Another new camera: The Panasonic GH3 – uncompressed hdmi

Well, what can I say, it’s getting ridiculous with all the new cameras, it really is. My advice: Don’t buy a camera, there’ll be a new one tomorrow. Rent it, it’s cheaper!

The Panasonic GH2 and its hacked version has been extremely popular among indie filmmakers. Now let’s see if the GH3 is a worthy successor.

The first thing that stands out is the uncompressed hdmi out signal, which means you’ll be able to record the feed externally in better quality via a disk recorder like the Atomos’.

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IBC 2012 – Atomos Ronin – the portable deck

We thank our sponsor B&H who
has made cinema5D’s news
coverage of IBC 2012 possible.

Get your gear through B&H to support this platform: www.bhphotovideo.com

Atomos had something else nice to show us. We really like how this company reacts to market needs and listens to the customers. The Ronin is just what I would’ve needed on my shoot with the Alexa two weeks ago

Description from the website:
The Ronin portable Recorder/Player/Monitor is a smart solution for both fixed-facility and on-location video production. Based on the award-winning Samurai field recorder, the Ronin features touchscreen ease of use, capture to Apple ProRes® or Avid DNxHD◊, professional monitoring and edit review. Like the Samurai, it can operate on location with battery or DC power, but it can be used in a fixed facility, rack-mounted environment using AC power.

More info on the Atomos website: http://www.atomos.com/ronin/

IBC 2012 – Canon EOS C100 is in love with the Ninja

We thank our sponsor B&H who
has made cinema5D’s news
coverage of IBC 2012 possible.

Get your gear through B&H to support this platform: www.bhphotovideo.com

Jeromy Young and his disk recorders have been featured on cinema5D many times. That is not only because his products are targeted at people who want to get the best out of their cameras for the least amount of dinero, but also because Atomos has a vision and follows it obsessively. They keep close relations with all camera manufacturers and make sure their gear integrates with it in a simple yet effective way.

In this interview Jeromy explains in detail why it’s nice to work with a disk recorder like the Ninja 2. It is confirmed that the C100 outputs a 4:2:2 signal through the hdmi port which the Ninja can record via a start-stop trigger signal and save to your editing ready ProRes 422 codec. If you go that route you basically end up with a file that has better compression than a Canon C300, if that is what’s important for you.

The Ninja 2 is available for $995:

The Canon EOS C100 has just been made available for pre-order.
The pricetag says $6499:

CLEAN HDMI OUT on Canon T4i / 650D [UPDATE: problems]

Johnnie Behiri just confirmed that the Canon T4i seems to be Canon’s first HDSLR camera that has a clean hdmi-out feed!

Is it usable?
That’s an important question. Initial testing was done with an Atomos Ninja 1 and the footage had some issues. The signal is clean, but further testing has to be done to see if the 650D’s signal is actually usable for external recording.

Canon & Atomos have been contacted to make sure they can work out any issues here. We’ve seen a similar situation before when the Nikon D800 & Atomos Ninja combination posed some challenges that have now been resolved.
A source of the problem could also be the fact that the camera used was a beta model.

What does it mean?
Up until this day all Canon HDSLR cameras had overlays within the hdmi signal that could not be removed making an external recording impossible. The signal coming from the beta Canon T4i / 650D tested is clean.

In theory having a clean signal means that you can record the video feed to an external device like the Atomos Ninja and get a ready to edit, quality encoded Apple ProRes file.

The signal from the beta 650D seems to be routed to the hdmi port before it is being compressed. There are definitely less compression artifacts in the footage recorded on the Ninja than in the h.264 internally compressed files.

The Canon Rebel T4i / 650D kit with the 18-55 STM lens is still in stock at B&H. If any of you can do further testing please let us know the details.

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