The Sony a6400 might not be the perfect camera for video. But it has a superior autofocus engine which is really impressive to play with. With version 2.0 of its firmware Sony have improved the autofocus even more. This time it’s all about eyes. Animal eyes. image credit (lion): Jeff Rodgers | unsplash.com Sony is not new to the animal eye AF game. Its a7 III and a7R III full frame mirrorless offerings already sport animal eye AF in real time (article here). Now, around 8 weeks later, the s6400 is part of the pack, too. Check out our own Johnnie’s video review of the Sony a6400 here! Oddly, other Sony mirrorless cameras, such as the a9 or the a6300/a6500 a still behind in terms of this new animal eye AF. Sony a6400 Real-Time Animal Eye AF Real-time AF for tracking animal eyes? This feature might not be on your top 10 list for video features but it is a thing for wildlife filmmakers and, of course, photographers. This new mode is fueled by AI (artificial intelligence) and machine learning algorithms  and these make it possible to detect and focus on eyes. Human eyes were the target first, now the algorithms expand to animal eyes, too. Cats (including big, wild ones) and dogs are already implemented, other animals, including birds in flight will follow. The system will detect eyes of very different species, so the underlying AI is a fundamental part of the system to work properly. Think of some kind of database which the cameras autofocus system will refer to in order to recognize the animals unique features (and even anticipate movements). The AI is smart enough to stay on target even if the eyes are blocked in frame, turned away for a short period of time or if the scene is backlit. Availability The new firmware v2.0 can be downloaded over at Sony’s website for both Windows and MacOS operating systems. Upgrading requires a USB connection between your computer and the camera and you should have a fully charged battery handy. While all these added features are cool, we still desperately waiting for another kind of update. An update about the upcoming Sony a7s III, am I right? What do you think about this data driven autofocus thing? Are you using animal eye AF already? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

What’s the secret sauce to that cinematic look? One of the ingredients is using anamorphic lenses rather than spherical ones, that’s for sure. Vazen is a new company and their first product is a pretty special lens: A 40mm T2 1.8x anamorphic prime lens designed for micro four thirds sensors. Vazen, or VZ for short, is not the first brand to launch anamorphic lenses for MFT (mirco four thirds) sized sensors. But this Vazen 40mm T2 anamorphic, the first out of a set of three lenses, seems to offer a well-made housing along with very decent optical performance. First tests will tell us more about the quality of this lens but it looks good, indeed. Vazen 1.8x Anamorphic This 40mm prime is the first lens of the set of three lenses in total. A 28mm and a 65mm will follow towards the end of 2019. The 40mm will be available by the end of June. The lens itself is pretty heavy (3.97 lbs / 1.8kg), so expect to tweak your existing rig in order to support it a bit if necessary. As you can see below, the Vazen dwarfs an attached LUMIX GH5. You can blame the front anamorphic design and the 110mm front element for this. Both, the focus ring and the iris ring sport standard 0.8mod cine gears and the focus throw is 300°, which is very handy when using a follow focus, but not so much when operating the focus ring with your hand. Minimum focus distance is 2.7′ (82 cm). The Vazen line of new lenses offers a 1.8x anamorphic squeeze, which is not quite the 2x “Hollywood” squeeze but – given its MFT design – it gives you an impressive 2.39:1 aspect ratio when used with 4:3 MFT sensors found in the Panasonic LUMIX GH5 or the Z Cam E2. The BMPCC 4K can also handle this Vazen lens, yet since it sports a 16:9 sensor some cropping will be necessary in post. According to Vazen, the anamorphic front element creates buttery smooth oval bokeh, signature blue horizontal flare and the widescreen cinematic look. Since seeing is believing, you can watch two short demo clips of the Vazen 40mm T2 below: It definitely looks pretty good to my eye, but again, we’ll have to wait for a few more tests and see if the look matches the build quality and how this lens performs under varying conditions. Pricing and Availability The first lens (40mm T2) will be available by the end of June and you can preorder it over at vzlens.com for $3,250. The other two lenses (28mm and 65mm) will be ready by the end of this year. Links: vzlens.com What do you think? Would you buy one of these lenses or do you prefer buying long-standing brands instead? What are your thoughts about anamorphic shooting on MFT sensors? Let us know in the comments below!

For this little review of the FeelWorld FW279 7″ LCD on-board monitor I compare it to my SWIT CM-55c 5.5″ LCD. In specs, it’s 7″ vs 5,5″ and 2200 nits vs 450 nits, but real world experience tells us there’s more to it. A camera is nothing without a monitor. Since the analogue, pure optical, days are gone, we need some kind of EVF or on-board monitor in oder to see what the camera is doing. This is a crucial part of our camera system of choice and that’s why EVFs tend to be pretty expensive. On-board monitors, on the other hand, come in a wide range of sizes, features and price tags. Whether you need an additional on-board monitor for your director, your AC or for yourself might boil this list down a little bit but in the end you have to make a choice. For me the choice was price vs features. I needed an affordable, yet feature-packed LCD for my Ronin-S gimbal. Since both, the FeelWorld FW279 and the SWIT are well under $300, I thought it might be a good idea to compare them. Read my initial thoughts about the aforementioned SWIT CM-55c here. FeelWorld FW279 7″ Ultra-Bright LCD Two buzzwords speak for this FeelWorld model in comparison to the SWIT. It’s 7″ rather than 5.5″ and it sports a 2200 nits display which might be a good choice when shooting in bright sunlight. Bright and big, but is it any good? For me personally, the size of the SWIT is a better fit for the Ronin-S, which is already pretty big on its own to be honest. I don’t really need a 7″ screen for that since I’m mostly pretty close to the screen while operating the gimbal. 2200 nits in comparison to 450 nits might sound amazing but in reality I found that the 450 nit SWIT is sufficient for my work. Make no mistake, The FeelWorld is certainly much brighter but the screen is also super reflective which makes it hard to work in direct sunlight. The Swit comes with a flimsy sunshade but it’s better than nothing, at least for me. I prefer attaching a sunshade rather than a super bright yet reflecting screen. The SWIT’s sunshade is not great but at least you get one. The FeelWorld neither comes with a sunshade nor with any kind of mounting bracket for one. The image looks good on the FeelWorld, it has very little input lag and the colors look accurate to my eye. In bright sunlight, the 2200 nits play well above the 450 nits of he CM-55c but as stated above the screen itself is pretty reflective so it’s still a bit hard to see what’s going on while out and about. A sunshade would have been a great addition I think. Hardware In general, the chassis of both of these monitors feels plasticky and pretty lightweight. When mounting the SWIT to a Noga arm you have to be careful not to break the plastic. On the other hand, the SWIT comes with two 1/4-20 mounting points (one on the bottom, one on the side) while the FeelWorld only comes with one single mounting point on the bottom. Mounting an articulating arm to the FeelWorld FW 279. Both Monitors are HDMI only (There is another FeelWorld model with SDI in/out, but it’s over $300). The SWIT only offers a HDMI in while the FeelWorld has a loop-through, too. It also comes with a headphone jack and, I really don’t know why, a speaker on the back of the unit. Why would anyone want a speaker in their on-board monitor? It took me a while to figure out how to turn the volume down to zero because the speaker started to emit horrible feedback noise once it was connected to the camera and therefore to the built-in microphone. The SWIT does sport a headphone jack but there’s no speaker to be found. Good. Furthermore the SWIT allows for either Canon LP-E6 or Sony NP-F batteries with its two-way battery compartment, which is pretty cool I think! SWIT CM-55C battery compartment. You also can juice another device with the battery attached to the SWIT, for example your camera. You just need a DC coupler which fits your camera and a cable to connect the coupler to the SWIT. The power output is not regulated, though, so make sure to check your cameras power input requirements before connecting it. A maybe minor thing is the dedicated on/off switch on the back of the SWIT. I’m highlighting this because the FeelWorld comes with 8 buttons on top of the unit and one of them is the power button. Press it once, even just for a split second, and the monitor will shut down. Or, maybe even worse, it might power up in your bag if a battery is attached to it and that button gets accidentally pressed. Speaking of power, the FeelWorld is powered by either a Sony NP-F battery or a DC 12V input via a standard barrel connector. The battery plate seems to be swappable but I couldn’t test this. On the top plate of this monitor there are 8 buttons in total: The aforementioned power switch, 4 arrow buttons, 2 custom function buttons and a menu button. The arrow buttons are for navigating the menu system and this is a bit of a painful process. The menu system itself is pretty rudimentary and you will have to gain a lot of muscle memory in order to navigate it with these 4 buttons without looking.. I accidentally switched off the screen more than once. It might not look pretty but it does the job. You can customize values like color temperature, brightness, saturation and red or green gain for example. It’s all there but sometimes it’s a bit hard to get there. Since the FeelWorld sports a massive 2200 nits I found it interesting to check the battery life when set to max brightness (which is way too bright for indoor shooting, by the way). With an Atomos 5200mAh /38.5Wh NP-F style battery I could power the unit for just under 2 hours. The SWIT consumes only 5.5W in comparison to the 18W of the FeelWorld so you can run it forever with just one battery. Both units get pretty warm, the FeelWorld gets almost hot I would say. The SWIT only has one knob (plus the power switch on the back). That know is a four-way joystick plus a button. It looks quite similar to the SmallHD 500 series. Once we dive into the software, you’ll know why. Right next to the joystick there’s the second 1/4-20 mounting point. With it you can make use of the supplied swivel bracket for mounting the SWIT on your camera’s hot shoe. Software What’s even more important is the software running the screen. And in that respect the FeelWorld really feels a bit cheap. As stated before the menu system is really rudimentary. It’s all there but it feels as you are operating some DOS on your computer from the 90’s. The SWIT is way more intuitive although the joystick, especially the center button, is a bit wobbly sometimes. One major difference between both monitors is the SWIT’s ability to load LUTs via SD card. The FeelWorld LCD doesn’t sport a SD card reader and it doesn’t support LUTs whatsoever. That’s a bummer! The SWIT supports LUTs via SD card. The SWIT comes preloaded with a lot of Log->Rec.709 profiles for different cameras but you also can load your own LUTs of choice. Just like the SmallHD 500 series you can create pages with different sets of tools. For example you set up one page with 2.35:1 guides, peaking and 95% zebra, another one with just a LUT and another one with false color for checking exposure. Once the pages are set up you can flick through them with the joystick. The FeelWorld does offer these tools, too, but you have to come back to the menu system for each and every change. The only exception are the two F keys which can be assigned for the two most common tools, just like peaking or histogram. Specifications In order to compare these two monitors we need a few numbers. These are the most important specs of both monitors: FeelWorld FW 279 Display Size: 7.0″ / 17.8 cm Screen Resolution: 1920 x 1200 Aspect Ratio: 16:10 Viewing Angle: Horizontal: 160° Vertical: 160° Maximum Brightness 2200 cd/m2 Contrast Ratio: 1200:1 Power consumption: 18W @ max brightness Dimensions (W x H x D) 7.09 x 4.72 x 0.98″ / 180 x 120 x 25 mm Video Formats: DCI 4K (24 fps) / UHD 4K (up to 30 fps) / 1080p (up to 60 fps) SWIT CM-55c Display Size: 5.5″ / 14 cm Screen Resolution: 1920×1080 Aspect ratio: 16:9 (4:3 adjustable) Viewing angle: Horizontal: 178°; Vertical: 178° Brightness: 450cd/m2 Contrast Ratio: 1000:1 Power consumption: 5.5W Dimensions (W x H x D) 6.14 x 3.07 x 0.79″ / 156 × 78 × 20mm Video Formats: UHD 4K (up to 30 fps) / 1080p (up to 60 fps) So spec-wise these two monitors are not too much apart from each other, really. You just have to choose what you need. If you need a super bright, yet lightweight and relatively cheap, monitor for outdoor use: Go with the FeelWorld FW 279. If you need LUTs and 5.5″ is sufficient for you: go with the SWIT CM-55c. You want both? Go with the new SmallHD series 7 monitor, for example.. But that one is 7 times more expensive than the FeelWorld. You get what you pay for. Both monitors offer a bunch of software features in order to judge your image, of course. FeelWorld FW 279 Histogram Peaking Focus Assist (Red,Green,Blue three colors optional highlight over parts of the image in focus) False Colors / Zebra Exposure Nine Grid & Center Marker Scan Mode (Under Scan, Over Scan) / Zoom (4x,9x,16x) / Pixel to Pixel Anamorphic Mode (1.3x,2.0x,2.0x mag) Safe Area (80%,85%,90%,93%,96%,2.35:1) Ratio marker (4:3,13:9,14:9,15:9,16:9,1.85:1,2.35:1) Marker Color (Red,Green,Blue,White,Black） Check Field (Red/Green/Blue/Mono) Image Flip (H, V, H/V) Image Freeze SWIT CM-55c 2x 4x Quick zoom-in and Pan Focus assist and precision adjust Waveform / Vector / Histogram Build-in 20+ De-log 3DLUTs User DIT 3DLUT import by SD card 2-ch HDMI audio meters display Super False color, Zebra stripes, Anamorphic Image Flip Conclusion I personally like the SWIT CM-55c very much. It’s lightweight, it’s feature packed, it’s cheap and it’s perfect for my Ronin-S. The FeelWorld 7″ would have been a bit too bulky for that, I think. Plus, it lacks support for LUTs and that’s essential for me. When shooting with my FUJIFILM X-T3 I set it to F-Log recording all the time. I don’t really need a loop-through HDMI but it would have been nice to have. It’s all about making choices and my choice is to use the SWIT rather than the larger and brighter FreeWorld. Both monitors lack built quality but that is understandable regarding the low price tag. The aforementioned SmallHD series 7 is a far superior monitor, no doubt about it but you will have to pay for that supremacy. An on-camera monitor should match the hosting camera and in the case of my FUJIFILM X-T3 the SWIT is a perfect match, in regards to both, features and price tag. links: FW279 Website | CM-55c Website What kind of on-board monitor do you use? Share your experiences in the comments below!

Sony has announced a new major firmware release for their VENICE cinema camera. What’s worth noting that version 4.0 is yet to be released (scheduled for June 2019) but that doesn’t stop Sony to tease even more features for v5.0! If you are new to the Sony VENICE and the firmware 4.0 features, read our article here as a primer. Version 4.0, due next month, also adds support for an additional paid license that will enable the VENICE to capture 120 fps @ 4K 2.39:1 among other HFR options. Version 5.0, which is scheduled for a January 2020 release, will raise that bar even higher! Sony VENICE Firmware 5.0 According to Neal Manowitz, deputy president for imaging product and solutions Americas at Sony Electronics, the VENICE keeps evolving thanks to its powerful platform and ongoing development through firmware upgrades. Through an ongoing dialogue with cinematographers, we have continued to evolve VENICE to meet the needs of top talent. To date, more than 100 features and episodic productions have been shot on VENICE. The new Version 5.0 firmware will allow the camera to be even more flexible, ultimately increasing its benefit and versatility to all cinematographers. Firmware version 5.0 will offer the following enhancements: Up to 90fps at 6K 2.39:1 and 72fps at 6K 17:9 Apple ProRes 4444 – Record HD videos in high picture quality with SxS PRO+, without 
Sony’s AXS-R7 recorder 180 Degree Rotation Monitor Out – Flip and flop images via viewfinder and SDI High Resolution Magnification via HD Monitor Out – Existing advanced viewfinder technology for clearer magnification is now extended to HD Monitor Out Improved User Marker Settings – Menu updates for easier selection of frame lines on viewfinder ACES Support – VENICE has joined Sony’s F65, F55 and F5 in earning the ACES logo, meeting the specifications laid out in the ACES Product Partner Logo Program Firmware 4.0 already sports quite impressive high frame rate modes such as 120fps at 4K 2.39:1, 60fps at 6K 3:2 or 110fps at 4K 17:9 but FW 5.0 will trump these. This is particularly interesting since only software is being upgraded here, the underlying hardware remains the same. Sony seem to have build their VENICE camera on a very solid hardware platform which is of course gratifying for the filmmaking community. Pricing It seems that firmware 5.0, including its HFR capabilities, will be free of charge and available as a “normal” firmware upgrade for existing users. In contrast, the firmware 4.0 upgrade itself, due next month, will be free of charge but the optional HFR modes will be a paid upgrade. If you want to check out the VENICE without having to pay its asking price, you can head over to Sony’s VENICE menu simulator here. You can get a glimpse of what this camera is capable of but actually shooting with it is a different thing, of course. In the end this is a camera meant for serious high-level productions and its specs look amazing. But it’s not just the camera itself that makes a good movie… happy shooting! Links: Sony Product Page What do you think of this very future-proof camera? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

Think Hollywood. And now add the word “Zoom”. Like no other brand in the moving picture industry, the name Angénieux is tied to these two buzzwords. However, the very same company just announced a very different set of lenses: Angénieux Optimo Primes, a complete set of 12 prime lenses, ranging from 18mm all the way up to 200mm. Modern zooms lenses, no matter what brand, are most likely based on findings by the late Pierre Angénieux. Specifically his findings about zoom lenses with mechanical compensation and retro focusing elements are still implemented in most professional zoom lenses built today. Angenieux is known for their top notch cinema zoom lenses, such as the famous Optimo Style 25-250mm T3.5 or their EZ-1 and EZ-2 zooms. But what about prime lenses? In order to mix’n’match Angénieux zoom lenses with other brands prime lenses at least a little bit of tweaking in post is necessary and since we’re talking about optical devices there’s no such thing as a 100% match. Angénieux Optimo Primes Enter Optimo Primes. These freshly announced prime lenses inherit all of Angénieux’ look and feel but with fixed focal lengths. In other words: They match the readily available zooms perfectly. There will be a total of 12 Optimo Prime lenses: Q3 2020 21mm T1.8 28mm T1.8 40mm T1.8 50mm T1.8 75mm T1.8 135mm T1.8 Q4 2020 18mm T1.8 32mm T1.8 100mm T1.8 Q2 2021 24mm T1.8 60mm T1.8 200mm T1.8 Each of these 12 Optimo Prime lenses offers a massive 46.5mm image circle (larger than full frame) which is just .7mm shy of the RED MONSTRO’s and WEAPON’s VV 8K FF requirement of 47.19mm. Furthermore the Optimo Prime lenses come with a interchangeable mount system which supports LPL, XPL, PL, Nikon F, Canon EF, and Panavision XL mounts. Family portrait (18mm & 200mm still missing here) Lens data comes in two flavors: Cooke/i and Arri LDS will be supported. I think the interchangeable mounts paired with the large image circle and the built in support for lens data makes this set of lenses pretty versatile and future proof. Pricing and Availability You guessed it: Since these Optimo Primes bear the name Angénieux, they won’t be cheap. At all. Prepare your wallet (and yourself) for around $23,000 – $31,000 per lens, depending on the focal length of choice. The first six lenses will be ready in Q3 2020, the full kit will be available by spring 2021. Link: bandpro | Angénieux Do you have some spare coins to spend? What do you think about Angénieux entering the prime lens market? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

Back in 2018, Pomfort released their standalone offloading tool Sliverstack Offload Manager. Now version 1.1 is ready and it comes with a small, yet powerful feature: Offload footage from multiple sources in parallel, increasing your workflow significantly while maintaining the rock-solid checksum verification, of course. Pomfort is known for their high-end software covering everything a professional DIT might need on set. The relatively new Silverstack Offload Manager uses the same offloading and verification engine as the mighty Silverstack / Silverstack XT but without anything beyond offloading and reporting. If you are new to the Silverstack Offload Manager, you can read (and watch) our coverage here. Just a word of warning for Windows or Linux users: Silverstack Offload Manager is Mac only. Pomfort Silverstack Offload Manager 1.1 Version 1.1 now adds a small yet mighty feature: parallel offloading from multiple sources. You can define how many sources you need and then just add offloading jobs to the (parallel) queue. This feature depends on quite powerful hardware of course. Just adding a multi USB hub to one single USB port won’t get you blazing fast transfer speeds. However, if your machine can provide the needed performance and USB or Thunderbolt lanes, this feature will dramatically speed up your offloading workflow. Everything else stays about the same: Rock-solid checksum verification, extended reporting and the streamlined interface. I personally like the UI very much. I think it’s clean, yet provides sufficient information at a glance. Other solutions such as Hedge for example offer an even cleaner UI but sometimes I find it too minimal. Pricing – Perpetual vs. Temporary Licences Pomfort Silverstack Offload Manager is only available as a one-year or as a short-term license. You can’t purchase a perpetual license. This is of course unfortunate but it is as it is. If you’re using such a software all day, every day, the $139 (119 €) asking for a 1-year license might offer a good value. But if you need the Offload Manager just for one project, a short-term license ( 14 days for $35 / 29 € or one month for $49 / 42 €) might be a better fit. Bundled with these licenses comes free e-mail support and access to Pomfort’s comprehensive knowledge base. Licenses can be migrated to other Macs, too. You will also get all updates within your licensed timeframe, of course. To ease the pain, the clock only starts ticking when you actually activate your purchased license, yo you can buy now and activate it the minute you need it on set. Furthermore, all these temporary licenses will not renew automatically, so this isn’t a subscription. Link: Pomfort Website What do you think? Do you use any offloading software? Which one? Let us know in the comments below!

This new little gadget is called Pilot Era and it claims to be the first all-in-one 8K 360° VR camera with in-camera stitching. No post-processing needed. The camera is in the midst of an Indiegogo campaign right now so let’s have a closer look, shall we? Pisofttech (spelled Pi-Soft-Tech, just to be clear) is the company behind this new Pilot Era camera and according to them it is a fully self-containing device, no extra accessories needed. When acquiring VR or 360° footage you usually end up with either a very limited image quality or with a giant and cumbersome rig and lots of post-processing. The Pilot Era seems to solve that and Pisofttech claim to offer high quality 8K 360° footage while maintaining a very compact form factor. The Pilot Era 8K 360° Camera The aim with the Pilot Era seems to be usability. The unit itself fits in your hand and comes with everything you need to start shooting immediately: Four 12MP Sony CMOS sensors, each equipped with a f/2.2 aspherical fisheye lens 9-axis image stabilization via gyroscope 3.1″ 800 x 480 TFT LCD touch screen 512 GB UFS (universal flash storage) built-in 7200 mAh battery – around 3.5hrs of 8K recording 4G and wifi module for stand alone live-streaming So we get everything we need to get start right away. Nice! No more external control via smartphone app, no stitching in post, no need for multiple SD cards, the list goes on. In order to get a better idea of this camera, watch the Indiegogo campaign video below: So where’s the catch? Well, while this camera might be a decent tool for most of your 360° video needs, it certainly has some downsides for professional use cases. You can’t swap out the internal storage, for example. You have 512GB built in but you can’t expand that capacity via external media. Furthermore, the Pilot Era doesn’t seem to offer any kind of Log profile for now, not even a flat “HLG” type of profile. Hopefully, they’ll implement one in the future but for now the Pilot Era really seems to be a what-you-see-is-what-you-get device with convenience and ease of use as the top priority. Speaking of convenience: The Pilot Era really seems to be a handy device and you don’t have to watch tons of tutorial videos about 360° and VR in order to get decent results with this camera. And if you’re wondering why you’d need 360° video at all here’s a possible application: Pisofttech have implemented a feature which enables you to be a non-paid Google contributor who captures 360° content for the Street View section of Google Maps. Thanks to the built-in GPS module Google knows where you are and you can upload your footage from around the globe via the built-in 4G cellular (5G module is coming) and dual-band wifi connection. The touch screen is a really nice feature, as it eliminates the need for any external controls or monitors. The Pilot Era is built around a custom Android operating system, called Pilot OS. You still can connect your phone running the Pilot Go app for controlling the Pilot Era but you really don’t have to since you can control everything from the device itself using the touch screen.  I personally prefer having physical buttons on professional equipment but still, the screen is a nice, well,  touch. Another advantage of the underlying Android system is the possibility of OTA updates whenever new features are ready (Log profile, anyone?). The camera is capable of live stitching incoming footage for streaming it right out again. But it is limited to 7fps @ 8K and 30fps @ 4K in that mode. When stitching the footage in-camera (but not live) it is capable of processing 24fps @ 8K. Watch a sample 360° video @ 4K (you can set it to 8K) below: Of course, watching such a video on a laptop screen might not be as fun as using a dedicated viewing device such as the Oculus Rift S for example. Specifications The Pilot Era 8K 360° camera comes with some impressive specs, indeed. If it holds up in terms of image quality remains to be seen, of course. The Indiegogo campaign already succeeded its funding goal by almost 500% and it’s still live until June 7th. The $1.799 super early bird offer is already gone but you still can get a Pilot Era for $1.999. An extra battery is yours for an additional $65. The good thing is: You won’t have to wait for months and months until the camera finally (and hopefully) ships. The estimated shipping date is June, so right after the campaign closes. (Still, please keep in mind that Indigogo is not a shop or market place and there are certain risks when backing up a project). Link: Indiegogo campaign Are you into 360° video and/or VR? Share your thoughts about this new camera in the comments below!

ftrack Review is the latest contender in the reign of online reviewing tools. But this one has the advantage of being the little brother of an established project management tool. Collaboration. That’s a big thing nowadays, even more so since many one-man-band creatives working all over the world, trying to connect to each other and, well, to collaborate. A tool is needed and that tool should tick all the boxes: 1) Ease of use. 2) Universal app, preferably in a browser and accessible through any device, desktop or mobile. 3) Flexible file types, not only video. ftrack Review Enter ftrack Review. This is the latest addition to ftrack Studio, a popular project management and production tracking tool. ftrack Review is the little brother to ftrack Studio, so to say. Its focus lies on the reviewing process only without the project management tools found in the Studio version. Therefore it’s more accessible for individuals such as indie filmmakers and it reduces clutter you might not need if you don’t work in a studio environment. ftrack Review runs entirely in the cloud and you access it via your browser of choice – even on a mobile phone. Just upload the (video-) file in question to the ftrack cloud and let your clients review it. Workflow After setting up your account (or a free 7-day trial, as I did), you’re asked to create your first project. After that you have to create a new review container in that project. Whitin that container you can add anything. All kinds of video files, different types of images, entire edits, multi-page PDFs, you name it. Lastly ftrack asks you to invite people to actually review your uploaded files. That’s it. It is all happening in your browser of choice and everything is kept securely in the included 250GB chunk of ftracks cloud. Everybody you’ve invited to review your files will get an email with a link which takes them directly to their browser. Each comment, visual remark or request will populate in a chat-like box right beneath the given asset and you plus your team mates associated with the given project will get a notification via email. Furthermore each remark is timestamped to the frame on which it is made. So everybody knows exactly what is going on. Once everybody is happy, assets can be marked as approved. Done, moving on. And if there is still something to tweak, just upload the same file with the same filename again and it automatically gets versioned up. You don’t have to involve clients in order to collect a first round of feedback. The same tools can be used for an internal review with just your team members involved. After that, invite your client and off you go. ftrack review keeps track of all changes, comments, versions and approved files so you don’t have to. Every workspace gets 250GB of storage and unlimited projects, review sessions and participants. But remember, you have to pay for each team member (not clients but active team mates who can access the back end, upload files etc.). You also can output a PDF summery containing every comment on each asset. Everybody should be on the same page, right? ftrack Review vs ftrack Studio ftrack Review is actually included in ftrack Studio but the Studio version is much more than just a reviewing platform. It’s a fully-fledged project management and production tracking tool. It’s more expensive, it’s more advanced and it’s certainly more focused on larger studios rather than one-man-band creatives. That’s why ftrack decided to roll out ftrack Review as a standalone product. And I think this is really great! What ftrack Review lacks is deep integration into popular NLEs such as Premiere Pro, Final Cut Pro X or DaVinci Resolve. ftrack Studio offers fully-fledged project management. The Studio version offers a bunch of integrations plus a flexible Python API for exactly these deep integrations but the Review part of ftrack doesn’t. Plus, to be honest, I’d be a bit overwhelmed to code my own integration.. So maybe, just like its bigger brother, ftrack Review might see some dedicated integrations in the future. That would be nice to see, indeed. Frame.io is a good example for neatly integrating such a service into different NLEs. Pricing ftrack Review, just like ftrack Studio, is billed on a per-user basis. A user is a team member who is allowed to access projects and upload data. A user is not to be confused with a client. You can have as many clients as you wish without being charged a penny. A client will get notifications once you invite someone to review your uploaded assets. A client doesn’t require a login, the provided link in the invitation email is all they need to access your ftrack Review portal. For using ftrack Review you will be charged $15 per month per user. However you also can choose a yearly payment which is $120 per user per year ($10/month) and ftrack also has a special offer for that tier until May 31: 50% off the monthly price for one year, so $7.50 per user per month instead of $15. After the first year your account will automatically be transferred to the yearly tier ($120/user). A free 7-day trial is also available (no credit card required). You can add as many users as you wish, just be sure to adjust this number before the trial ends. link: website What do you think? Just another collaboration service or finally the right tool for your needs? Share your thoughts in the comments below!