At this NAB show, we caught up with Atomos’ Jeromy Young and he walks us through the brand new ProRes RAW format and everything there is to know about it. Let’s dive right in! ProRes has always been the go-to standard (on a Mac, at least) when it comes to NLE-friendly postproduction workflows since it’s not only an aquisition codec but an intermediate and possibly a delivery codec as well. The all-new ProRes RAW is no exception, it’s RAW for the masses. Apple ProRes RAW Atomos and Apple have teamed up to develop this new format. It’s designed to simplify and streamline the sometimes cumberstone RAW workflow. Every camera manufacturer has its own RAW format and you’ll need to adapt to all kinds of workflows here. The only exception would be cinemaDNG here but that’s not a very NLE-friendly format, too. ProRes RAW, on the other hand, has usability right built-in. It is designed to cover everything from capturing straight to editing and grading. It gets you the usability of ProRes combined with the flexibility of RAW. But keep in mind: Only Apple FinalCut Pro X 10.4.1 supports this new format for the time being. Others will follow, that’s for sure. Sensor data processed in-camera. Video cameras normally process the RAW sensor data (individual sensels in a Bayer pattern) internally and create RGB video pixels which are then being compressed to the recording codec. The processing is baked in and can not be manipulated afterwards. The ProRes RAW workflow on the other hand takes all the RAW data and records it straight to the ProRes RAW format. This enables you to manipulate the demosaicing within FinalCut Pro X. Since the ProRes format is NLE-friendly, no additional rendering or transcoding is needed. You can start editing, grading and fine-tuning right away. ProRes RAW workflow. Two flavours of this new format are available: ProRes RAW could be seen as the equivalent to ProRes 422 HQ in terms of data rate. And then there is ProRes RAW HQ, which is the ProRes 4444 XQ of RAW. We’re looking at a compressed RAW format here and this actually makes a lot of sense. Uncompressed 12-Bit RAW will urge the need of bringing vast arrays of very fast SSDs to your shoots in order to keep up with the data rate. If you want to dig deeper in to the inner workings of ProRes RAW, this whitepaper (PDF) created by Apple might be worth a closer look. Atomos, Apple & DJI The more recent Atomos monitors/recorders have ProRes RAW support built-in already. You can download new firmware versions which enable the support for ProRes RAW for the Shogun Inferno and Sumo 19 monitors/recorders right now. You can download these here. These firmware updates enable you to record very high quality RAW data up to 12-Bit (depends on your cameras’ capabilities, of course) straight to ProRes RAW. Furthermore the freshly announced Atomos Ninja V is at least capable of recording ProRes RAW, too. It’s not licensed for that yet but I guess it’s only a matter of time (and a matter of cameras being able to output RAW over HDMI). A bunch of cinema cameras capable of outputting RAW data. Is yours among them? DJI have some updates ready for their X7 camera, too. You’ll need to wait just a littler for this, though. It should be ready in May this year. I’d say compressed and ready-to-edit RAW straight from a very portable drone camera sounds pretty impressive! All in all ProRes RAW could be the solution for others to follow. No more different proprietary RAW formats for each and every camera and no more ridiculously large file sizes with uncompressed RAW formats. Let’s see where this is leading us in terms of RAW and HDR workflows. Links: Apple whitepaper (PDF) | Atomos.com | DJI.com What do you think of this move by Apple? Does RAW finally become mainstream? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

Atomos have just revealed the newest addition to their lineup of monitors/recorders. The Atomos Ninja V, as in 5, is a 5-inch HDR monitor which is capable of recording almost everything you throw at it. But only via HDMI. The customers demanded for a more portable version of the bigger devices in Atomos’ lineup, such as the Shogun Inferno, but with the same set of features in terms of HDR and high frame rates. The company listened and here it is: The Atomos Ninja V. Atomos Ninja V This is a monitor/recorder which really deserves the marketing term “portable”. For most users, a 5-inch screen is a good compromise between a reasonably large screen, while the overall size and weight are kept as low as possible. The weight is 320g (11 oz). The Ninja V packs a lot of features for its small form factor. It’s a full HD 1920×1080 display, it supports recording up to 4K60p and with a standard NP570 battery (2600 mAh) it will run for up to one hour straight. The display is rated at 1000nits, which makes the unit usable even in bright sunlight. In terms of recording the Atomos Ninja V supports all the ProRes and DNxHR flavours you would expect it to support but there’s one more: ProRes RAW! The elephant in the room is this, though: There is no camera which outputs ProRes RAW over HDMI, yet. But once there is one, the Atomos Ninja V is ready for it. Also, the device is capable of HDR (PQ and HLG standards), just like the bigger Atomos devices. The capability of recording RAW is pretty impressive for such a small and lightweight device, all the other devices which can record such an amount of data are much bigger: The Shogun Inferno, the Ninja Inferno and the Sumo, of course. The engineers have managed to reduce the size of the SSD, called Master Caddy III, which made it possible to place the battery mount next to the SSD slot. This reduces overall bulk. The only downside is the lack of a SDI input on the Ninja V. But since it’s meant to be used with DSLRs and mirrorless cameras, it’s understandable why Atomos didn’t include those. Pricing and Availability The Atomos Ninja V is $695, which makes it a reasonable companion for DSLRs and mirrorless cameras. Shipping is scheduled for Q3 2018, which, according to Jeromy Young could be as soon as July. We’ll see if they can hold that deadline. Links: Atomos.com What do you think? Is this the kind of monitor/recorder you’ve been waiting for? let us know in the comments below!

We’re well into 2018, and NAB is around the corner. Let’s take a look at three technologies set to make a big impact to broadcast and production. If I had to pick three technologies that stand out as most significant to the immediate future of the production and broadcast industry, it would be IP, HDR and full color LED lighting. Let me explain why. What is IP? The convergence of high-performance video processing and computer hardware has been a logical technology development path for the past decade as processing power and networking bandwidth have increased. Many of the most powerful devices in a studio television production or outside broadcast pipeline is now effectively a combination of powerful computer processing with video I/O and some internal storage. What differentiates similar products on the market – and what you’re essentially investing in – is software. The Grass Valley LDX86 Universe 4K camera and XCU HD/4K XF IP provides 4K over a single wire 10GigE link Even today’s cameras are essentially computers with an image sensor and lens mount. Of course, there is still dedicated hardware involved, FPGA’s and ASIC’s are required to power the image processing pipeline, but essentially the capabilities and feature sets are defined in firmware (the built-in software that controls the hardware). At the consumer end of commercial television, set top boxes (also little computers) are receiving and decoding video streams for us to watch on our TVs, or we are decoding video streams directly on our smartphones and tablets. All of this is quite generic, low cost, common hardware, which is running –  you guessed it – more software. It’s simply not so much about the hardware anymore. It’s about software, and dealing with large amounts of data as efficiently as possible. This has significantly brought down costs and opened up a vast world of possibilities and flexible workflow scenarios that were impossible before. Video is Data Essentially we are dealing with computers talking to other computers at every point in the pipeline from image acquisition all the way to end user devices. We need to transition from seeing video as video in the traditional baseband sense, and rather see it as what it has essentially become: data. It is far more efficient for computers to be networked and deal with data as it has been in the IT domain for many decades, than to be converting to and from traditional baseband video in and out of all of our devices. The Grass Valley K-Frame production switcher offers 4K IP networking over 10GbE. IP simply stands for “Internet Protocol” and defines how computers have been communicating over networks long before our current transition to data-centric video workflows. The Grass Valley IP enabled family for a full end to end 4K IP broadcast and live production workflow. Whether we like it or not, video has become just another type of data. It takes on IT workflows, IT hardware, and IT vocabulary. It’s up to us to understand, accept, and make the transition. HDR Walk the show floor of any international broadcast trade show and you can’t help but notice everyone’s talking about a few things. These are IP, which I’ve introduced, UHD and HDR. These three technologies are intrinsically interlinked, and often co-enabled, although they are not necessarily co-dependent. You don’t have to have them all, and I would argue the most important of these to talk about next is HDR. HDR stands for High Dynamic Range, and it has to do with technologies and standards that allow us to capture, process, distribute and view video with a higher, more lifelike contrast ratio, and much brighter highlights than traditional HDTV standards (and television displays) to date have allowed. HDR does not necessarily have to mean UHD (Ultra High Definition). In fact, to the end viewer, HDR images at HD resolution have far more of an impact than UHD images in SDR (Standard Dynamic Range). Of course, the combination of HDR at UHD resolution makes the biggest impact of all, but for many broadcasters, the jump to UHD production and broadcast is simply not yet commercially viable. Thankfully, it is possible to lay the foundations for a UHD (and beyond) future without jumping the whole gap at once. The two technologies that will add the most value and lay this foundation are migrating towards an end-to-end IP infrastructure, and HDR at HD resolution. Getting into the various HDR standards competing for acceptance and their application is beyond this short explanation, but we have covered some of this in other articles in the past. A Revolution in Lighting: Bigger, Brighter, Better More color, more control, brighter and more vibrant images is where we are headed. All of this means greater viewer experience and more creative possibilities for us. It’s often difficult to navigate the landscape of new tech, as some things stick around and some don’t. The ARRI SkyPanel has become synonymous with the LED softlight, and the S360 is the largest and most powerful LED softlight available. Production and studio lighting technology is undergoing the most significant transformation in over a century. Relatively low-power, portable LED lighting solutions have of course been on the market for more than a decade, but have been far more of a compromise than any real revolutionary improvement. LEDs have suffered limited power, limited size, and inaccurate or poor spectral performance. This has all changed with the arrival of truly accurate, and fully color-tunable RGBW and RGBWW LED lights offering significant power output in the form of both large aperture soft lights and Fresnels. There is a technological theme running through everything I’ve covered, and that is the rise of computers and software in places we never thought we’d find them. Lighting is one surprising place where the integration of a micro-controller and clever control software (a “light engine”) is exactly what has transformed the humble LED light panel from a compromised solution into a creative tool the likes of which we’ve never seen. The Litepanels Gemini offers ultimate control of its calibrated RGBWW LEDs and is an example of the latest in LED lighting technology. Using software to map and control individual red, green, blue and white LED chips, it has become possible to implement truly accurate CCT curves over a wide color temperature range with +/- green in an LED lighting fixture. It is possible to precisely factory-calibrate every light individually to match a target profile, which means that every light performs identically. It has also become possible to dial in any color within the gamut of the light, and imitate entire gel libraries. Special effects and any number of control protocols can be enabled entirely in software. This kind of precision and control is the future of lighting whether in studio or on location, and has never been possible before. What do you think is most significant? Let us know in the comments.

The recent Los Angeles Creative Pro Users Group (LACPUG) meeting was dedicated to the main features of Final Cut Pro X 10.4. Thanks to LumaForge this presentation has been made available on YouTube. Read on for our summary of the best parts of the presentation.  There are basically 3 main features in version 10.4 of FCPX: 360 VR editing, advanced color grading and HDR support. Let’s discuss about them one by one. Color Correction and Grading The interface includes the Color wheels, Color Curves and the Hue and Saturation Curves.  There is a new option of manual white balancing the shot in order to correct the white balance. In my opinion it’s much more preferred than previous white balancing options found on FCPX.  Manual white balance One of FCPX’s main Achilles’ heel regarding color grading was its inconvenient color board. It was unclear how to use it and it didn’t match the popular interface of the color wheels from other platforms like Premiere Pro and Resolve, which caused external developers to design color wheel plugins especially for FCPX, like the great Color Finale developed by Denver Riddle. Now FCPX offers its own in-house color wheels, and it’s about time.  Color wheels Furthermore, the Color Curves makes it a much more trivial grading tool from a user experience point of view, and looks much more similar compared to the good old DaVinci Resolve interface, which is an improvement.  Also demonstrated was the new simplicity of adding new LUTs, which significantly facilitates the process when LUTs are needed.  Adding LUTs HDR feature It seems that these days HDR is one of the hot topics in our industry (see our detailed article here). FCPX now has the option to handle HDR inside the color gamut of Rec. 2020 in order to expand the range of the reds and the greens. Rec.2020 When grading HDR images, the scopes don’t stop at 100 anymore, but rather go up to 10,000, granting the colorist a huge range to play with while preserving image detail. Scopes reach over 100 Judging by the presentation, it looks like handling HDR on FCPX is a piece of cake. 360 VR FCPX 10.4 now offers the brand-new 360 Viewer, which allows you to work as if you’re viewing with a headset. 360 VR and Headset There is also an option for 360 titles, which – when combined with the magnetic timeline – seems to make titling a straightforward and friendly process. Furthermore, there are some 360 new filters (effects) to get started with.  360 filters and effects Editing 8K footage The ability to playback 8K footage on the iMac Pro was also demonstrated in the presentation, proving that the new iMac Pro and FCPX 10.4 could be a winning combination with the potential to smoothly handle 8K footage with effects applied. Indeed, playback went smooth without any drops in the timeline.  Watch the full presentation below: Conclusion  Based on this presentation, it really seems like FCPX is offering some powerful new features and capabilities. However, these “new” features don’t impress me as much: the old color palette should have been replaced years ago, and Premiere Pro already offered 360 editing capabilities.  There is, however, no doubt about the significant synergy between FCPX and iMac Pro which raises its credibility regarding demanding editing tasks. But we just have to wait and see if the 10.4 is powerful enough to edit an 8K feature. The most important “features” regarding pro editing are speed and reliability. We editors expect the software to get the job done without any delays or crashes. What do think about these features? Have you used FCPX 10.4 yet? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.

Sony’s first camera release of 2018 is the new a7 III. Defined as their full frame “basic model”, this video feature rich camera, its price tag and quality performance, are a good sign of what to expect next. Sony a7 III The Sony a7 III was just announced, and together with fellow leading journalists we were invited to London to see the camera, get a chance to hear about it and briefly explore its capabilities. In this short article I’ll be covering the video mode functionality of the new camera only. (Please see the above video interview I’ve conducted with Yann Salomon-Legagneur from Sony for additional information)   Sony a7 III body Introduction: First things first, this camera is Sony’s new entry level to the world of full frame photography and filming. Equipped with a new back illuminated Exmor R CMOS 24.2 Million pixels image sensor, you can see from the footage samples I took in the video above, that this is indeed a very capable piece of equipment.  What’s surprising: In a way, every video feature that the more expensive a7R III has, the new a7 III “basic model camera” can do even better! See my list below for more information. Sony a7 III mount Highlights of the new camera:  New 24.2 million pixels sensor 5-axis optical in body stabilisation system Full frame 4K (UHD) video recording in up to 30p (100Mbps) Full frame/APS-C switchable option, BUT this time the full frame mode has the upper hand when it comes to video quality! 6K full pixel readout via oversampling (but 4K recording) S-Log2 / S-Log3 / HDR (HLG) video recording (Basic sensitivity for S-Log mode is ISO 800)  1080p in up to 120 frames per second (100Mbps) Advanced autofocus system which is working well also in a high frame rate Silent autofocus operation with some of Sony’s latest lenses Sony’s latest generation of weather sealed camera bodies (a9 / a7R III style)  Long lasting new battery standard just like in a7RIII “AF on” button and joystick Touch screen operation  Dual SD slots with relay recording plus the possibility to simultaneously backup recording at the highest possible video resolution and data rate USB 3.1 (Gen 1) connectivity Lowlight capability is superb for a 24.2 MP Free 5 years extended warranty for Europeans    First impression:  The sample video footage inserted into the above main interview was all taken handheld. As you can see, the 5-axis in body stabilisation system is working well! Also, I deliberately decided to shoot with autofocus turned on in order to see how well it is functioning. I’m happy to report back that I was pleasantly surprised by its “out of the box” usability, especially considering the fact that I did not do anything special to adjust it. Last but not least, the lowlight performance is considerably good. There is one shot of a model in the video that I took at ISO 10,000. If this is what comes out from a 24.MP sensor already, I’m curious to see the level of light sensitivity the future “S” model will have! Conclusion:  For me, Sony just re-defined what an entry level camera model should look like. Considering its price point (€2300 for body only), this is a working tool that I would not hesitate to use on my next smaller production. In terms of video shooting capabilities, everything that the a7R III can do, this model can do better. In all honesty, it can give a good run for the ageing Sony a7S II. And again: the biggest competition for this new full frame camera can only be the yet-to-be-released Sony a7S III. Stay tuned. My full Sony a7 III review is coming soon. The Sony a7 III will be available to purchase at the beginning of April. Please share your thoughts about the new camera in the comment section below.  Full disclosure: Johnnie and other media representatives were guests at Sony Europe’ a7 III launch event in London, England. Sony paid transport for this one-day trip, but there was no other payment involved whatsoever. 

As we reported last month, Apple is now shipping the new iMac Pro. Like a lot of people, I was excited to get my hands on the fastest Mac ever created. Having tried it out on a project for the past two weeks, I thought I’d share my iMac Pro hands-on review with you all now. Out of the box The first thing I noticed, of course, was the beautiful slate grey finish of both the iMac Pro and its accessories. Now that black is back, I guess champagne gold won’t be far around the corner! Aside from its good looks, the next thing to tickle my fancy was the huge array of ports on the back. Having committed to updating all my peripherals to USB-C last year, I was already in good shape to take advantage of the four Thunderbolt 3 ports. The inclusion of four USB 3 ports were still welcome, however, as it meant my legacy external SSDs and DaVinci Resolve 14 dongle could easily be accommodated too. Configuration The unit I’ve been reviewing is the mid-range iMac Pro, which I think gives the best balance between cost and performance. This configuration can be yours for the princely sum of £6,332.50 excluding VAT… 27-inch, 10-bit, 500 nits brightness, Wide colour (P3), Retina 5K display (5120×2880) 3.0GHz 10-core Intel Xeon W processor, Turbo Boost up to 4.5GHz 64GB 2666MHz DDR4 ECC memory 2TB SSD Radeon Pro Vega 64 with 16GB of HBM2 memory Magic Mouse 2 – Space Grey Magic Keyboard with Numeric Keypad – Space Grey Now, I’m not for a minute going to pretend that that isn’t a lot of money to spend on a computer. However, those that refuse to see beyond the price are ignoring that this is a hell of a lot of premium hardware Apple are giving us. I’d argue it represents better cost per performance than the Mac Pro did when it re-launched in 2013, and pretty much every facility I visit has a Mac Pro in their suite(s). Upgradibility As you may have heard, the iMac Pro can’t be opened up by the end user, have its innards ripped out and be upgraded with new bits. This seems to have got some people rather cross, which I must say I find amusing. You can’t even stick a micro SD card in the £1,000 iPhone X, for goodness sake; why are people surprised that the iMac Pro isn’t user-upgradeable?! Seriously, though, while this may be of concern to a facility looking to kit out a building with many, many workstations – where their priority will be prolonging the usefulness of these systems to avoid having to sell/chuck out kit for as long as possible – it is of no concern to me, nor to most small businesses. For those who do want user-upgradeability, Apple is working on two new solutions right now – an external Thunderbolt 3 breakout box and an all-new modular Mac Pro. But for me personally, the last thing I am interested in is ripping apart my computer and swapping out components. After all, it’s not 1977 and I don’t spend my evenings at a home brew computer club! These days, I think most individuals simply buy the best thing they can afford that will eat up everything they throw at it, and when they feel like it’s not quite coping with what they’re asking it do to (probably in two or three years’ time) they will sell it and put that money towards the next one. And Apple computers still keep their value remarkably well, just check listings on eBay. Speed OK, I’ll be honest, this is not one of those reviews with lots of benchmarks. That information is already out there anyway and, to save you the bother of reading them, they all show that the iMac Pro is faster than anything else Apple has ever made. For me, I was far more interested in knowing whether or not it felt faster. Too often I buy something because it is 30% better at this, or 2x better at that, but you get it home and play with it, and those numbers just don’t translate into real life gains. So, rather unscientifically, I started editing a project I had logged on my MacBook Pro to see if I would immediately feel the difference. I did. Oh, boy, did I feel it! I mean, this thing is just silly fast. Every time it rendered, or analysed my clips for stabilisation or optical flow, I would watch with delight as the little background process wheel span around so fast, you’d miss it if you blinked. Playing back 4K, 6K, even 8K footage didn’t seem to bother it in the least. It would occasionally drop a frame here or there if I was playing back 8K ProRes 422 HQ, but 8K ProRes LT was fine and, quite frankly, the odd dropped frame here and there doesn’t stop you editing. The big real-world test for me was, could I edit 10-bit 50p 4K raw from my C200 natively, with no dropped frames and seamless changes in direction with the transport keys (I do like to rock back and forth on J and L when editing on the fly). The answer was a big fat YES. In fact, even if I deliberately whizzed my playhead back and forth as quickly as possible, it still skimmed through with ease, as if it were just some 8-bit compressed HD rubbish! ;) Now, one of the things that I do think is worth measuring accurately, is export times. I wanted to quantify how much time someone could expect to save when exporting multiple deliverables, as this is something that has a direct impact on everyone’s working day. I timed how long it took to do two exports of a 5m 46s case study I was delivering, and then compared that to my top-spec 2017 15” MacBook Pro. I exported a ProRes 422 4K 25p master and an H.264 HD 25p deliverable and here are the results: 15” MacBook Pro 2017 – Master Export – 11m 01s 15” MacBook Pro 2017 – Client Deliverable – 21m 43s iMac Pro – Master Export – 3m 10s iMac Pro – Client Deliverable – 6m 27s Just look at those numbers! People who buy the new iMac Pro might have to take up an extra hobby to fill up all their spare time! **UPDATE** My friend and fellow cinema5D writer, Tim Fok, asked me to do a head-to-head with his iMac 5K, as he was wondering if it was worth upgrading and wanted a direct comparison. So we both did a basic transcode with the same 51 second, 6K, .r3d file. We exported to HD Pro Res 4444, making sure all our settings were exactly the same in REDCINE-X PRO and here are our results: iMac Pro – 0m 56s iMac 5K (Late 2014), 4Ghz i7, 32GB RAM, AMD Radeon R9 4GB GPU – 2m 53s Conclusion I have several jobs booked in for February and March that need to be shot in raw and mastered in 4K, HDR. For me, the iMac Pro was designed for exactly these types of workflow. The incredible display is clearly designed to showcase this type of content and the horsepower is more than enough to cut and grade this stuff natively and quickly. As long as you configure it with a spec that will see you through the next two to three years, you won’t care about the lack of upgradability. And if you think that building a PC with the same spec hardware is going to save you a fortune, think again too. Once you factor in that outstanding display, you really aren’t that far off and, besides, you can’t put a cost on that lovely, shiny, black Apple logo ;) Are you considering spending big bucks on the new iMac Pro? Let us know in the comments!

Display technology has suppressed camera technology over the years, preventing filmmakers from unleashing their visual creativity. Nowadays, the boundaries are significantly reduced thanks to HDR TVs and HLG. HLG connected to HDR HDR (11 stops) vs SDR (6 stops) First, a word about HDR. HDR (which stands for High Dynamic Range) means being able to display a bigger brightness and contrast range. An HDR TV display contains and is able to present up to ten times as much brightness compared to a regular TV with SDR (Standard Dynamic Range) in Rec. 709.  It must be noted that not everything will be presented brighter in the HDR display. For example, a white piece of paper will be presented as pure white, but only direct sources of light will be presented brighter on a proper HDR display. A Rec.709 TV (Standard Dynamic Range) displays ONLY 5-6 stops – enough to present people, skin tones and other objects that fall between black and white, and delivers a perfectly usable image. Cameras are far more advanced than TVs in term of HDR Cameras have been capable of capturing much more than 6 stops for a long time now. For example, when shooting with a Log profile, a camera is capable of capturing 14 stops, but a TV will squeeze those into only 6 by the SDR (Rec.709) display, and we will see a flat and washed-out image. It is important to emphasize that there is no such thing “Flat” picture profile. Those milky images are caused by the limitations of the standard Rec. 709 TV dynamic range. In other words, when we shoot Log, we shoot HDR! HDR TVs as a filmmakers’s lifeline HDR TVs can display 11 stops of dynamic range, and thus have the ability to reproduce the full amount of stops in the Log/flat picture profile, which leads to a vivid and contrasty image. The video below by Alister Chapman presents a well-explained comparison between a Rec. 709 display and an HDR display receiving input from a camera shooting in a flat picture profile, and you can see the significant difference when switching between the two. Conclusion: When you are shooting Log, use an HDR monitor in order to see the image correctly. HLG – Hybrid Log Gamma as a great delivery option  HLG stands for Hybrid Log Gamma, which means a hybrid between Rec 709 and Log. It is available as a picture profile on cameras such as the Sony FS5, Sony a7RIII, Sony AX700 just to name a few. It must be noted that this is a delivery standard that has the ability to send HDR images to the display! Although this curve is optimized for delivery, it’s also a very capable gamma for acquisition and grading When you view HLG on a regular Rec 709 TV (SDR), you will get a perfectly usable picture. It does look a little bit darker due to the 75% white recording, but when you take this profile and view it on an HDR monitor, you will see a much more vivid picture with much greater and improved highlights! HLG delivers a signal that’s great for HDR but that’s usable for SDR as well.  Watch the below video by Alister Chapman to see the impact of HLG. Stops & NITS For further info regarding Stops & NITS watch that great video below Display technology is finally catching up to the cameras, so cinematographers and directors will be able to see what they are actually shooting in the most accurate way. Would you use HLG and HDR in your productions? Tell us in the comments below! 

The new Sony a7R III was announced yesterday during a well-coordinated world event, and cinema5D and other chosen media representatives were invited to hear all about the new camera and lenses, see some pre-produced footage and – most importantly – play with it for just a little bit in order to get a feeling and impression of Sony’s new creation. Sony a7R III – Body and Size Just prior to the event, I took the time to make a short interview with Sony’s Yann Salmon-Legagneur in order to get a better idea of what to expect. My conclusion after that short talk was that we are witnessing more of an evolution then a revolution, but this is fair enough. It is also interesting to see that Sony is slowly but surely moving away from the old a7xx body size in favour of manufacturing a larger body with a better hand grip and room to accommodate a stronger and larger battery – a much-needed improvement to drive all those power-consuming functions. Click to enlarge! Shot on the Sony a7R III – Image Credit: Johnnie Behiri HLG and HDR Among other improvements, photographers will enjoy a higher RAW bit depth (14 bit) and higher continuous shooting due to an increased buffer. For us moviemakers, Sony added an HLG (Hyper Log Gamma) picture profile so that HDR (High Dynamic Range) content can be filmed with extended clarity and beauty. Unlike the 3D flop, HDR is steadily catching up as more camera and display manufacturers incorporate it at affordable prices. If you’ve had the chance to watch some HDR content, you know how vivid and life-like it can seem. That said, for the short time I spent with the camera I decided to shoot in Slog 2 as Adobe Premiere does not yet support the HDR-flagged signal, meaning that although editing the footage would have been possible, exporting and uploading it to YouTube (for example) to watch in HDR would not have been. Autofocus Next on the list of improvements is the autofocus system. From first hand experience, I can say it is definitely working better that from what I’ve experienced so far with any other camera in the a7xxx family. It is fast, looks reliable and, most importantly, changing focus between objects in your frame is a breeze now with the addition of the small joystick at the back of the camera. EVF The EVF on the Sony a7R III has also been improved, as it is now fitted with the same higher-resolution one found on the Sony a9. I am happy to report that manual focusing has indeed become easier with the new EVF. Internal stabilization When it comes to the improved 5-axis stabilizing system, I’m not quite convinced yet. One of the reasons might be that I simply did not have a wide enough lens to try it with. It worked well when shooting with a telephoto lens, but more experimenting is needed. Proxy recording While shooting, I noticed a little “PX” mark next to the XAVC-S 4K 25p icon in the viewfinder. It took me a few minutes to find what it was, but it turns out it is now possible to simultaneously record proxy files for easier editing on slower machines, and “PX” indicates that the feature is activated. SD card slots & simultaneous recording The Sony a7R III is equipped with two SD cards slots but it seems like only photographers can enjoy this feature for now. I truly hope that the day will come when stills cameras that shoot high-quality video will implement this feature for the benefit of the video user. Relay recording and simultaneous backup while shooting is very much needed. EDIT (October 30th): We received feedback from Sony that it is indeed possible to record a backup simultaneously on card B while shooting on card A. That means that card A can be set to record 4K with proxies, and the same for card B at the same time. Also, it now has a relay feature for movie recording, meaning that the recording goes on on the other card, if one of the cards becomes full. USB: data transfer and power supply Last but not least, the new camera now incorporates 2 USB input/outputs. One of them is for fast data transfer (USB 3.1) and the other can serve to charge your camera from a computer or external battery pack. Lens  Taken with Sony 24-105mm f/4.0 lens The long-awaited Sony 24-105mm f/4 lens was also presented at the event. This specific focal length range is good enough for most run & gun uses, although I would personally appreciate a second wide-angle lens in order to comfortably work when DP’ing on documentaries. My first impression from using the lens is positive, as it is is sharp, easy to focus with both manually and in autofocus mode, is not so heavy and is silent. In my upcoming a7R III review, I will try to work with this lens as much as possible and report back with my findings. 5-year warranty in Europe (paragraph added on October 30th) Sony informed us that people who preorder the a7R III in Europe will get a 5-year warranty with their purchase. Conclusion There is no doubt that the Sony a7R III is an advanced shooting device, but its unveiling left me with two main questions: Is it worth the upgrade from a Sony a7R II or a7S II? Could the Sony a7S III that we all anticipate prove to be a better fit for us videographers? The answer to the first question really depends on the type of projects you shoot and the equipment you use. If you’re a photographer who occasionally shoots a few video clips, there is no doubt that the combined new high-end photo and video features found in the Sony a7R III are very appealing, especially as Sony is constantly adding good-quality glass to its line-up. If your work is mainly shooting videos, then I don’t have a clear answer just yet, but I’ll have a clearer idea after putting the camera through its paces. In regards to the question of a possible a7S III… Well, this is the million-dollar question. My assumption is that, at some point, Sony will have to differentiate between the two lines because the market today is not what it was 2 or 3 years ago when the advantage was so clearly in favour of Sony. I think that an upgrade should always be motivated because of at least one irresistible feature that could greatly contribute to your workflow. HDR recording is nice to have (although it is yet to be proven how good it is in an 8-bit environment), but for me personally, 10-bit recording and an internal ND filter might be a good reason to wait just a little longer, in the hopes that these kind of features will eventually make an appearance. Music for the above video: Binary Love – Broken Radios (find it on artlist.io HERE) Full disclosure: Johnnie and other media representatives were guests at Sony Europe’ a7R III launch event in London, England. Sony paid transport and accommodation for this one-day trip, but there was no other payment involved whatsoever.