On the heels of IBC 2018, the cinema5D team has decided to give their IBC 2018 Technological Innovation Award to Blackmagic Design for their newly released Blackmagic RAW technology because of its wider implications to filmmaking and its power to further democratise high-quality image acquisition. The Outset – ProRes RAW Less than 6 months ago at NAB in Las Vegas, Apple announced ProRes RAW together with Atomos as their first partner that was implementing the technology into their products. RAW codecs that were user-friendly before that introduction were rare – in all honesty, I think REDCODE RAW was probably the only RAW flavour that was widely used, but of course only in RED cameras. Suddenly having the post-flexibility of RAW combined with the widely recognized ProRes ecosystem was worth one of our Best of Show Award at NAB 2018. Nevertheless, ProRes RAW has some shortcomings that severely limits its current use: only compatible with Mac so far only available on Atomos Recorders – and not in cameras only two compression settings – “normal” and HQ so far only works with Final Cut Pro X In comes Blackmagic RAW By introducing their own user-friendly compressed RAW codec with Blackmagic RAW (read all details here!), Blackmagic Design poses a significant threat to Apple and their ProRes RAW standard. Why? First of all, it’s implemented on a camera-level without the need for any external recorders at all. Admitted, that’s true only for Blackmagic’s own cameras right now (starting with the Ursa Mini Pro), BUT as you can see in our interview below, Blackmagic is open and willing to give it to other camera and software manufacturers for free too. Manufacturers that have “nothing to lose” in the video field (no higher end line to protect) like for example FUJIFILM with their X-T3 should theoretically be very motivated / excited to implement it into their cameras. We will see who goes first. Secondly, I already mentioned software: the newest version of DaVinci Resolve supports it already, and it’s free in its quite powerful basic version, both for Windows and Mac. And they already published the SDK that will allow other NLE software providers to implement support as well, without licensing fees. Adobe and Apple would have a hard time explaining why they don’t want to implement it, in case they wouldn’t. Thirdly, Blackmagic RAW is available in various compression settings in the Ursa Mini Pro, quite similar to what RED is offering with REDCODE. That really allows flexibility when it comes to storage consumption and will help the codec to go mainstream. Other IBC Innovations As usual, we had 3 awards in our baggage to give at IBC 2018, however, we really ONLY found this technology be worthy of a price. IBC 2018 had no camera announcements, not even non-exciting ones, no major lens announcements nor anything else REALLY noteworthy other than the announcement of Blackmagic RAW. It’s sad to see that manufacturers seem to be ignoring big shows like IBC more and more in favour of finding their own dates for big product releases, including big press trips. That is really not great at all because it can easily become a way to prevent real hands-on reviews before a release or to squash critical questions. Congratulations Anyway, we congratulate Blackmagic Design on the technical achievement with Blackmagic RAW and really give this prize in hope that many other camera and software makers will implement the standard into their products in order to allow us filmmakers greater flexibility and better quality in our productions, at no extra cost. Will you be using Blackmagic RAW with your URSA Mini Pro camera or in your other Blackmagic cameras? Would you use it in your other cameras if manufacturers would support it? Let us know in the comments below!

With stock footage sites sprouting out of the ground left and right, the stock footage market is getting rather crowded and saturated these days. In addition to that, there is the issue of aggregators like Blackbox, submitting their contributors’ content to multiple stock footage sites simultaneously, thus leading to confusing experiences for customers, who find themselves looking at the same rather drab content on different sites. RawFilm, a subscription-based stock footage site, that offers only self-produced content shot on RED cameras in REDCODE RAW exclusively, is taking aim at changing that. Producing stock footage seems like a rather enticing proposition: we all know we probably have tons of good looking footage wasting away on hard drives, because we over-shot the B-Roll for some of our projects. Now, how about that nice looking clip from that sunset at sea that we deemed to cheesy to include in our documentary generating some money, without us moving a finger? That’s the fantasy of stock footage and also the way that some sites suggest their contributors could work. The reality of the stock footage market is much different. Your footage will probably be bought with an specific edit in mind, meaning the customer will likely be looking for multiple different angles of that same shot, because that’s what’s going to make it editable and thus usable. In addition to that, your download rates – and by that your money earned – will likely only be high if you have a large catalog to choose from and multiple outlets fitting the kind of content you are producing. Otherwise it might be hard to get noticed on a giant stock site with thousand and thousands of contributors. The same problem exists on customer side of the stock footage market. All too often the content you find does actually look like it was either shot for something else and then reused, or it might leave that metallic aftertaste when you realize you’ve seen some clip that you previewed in ten different Youtube commercials already. And let’s just not mention the often highly complicated pricing structures, that might work out to a clip costing 5 times as much as you anticipated, once you’ve added all the licenses you might need at some undefined point in the future. Of course stock footage sites themselves are reacting to these problems already. We reported on Filmsupply premiering their first short film and trying to change both how stock footage is conceptualized and shot, as well as seen and bought. RawFilm is doing something rather interesting with the same problem. RawFilm’s proposition RawFilm is trying to change things up, by offering only self-produced, exclusive content shot on RED cameras and available for download in REDCODE RAW via a simple subscription. As with most stock footage sites their content is organized in collections, however these collections are mostly consisting of footage from one coherent shoot, providing that footage in lots of different angles, versions and sequences in roundabout 100 – 300 shots per collection. The footage consistently has exceptionally high production value and takes into account the usual requirements for stock footage, like racial and gender diversity. It does seem a little skewed towards use in commercials, but many of the collections could work just as well in narrative work, helping out with missed shots, or shots that are out of budget. In addition to being organized in collections, footage is tagged and searchable, but also suggested by context. All clips are shot in log formats and there is a handy switch in the collection view, as well as in the single clip view letting you check out what the footage looks like flat, or with a very light pass of color correction applied. Of course you can also download lower resolution previews, to incorporate into your project for testing purposes. If you don’t find the content you need, you’re encouraged to get in contact with RawFilm and maybe get that content produced. Pricing structure and subscription model The subscription model is simple and elegant: The basic plan will give you 5 clips per month in 4k H.264, the plus plan contains 10 clips per month in 4k+ (meaning 4k and higher) ProRes and the Premium plan offers 20 clips per month in 4k+ REDCODE RAW or CinemaDNG. One clip means one license for one clip in one project. Unused credits for clips from one month are rolled over to the next month and like in most subscription based models annual payment will get you a substantial discount of around 60%. So how much does this acutally cost? Annual billing on the premium plan will set you back $1080.00 per year, for 240 clip licenses in 4k+ REDCODE RAW, while on the low end you can enter RawFilm’s service for $49.00 per month using monthly billing, awarding five 4k H.264 clips. The other plans offer many options for lots of different budget scenarios, that you might need some stock footage in. Possible downsides? RawFilm’s service does make an impression. It’s very innovative and enticing, and the footage is of very high quality throughout. The pricing model seems fair and accessible for footage of such a high standard and I liked using the site quite a bit. The only possible downside I could find, was the distinction between uses. RawFilm’s terms distinguish between commercial use, editorial use and advertising use, commercial being the one that is generally usable in both advertising as well as editorial cases. So far so good, but what if I know which use case I need and want to filter for that use only, so that I don’t look at footage realizing only after I’ve fallen in love with a clip, that I won’t be able to use it? There is no toggle, search filter, search term or other mechanism on the site, that would allow me to make that distinction. Every clip I clicked on was marked with commercial use, so it could have been used anywhere, but I was little inclined to go through the entire catalog of thousands of clips and check for that. Another thing I might add is, that the distinction of clips being shot only on one brand of camera is something of a marketing stunt. RED is indeed becoming something of a standard in the world of commercials and the brand’s high recognition value makes it somewhat of a signifier of exclusivity – even for clients who can’t operate a camera. Using this fact for marketing purposes is an understandable move, however it does add an unnecessary elitist twist. All in all, RawFilm’s service is a commendable entry into the market and the incredible footage and simple pricing structure absolutely address the greatest pain points of customers and most people involved with using the footage in the post production process. If you’d like to check it out for yourself you can sign up to RawFilm’s service here. What do you think about the quality of RawFilm’s footage? Would you use it in your projects? And what about the pricing? Let us know in the comments! 

In this guest review, Osaka-based filmmaker Matthew Carmody takes a close look at the Hasselblad H6D-100c – a 100MP, 4K Raw-capable medium format camera. Intrigued? Read on for his hands-on impressions. I’m sure I’m not the only one who took a peak at Christoph Tilley’s write-up about medium-format video on the H6D-100C last year. The images had something special about them to my eye and I wanted to know more. But, to my surprise, after scowering the internet for days there wasn’t really much in the way of other detailed reviews or footage. This only served to fuel my interest, eventually leading me to chat with an old colleague that had recently started working at Hasselblad here in Japan. And, funnily enough, it seemed that I wasn’t the only one that wanted to see what this camera could do in the field. So, two full days of testing and two all-nighters to make workable rigs for my usual fast-paced shooting style later and I was ready to head out to the track to film a popular drifting event I originally intended to shoot with Blackmagic’s URSA Mini Pro. Here is a detailed description of what I discovered in the process. First Things First – Workflow & Technical Details The Hasselblad H6D-100C shoots UHD 4K video @24p to CFAST2.0 cards in a proprietary compressed raw format with a .3FV container. The 256GB CFAST2.0 cards I used held around 20 minutes worth of data. Why I say “around” is that it doesn’t tell you how much space is left on the card while you shoot, leaving you to guess and backup as you go. The whole width of the sensor is being used, with the tops and bottoms cut off to create 16:9 aspect video. I can’t seem to verify if it is using a method such as pixel binning, but nonetheless, this is quite amazing as it is converting that lovely medium-format look from the 12K sensor to 4K compressed raw video on the fly. As a result, prepare for noticeable rolling shutter effect, something I was ready for thanks to Christoph’s original review. Seriously don’t try and shoot handheld with anything over 24mm, especially if you are a heavy coffee drinker like me… Once you have shot something, you need to decompress the .3FV files into a flavor of ProRes or a cinema DNG sequence using Hasselblad’s Phocus software. You can name these sequences, or just output to the same name as the original compressed files. Beware that Phocus is very slow to decompress the files. I mean REALLY slow. It took close to 20 hours on my reasonably fast PC to decompress 930GB of .3FV files from the shoot. I put this down to it being optimized for single photos and not video. Hopefully this will change in a future version! Slimraw screen If you choose cinema DNG like I did, the decompressed 16bit DNG files take approximately 2.5 times the space of the original compressed .3FV files. These files are very processor intense even in Resolve, so I recommend creating DNG proxies with Slimraw ($49.00 USD) to compress the 16bit CDNG files into 12bit DNG with 3:1 or 4:1 etc compression for editing and grading in Resolve. This way the workflow remains the same in Resolve and you then just re-link the original 16bit CDNG when finished to output. NOTE: Resolve is the only software that currently reads these compressed DNG files. Other NLEs need a different workflow. This decompression process is kind of similar to what you have to do with DJI’s X5R footage from the Inspire 1 or DJI OSMO RAW. Anyone familiar with Blackmagic or DJI products will feel at home with these DNG files. I enjoyed the editing and grading process once everything was decompressed and proxies were created. The Good, The Bad, and the Audio I quickly worked out that there is no built-in microphone. You can attach an external mic via the 3.5mm jack on the left side.  I couldn’t find anywhere in the menu to alter or monitor audio levels. They appear fixed. As a result, I had to scrap all audio from the shoot as it was way too loud and noisy. A shame, as some of the engines sounded amazing… Once the mic is setup, the audio is recorded along with a 720p mp4 file that is put in the cinema DNG folder and called “audio.mp4.” Surprisingly these mp4 files are 25p, not 24p like the raw sequence. Even more surprising is that the audio.mp4 and corresponding raw sequence are different lengths and don’t match.  You could add something like a Juicedlink for better preamps, but the audio itself isn’t going to be easy to use even for scratch due to the differing lengths.   Rigging the Camera for Real-world Filming The first problem I ran into was that the camera body needs to be raised as the lens is lower than the body and will hit the tripod or gimbal plate in most cases. The viewfinder can be removed, so I did to streamline the build. In combination with the very compact 80mm lens, fitting it on a Ronin-M was reasonably straight forward.   80mm is equivalent to 40mm on a super 35mm camera like the Blackmagic URSA Mini Pro or Canon C200, making it a perfect focal length for general shots. The built-in screen is less than ideal for anything other than seeing you have a picture when filming moving images. You absolutely need an external monitor to shoot video on the Hasselblad H6D-100C. Some other quirks associated with the built-in screen are a lack of metering/monitoring tools like a histogram in video mode, so you have no idea of your exposure. The built-in focus peaking is useful for manual focusing but will only work if you first go into photo mode and then back to video mode. It will then stop working as soon as you press record. Once you have an external monitor setup you will find the 1080p feed out from the mini HDMI out seems to have a heavy rec.709 LUT applied, making it difficult to judge exposure by eye. Not that one would ever judge exposure purely from a monitor by eye, but… To overcome this I used an IKAN DH5e 5″ external monitor with waveform to purposefully overexpose, ignoring the misleading super blown out look you get on the camera LCD screen. The reason for this overexposure is that the raw files have amazing highlight recovery. More on this later. Another area that needed some thought was power management. The battery in the hand grip only lasts around 30 minutes when using live view and shooting video. You could use a few batteries and recharge as you go, however the batteries take several hours to fully charge and I didn’t have time to do this during the shoot. To shoot a full day event I made a 12V D-TAP cable to get external power from the Ronin’s battery distributor for gimbal work, and a V-mount battery for tripod shots I didn’t have to change the hand grip battery once with this setup, making filming a lot less complicated. NOTE: You still have to have the hand grip battery inserted for the system to boot, so the hand grip itself can’t be removed. Continual power means heat and the sensor will overheat in continual live view mode after around 30 minutes on a warm day. I decided to leave the live view off between shots whenever possible, allowing me to shoot for over 8 hours straight with only one overheat resulting in 5 minutes downtime to cool off and backup data. On the topic of live view, the live view screen will go blank after every clip you record, requiring you to restart it and get everything setup again for each individual cut. This isn’t a big issue, but can be a slight hindrance if you want to shoot clips in quick succession. No built-in ND filters meant back to good old 4″x 5.65″ IRND for the 300mm and 24mm lenses, and a 67mm IR cut + Variable ND for the 80mm/2.8 and 100mm/2.2 lenses. Not a big deal if, like me, have filters lying around for other cameras without built-in NDs. Also, there is no way to remote trigger REC with something like a LANC cable. You have to press the small rec button on the touch screen, or press the shutter button on the hand grip. Needless to say, this makes recording a little cumbersome on a gimbal… Shutter Angle and ISO The Hasselblad H6D -100C is primarily a studio camera. After much research and several days of testing in various environments I found that you generally need to film at ISO 64 for the cleanest results, so I decided to fix ISO at 64 for the whole shoot. This camera is not designed for lowlight environments. At least not when it comes to video. One nice side effect of this is that you don’t need as much IRND during the day even at bright apertures.  The closets you can get to a 180 degree shutter angle is 1/45 or 1/60. There is no option for 1/48 or even 1/50. Slightly strange as it only shoots 24p. NOTE: ALL SHOTS IN THE VIDEO USED ISO64 and 1/60 SHUTTER. I could have chosen 1/45, but drift cars are fast and I wanted to cut stills for SNS from the video as well. The Raw Truth As soon as I brought the files into Davinci Resolve, I found the colors to be amazing even with a standard rec.709 LUT and basic grading applied. The grade you see in the video literally took 30 seconds to achieve. I just needed to tweak individual files from there and I was done. The next thing I discovered was that the highlight recovery of the 16bit raw files is very good. You can get back even the most severely overexposed areas to a point where the clipping doesn’t bother your eye. Quite amazing and much better than some other popular cinema cameras on the market. Highlight recovery BEFORE     Highlight recovery AFTER The catch is that the shadows can be quite noisy. You can see this in the wide angle slow push into the yellow car window. The bucket seats show a decent amount of noise.  It would seem that the compressed raw files favor the highlights at the expense of the shadows. “Shadow noise: exposure lifted heavily to highlight issue” One thing I can say is that if you look at the video as a whole you see it isn’t a problem with the majority of shots. Overexposing in light of the excellent highlight recovery can help solve this issue in most cases. Another thing you may also notice in the overexposed areas have a tendency to exhibit a purple tint. I needed to mask and fix a few shots in the video due to this. Check the wheel rims and other overexposed metallic parts in some shots. You can see a bit of this purple in the bright highlights. Medium-format Lenses This was a real shoot, so I decided to go with three main lenses that were all reasonably different and would cover wide, medium, and long shots. Starting from the wide end, the 24mm lens has noticeable distortion in the corners as it is apparently designed for a slightly smaller medium-format sensor. Check the wide shots in the video. Phocus apparently crops and corrects this for still images, however in-body correction of this distortion would be much appreciated for video shooters. It has a very unique look that is great for certain shots. Creating bokeh with such a wide angle is one reason medium-format is so intriguing to many people including myself. The 80mm lens is a great all-round lens that is super compact and features a bright F2.8 aperture. F2.8 for medium format is faster than it sounds. I used it as the main lens on DJI’s Ronin-M with a DJI follow focus system for control. 80% of the footage is filmed with this lens purely due to the convenience and speed this lightweight setup afforded. The early morning shots are at around F2.8-F3.5. Later on I used F5.6 for medium shots like the fake cop car with flashing lights. All apertures up to F8 were pleasing to my eye. The 300mm lens was naturally a tough one to shoot moving objects like drift cars. Rolling shutter can be a problem with longer focal lengths and moving objects. Most of the shots in the video with the 300mm (The blue drift car, guy waving green t-shirt) are shot at F5.6 with 1.2 IRND applied and the results look very pleasing to me. Resolving, but not sharp with creamy bokeh. Wide open, all lenses seemed to be a tad soft and creamy, while at the same time highly resolving. This is a character I really liked. They started fully resolving when slightly stopped down to F5.6 through F8. The bokeh and fall off from all the lenses (aside from the 24mm which I mainly used at F8 for this shoot) are absolutely beautiful. The subject in focus is very 3-dimensional and the backgrounds are soft and creamy to my eye. Watching the video should show this better than anything I write here. Summary This camera is not everyone’s cut of tea. However, working around its restrictions you can get very nice images in the right conditions. For me, the overall image quality and look this camera produces is special enough to outweigh the current list of cons, some of which I am sure can be easily rectified in a firmware update and future versions of Phocus. Hasselblad H6D-100c – Main Pros: (In no particular order) Full readout of the sensor width with no horizontal crop The amazing look the lenses give in combination with this massive sensor Lovely 3-dimentional rendition of subjects with superb fall off and creamy bokeh Beautiful colors out of the box Medium-format video in a compact form factor that even fits on a small gimbal Highlight roll off is pleasing even in heavily overexposed areas Recording to readily available CFAST2.0 media Hasselblad H6D-100c- Main Cons: (In no particular order) No way to see how much space is left on the CFAST card Noticeable rolling shutter in fast pans or fast-moving objects The audio is difficult to use even for scratch Shadows can show noticeable noise in some situations Overexposed highlights tend to have a slight purple tint The mp4 files are 25p and of a different length to the DNG sequences Live view resets and needs to be reactivated after every shot Phocus is slow to expand the compressed raw files into DNG files I hope some of this might be useful if you ever get your hands on a Hasselblad for video. Happy shooting!

Kinefinity has just realeased a major update for their Terra cinema cameras. The KineOS 6 update brings a completely overhauled user interface (UI) and a lot of new features, although surprisingly many of those are only available for the Terra 4K, not the 6K. You can download KineOS 6 for Kinefinity Terra 4K and Terra 6K right now as a free update. Both cameras will benefit from an upgraded UI but only the Terra 4K will get the whole package of new and improved (technical) features. Read all about these cameras here. Kinefinity KineOS 6 Update The layout of key parameters has been revamped in order to achieve a cleaner look and feel without having to search for the most frequent settings all the time. Here’s a list of all the new and improved UI fetaures: Interface redesigned: New layout of key parameters such as clip name, timecode and codec format. Key Parameters Tuning: Define shortcut buttons in order to change key parameters such as ISO, iris, color temperature, ND stops etc. A waveform exposure assistant is now available. New Setup Menu which is easy to read and operate. The Kinefinity Terra 4K is now able to record compressed RAW in cinemaDNG format. This feature is still in beta (‘test version’) but you can already try it for yourself. Choose between 3:1, 5:1 or 7:1 compression ratios and record compressed RAW cDNG directly in-camera. The Terra 4K inherits this feature from the MAVO. Note: Even though you can download KineOS for the Terra 6K, this compressed RAW feature is only available for the Terra 4K. Kinefinity offers some notes on this feature: 1) KineLog will be burned in when you record comressed RAW in cinemaDNG (which will be handled by DaVinci Resolve natively). 2) You will have to grade from scratch after importing the footage in DaVinci Resolve because cinemaDNG and ProRes footage require very different workflows. 3) Playback of cinema DNG footage will be very slow, the speed will increase in future firmware versions, though. KineOS 6 offers some new oversampling options. The camera uses all the pixels of the CMOS sensor and outputs 2K/Full HD footages which usually improves the overall image quality and reduces the noise level. Again, only the Terra 4K will support this feature. Another big improvement of KineOS is the ability to shoot anamorphic with the Terra 4K camera. You can choose between an anamorphic mode (3700 × 2700 pixels) and an open gate mode (full sensor -> 4096 × 2700 pixels). If used with a 2x anamorphic lens, the de-squeezed image will sport a whooping 7400 x 2700 resolution. When using either of these new anamorpfic modes the framerate is limited to 50 fps. You guessed it, only the Terra 4K will benefit from these new shooting modes. Other Improvements Apart from the major updates of KineOS 6, the company has squished a few bugs and polished some features. here is list of some minor improvements: Optimized In-camera LUT: more balanced color for fast workflow. Added project frame rate: 48, 50, 59.94, 60fps. Fixed the abnormal image when start up. Fixed freeze issue at some operations. Optimized black shading of TERRA 4K. Fixed system crash when adjusting ISO under certain color temperature. Fixed the mismatch of exposure compensation in menu setting. Optimized the highlight performance for TERRA 6K in some special case. Change the minimum frame rate of TERRA 4K to 6fps. The KineOS 6 update can be downloaded now for free over at Kinefinity.com. The Terra 4K is $3,999 and the Terra 6K is $5,999. If you can wait just a little bit longer, the $7,999 MAVO (read our initial coverage here) might be an option, too. Do you own a Terra 4K or 6K camera? What are your thoughts about this update? Let us know in the comments below!

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!

The new EVA1 firmware 2.0 is finally here. We’ve met with Panasonic’s Mitch Gross here at NAB 2018 who runs you through all the new features of the Panasonic EVA1 cine camera. This firmware upgrade transforms the already very popular EVA1 camera into a whole new device. Read all about this update in our already published article here. Mitch Gross of Panasonic talks you through the whole thing – and it’s really a lot! Panasonic EVA1 firmware upgrade In order to get you up to speed, here is a list af all new recording formats the Panasonic EVA1 camera is capable of once it’s upgrades to firmware version 2.0: ALL-Intra codecs 4:2:2 10bits 4K/UHD up to [email protected] Mbps 2K/HD up to [email protected] Mbps 2K/HD up to [email protected] Mbps ALL-Intra codecs for High Frame rate 4K/UHD [email protected] Mbps 2K/HD [email protected] Mbps Broadcast codecs FullHD (1920×1080) – ALL-Intra 100Mbps 10-bit 4:2:2 @59.94i/50i FullHD (1920×1080) – LongGOP 50Mbps 10-bit 4:2:2 @59.94i/50i That’s it in terms of codecs, but there’s more. Panasonic now fully supports a lot of the popular Sigma lenses for the EVA1 camera. These are the latest additions to the list of supported lenses: 12-24 F4 DG HSM 24-70 F2.8 DG OS HSM 14mm F1.8 DG HSM 30mm F1.4 DC HSM 85mm F1.4 DG HSM 35mm F1.8 DG HSM As a final addition to this firmware update, Panasonic and Atomos have joined forces to enable RAW recording on Atomos monitors/recorders. In 4K you can either record to Apple ProRes / Avid DNxHR in up to 60fps or straight to CDNG RAW at up to 2Kp120 or 4Kp30. Slow motion, anyone? The Shogun Inferno can record the RAW output of the EVA1 at up to 240fps in 2k/HD, direct to Apple ProRes or Avid DNxHR. Pricing and Availability The upgrade to version 2.0 is free of charge and you can download it right away. Head over to Panasonic in order to get your copy. If you’re unsure how to install the upgrade, please make sure to read this manual (PDF) for a safe and sound update process. Links: Panasonic | Download Firmware v2.0 | full changelog of firmware 2.0 | update instructions (pdf) Did you already update your EVA1? Any troubles with it? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

No longer only a mysterious billboard outside NAB 2018, the Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 4K is here and it shoots 12-bit RAW cinema 4K 60fps and full HD at up to 120fps — all at an impressive price point. The specs, pricing and more are below including an interview with Blackmagic Design CEO, Grant Petty:  Unlike its HD-only predecessor, the Blackmagic Design Pocket Cinema Camera, the new 4K version shoots full cinema 4K (4096 x 2160 pixels) at up-to 60fps with a newly designed 4/3 (18,96 x 10mm) sensor. You’ll also be able to capture full HD 120 fps cropped (no info on how much of a crop) slow motion in both 12-bit CinemaDNG RAW and 10-bit Apple ProRes 422 (HQ) varieties. Unfortunately you won’t be able to shoot in the newly announced Pro Res RAW — at least not yet. The company promises a significant performance increase when it comes to low light capabilities and the camera tops out at 25,600 ISO, though time will tell how high you’ll be able to crank the cameras dual native ISO and still achieve “pro-level” shots. You can record to two slots using SD/UHS-II and CFast cards (they’ll switch over mid-recording if the second slot is fast enough) or record directly to an external drive through USB-C. The camera features a 5-inch LCD touchscreen (see above photo) that takes up nearly all of the real estate on the back of the body. URSA owners will find the menu system familiar as the pocket 4K runs on the URSA operating system. The camera uses the same lens mount as the original pocket allowing for EF, PL or C mounts to be used with an adapter. It may no longer truly be “pocket sized”, but the carbon fiber polycarbonate composite body feels solid to the touch. “Function” buttons on the upper right of the body are all customizable and you’ll be able to map your favorite tools (such as peaking, waveform etc.) to these keys. A high frame rate button on the back also lets you jump right to high speed modes quickly. 1/4″-20 holes are available on the top and bottom of the camera for accessory and tripod mounting. “If URSA is the camera you go and shoot other people with, this is the camera you shoot yourself with.” – Grant Petty, CEO of Blackmagic Design Notably, the camera is powered through the popular Canon LP-E6N batteries and not the Blackmagic lithium ion branded batteries of yesteryear. Another interesting power feature: when you remove the battery the camera will automatically safely power down and will power itself up once a new battery is inserted in the battery compartment. No intimidating warning message. The camera has four internal microphones and a mini xlr audio port for using your favorite external microphone system. You can also power that external mic through provided phantom power. This isn’t the only NAB 2018 news out of Blackmagic Design — the company has announced a significant update to Da Vinci Resolve which we’ll cover in a separate article and video interview with Grant Petty. Technical Highlights:  Shoots Cinema 4K at up-to 60fps, Full HD at 120fps Dynamic Range: 13-stops Ports: USB-C and standard sized HDMI Power: Canon LP-E6N or locking DC12 volt power connection Media: SD/UHS-II and CFast Bluetooth wireless camera control 3.5mm audio jack+mini XLR and headphone jack The camera is priced at $1,295.00 and includes a copy of DaVinci Resolve Studio normally priced at $299.00., While it is unfortunately not shipping until September the price point of $1,295.00 keeps the pocket 4K camera in a category of its own and being able to shoot RAW 4K potentially makes the camera an excellent successor to its HD little cousin. We’ll reserve judgement until we are able to do a full field review, but on paper the camera shows a great deal of potential. Price Point: $1,295.00 Shipping: September, 2018 Grant Petty holding the new BMPC 4K camera What do you think? Will you be picking up the Blackmagic Design Pocket Cinema Camera 4K when it ships later this year? Comment below and stay tuned to all of our NAB 2018 coverage throughout the week!

The newest version of FCPX (Final Cut Pro 10.4.1) includes a new video format called ProRes RAW which offers the optimum combination of both the compressed ProRes format and lossless RAW. Furthermore, the update finally includes a closed captioning solution.  FCPX users can work natively with ProRes RAW and ProRes RAW HQ files created by Atomos recorders. ProRes RAW – High performance without sacrificing quality  The major update is the introduction of the new ProRes RAW format. This format is a combination between Apple’s ProRes and RAW, which is a huge advantage as it can be utilized and maintain high quality footage with RAW data coming out from the camera sensor, without impairing the performance in the editing process.  As stated by Apple:  Editors can import, edit and grade pristine footage with RAW data from the camera sensor, providing ultimate flexibility when adjusting highlights and shadows — ideal for HDR workflows. And with performance optimized for macOS, editors can play full-quality 4K ProRes RAW files on MacBook Pro and iMac systems in real time without rendering. Apple claims that the ProRes RAW files are even smaller than ProRes 4444 files, which have the potential to facilitate workflow and archiving. and even edit RAW on a laptop, while still preserving the performances. FCPX users can work natively with ProRes RAW and ProRes RAW HQ files created by Atomos recorders. For now, ProRes RAW will be available as a free update for owners of Atomos Sumo 19 and Shogun Inferno devices, which opens it up as an acquisition format for many cameras that output RAW. The format will also be available as part of a forthcoming upgrade package for users of the DJI Inspire 2 drone and Zenmuse X7 Super 35mm camera system designed for aerial cinematography (separate post coming). For more info, read cinema5D article about Atomos as the first enabler for ProRes RAW Recording. Closed Captioning Tools Finally, FCPX now lets users import and edit closed captions for their videos without the need of third party software. Captions appear in the viewer during playback and can be attached to video or audio clips in the magnetic timeline, so they automatically move with the clips to which they’re connected. An all-new captions inspector makes it simple to adjust caption text, color, alignment, location and more. Pricing and Availability Final Cut Pro 10.4.1 will be available on April 9 as a free update for existing users, and for $299.99 (US) for new users on the Mac App Store. To sum it up, Apple has really been doing their homework with bringing Final Cut Pro X up to a very high standard over the past few years. As ProRes RAW will be only available in Apple’s NLE for the time being, this will be a huge selling point for FCPX that simply wasn’t there before. ProRes RAW seems promising as it allows editing RAW with the performance of the good old ProRes. What is your opinion regarding FCPX 4.1? Will you give it another try in case you’re a Premiere user who’s been plagued with instability lately? Let us know your thoughts.