the color balalance if you want to use the in-camera feature, otherwise you can leave that to post since its a 100% True RAW uncompressed 12bit recording.

It works very much like a movie camera, so there is no real need for much in the way of instructions, the on-screen readouts and displays are for the most part obvious to any cinematographer.

Its not like the confusing menu system of some Japanese cameras perhaps, its quite simple as there is NO in camera processing of the images, that is all left for post processing so you can't mess up the recording by setting the wrong in camera processing of the data the way you can in Japanese camcorders and HDSLR.

Its a CinemaDNG camera, so simple to shoot with like the Acam dII (tm) but with 2.5K resolution rather than just HD, so you get oversample and lower cost.

If you have thoughts about the camera options and features you should email Kinefinity (tm) and share your thoughts so they get a feel for what people are thinking.

Its are product for people with particular interest, a real Digital Cinema Camera for making movies that can be transferred to 35mm movie film or to make a DCP for projection in movie theaters, as well as make Blu-ray and DVD that look similar to having shot 35mm movie film, maybe.

I'm processing frames today for the anamorphic demo reel, shot with the 1828x1556 Cineon (tm) Panavision (tm) pixel resolution mode, it will be some weeks before that is up on Vimeo because a few more shots are needed. It is planed to have sync sound and audio mix similar to what would be made for a stereo optical track on a feature film.

Re: S35 digi cinema camera for US$8000
 

Well, properly monied productions have their own concerns and treat hiring a camera like hiring a forklift or anything else, weighing up the service etc as part of the package. It's just part of the consumerism. Further down the scale, if you can't spend the money you might be able to spend the time.
I keep coming back to how many even mid level productions pick up off the shelf equipment and then modify and bolt on all sorts of stuff to bypass all the camera's internal processing and get it to spit out the sort of stuff that this one will already. Lots of people modding the hell out of their DSLRs and pro-sumer level cameras for that first indie feature are going to be intrigued by this kind of thing. The hacker spirit is alive and well with them. I doubt it would matter if the manual was in Mandarin, even though it's not.

Dan: Do I read you right that you can over crank the s8, at least, to 220fps? At full frame?
They don't mention that feature on the site. That's amazing if true. They should put that in big bold letters. Every low budget video artist, music video maker and general experimentalist would want one.

Re: S35 digi cinema camera for US$8000
 

About the overcrank, the sensor in the production cameras may be different from the prototype I'm using for development of the color matching, de-Bayer, and freeish work-flow option.

Right now the camera is just shooting fixed sync speeds under crystal control, the sensor area varies with the speed once the sensor clock is maxed out. 220fps is not full sensor width like the mode I am shooting the demos with.

The final resolution list is not finished yet, and if a faster sensor is used the top speeds would be higher, maybe.

==

I think you are right about the mods, the KineRAW (tm) cameras are built to use like a movie camera including date+TOD and SMPTE time code and auto-slate including slate meta-data that can be burned into the processed workprint frames.

Its something that you can use like a movie camera, and uses standard SATA SSD format drives to record to, and has a second slot to put a notebook HDD into or another SSD to dump shots onto so you don't need to pack a note book computer around.

If the first models sell well they might have enough cash to improve the sensors later and maybe the overcrank range. But for now, if you are making a normal theatrical movie 24fps is the standard for making a DCP just as many of the great films of all time were ONLY shot 24fps in a Mitchell NC or BNC.

Re: S35 digi cinema camera for US$8000
 

Interesting.

If they made a S35 2K mini insert to fit the P+S Technik SI2K recorder unit body, capable of recording to DVR2, I might be interested.

The published frame grabs remind me in their general "look" of previously published frame grabs from the Kinor product offerings which were also in different film format frame sizes. I wonder if there is some shared tech in there somewhere.

Re: S35 digi cinema camera for US$8000
 

The S35 camera records True RAW to DNG (CinemaDNG) and Cineform (tm), so I don't see where the SI-2K (tm) adds something? Cineform (tm) is supported by various workflows and can be converted to DNG and DPX etc. for additional workflows.

I don't think there is any connection to the look of the S35 results and Kinor-2K (tm), I have sample DNG from both cameras and I see not relationship.

The KineRAW-S35 is like G5 development of the Kinefinity (tm) camera series that has been going on for about 4 years.

The RAW sensor data can be graded in many ways and its look depends in part of the software used to de-Bayer it.

My free de-Bayer program DANCINEC.EXE (tm) is only one of many workflow options.

Re: S35 digi cinema camera for US$8000
 

I just got a firmware update for the KineRAW-S8p (tm) that includes viewfinder anamorphic un-squeeze options for anamorphic lenses of 1.25:1, 1.33:1, 1.5:1, 1.75:1, and standard 2:1 squeeze lenses.

That should take care of just about all the known types made. I assume that it will also be included in the other cameras, S35 and S16.

2:1 lenses are used with the 1828x1556 Cineon (tm) Panavision (tm) mode.

1.75:1 lenses can be used with the 1920x1440 mode (4:3) for getting 2.35:1

The 16:9 modes can be used with 1.33:1 lenses to get 2.35:1

The 4:3 modes can be used with 1.33:1 lenses to get 16:9

The other adapters are sort of non-standard or rare, but supported. Additional resolutions may be added to get standard ratios from them later.

Some other improvements were also made, like automatic advance of the sound take number for the slate information meta-data of the auto-slate.

Re: S35 digi cinema camera for US$8000
 

I got word from Kinefinity (tm) in China that they have just gotten two working prototypes of the revised KineRAW-S35 (tm) from the factory, and they are shooting CinemaDNG and Cineform (tm) with them.

There making some tweaks to the firmware and a few other things, but shooting should be able to start before too long on some new demo footage. I'm not sure what the maximum resolution is currently, but I think 2048x1080 is supported for making DCP for projection in digital movie theaters, as well as HD mode.