Finally, after over a year since its original announcement, the Blueshape Granite Mini battery line is now shipping. It’s the perfect companion for the modern day cinema camera – and I think it may just be my favourite Gold/V-mount battery yet. Batteries are a bore – there are not many people in the world that will get excited about them. However, in filmmaking they are a necessary tool, and one of which there are many options in today’s market. In my opinion, you can break down Gold Mount/V-Lock batteries into 3 categories: Compact (usually 70-95Wh): Small in size and low in both capacity and maximum load (around 6A or 70Ws) Mid (100-150Wh): Medium in size, maximum capacity for being flight-safe, high max load for lights and larger cameras (around 10-12A, 100+Ws) Large (180+Wh): High capacity and load, but you cannot fly with them I’m usually interested in batteries that fall somewhere between the first two categories – I want a lot from batteries in terms of flexibility. Like many filmmakers, I travel a lot and am in situations where my rig needs to be compact, but need a high draw for cinema cameras as well as lighting. There are really not many that do this. IDX announced a new compact line of batteries that effectively gives you the extra capacity within a smaller shell (i.e. 95WH of battery that is the same size as an old 73WH). These are great, but the smaller ones don’t have a high maximum discharge, so are not great for powering lights and/or hungry camera systems like ARRI or RED. Anton Bauer’s Cine line was probably the closest thing for a while. They feature a cubic design with a nice low form factor and high max. discharge, making them good for lights and bigger cameras. But what you lose in height, you gain in thickness, so your rig ends up becoming quite long. Announced back in April 2016, the Blueshape Granite Mini had my eyebrows raised. They’re small, really small. High in capacity and draw – the thickness of your average Gold Mount/V-Lock battery – but also compact in height. In today’s market, I think this height is really important. Cinema cameras are getting smaller, which contrasts a battery market that isn’t evolving half as fast. You end up with an imbalance in overly tall batteries for your nice and compact cinema camera rigs: The Blueshapes fits the profile of modern cinema cameras, notably the new RED Dragon bodies that are notorious for having silly tall mounted batteries on the back. With this form factor also come features. The Blueshape Granite Minis come in two capacities – 95Wh and 140Wh, both with a high maximum load of 12A (good for lights and high powered cameras), 2 smart D-tap ports (you can power accessories but also charge from) and all support Wi-Fi. The latter is a handy feature – an app allows you to assign a nickname profile to all your batteries (I just number mine), monitor health, cycles, load and watch discharge drop by the milliamp. You can also update the firmware on each of the batteries. Early adopters will have found a bug where batteries drop power after clicking the LED indicator on the side – Blueshape quickly provided an update through the app to fix this. Blueshape Granite Mini – Tech Specs Mount: Gold/ V Lock Chemistry: Lithium-Ion Capacity: 95Wh and 140Wh Amp-Hours: 6.3 Ah and 9.9 Ah Output Voltage: 14.4 VDC Maximum Load: 12 A Accessory Port: 2 x D-Tap IP Rating: IP54 Dimensions (W x H x D)3.7 x 4.6 x 2.3″ / 9.5 x 11.6 x 5.8 cm Weight: 1.92 lb / 0.87 kg and 1.96lb / 0.89kg The Granite Minis have Blueshape’s trademark rubber cladding, and are apparently dropped-tested from up to 6 feet onto hard surfaces, as well as IP54 resistance-rated against moisture and dust ingress. They’re not cheap, and Blueshape really need to release a simultaneous 2-channel charger as the 4-channel is huge and not ideal for travelling. However, they’re certainly my favourite batteries on the market at present. Having owned and used them for the last few weeks, I’m very happy with the Blueshape Granite Mini batteries. I’d been eagerly expecting their release since the announcement in 2016, and they certainly took a while, but now they’re finally here. In the market for new batteries? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!

Korean manufacturer Varavon has introduced many interesting and innovative products since the dawn of DSLR video. Their latest products once again show their dedication to detail and usability. On the Varavon Wirecam they use their great Birdycam Gimbal (more on that later) and put it on a remote controlled wirecam. The Varavon Wirecam is basically a remote controlled dolly on a wire with the Varavon Birdicam gimbal attached to the bottom to create extremely smooth motion. It is remote controlled by two remotes so to control it properly you need two operators. See the video above for more details. The Varavon Wirecam will be available in November and cost $7000. More info here: www.varavon.com

Atomos just added a new product to their existing lineup of widely used hard disk recorders and camera converters. The power station is a small brick that helps power all devices on your rig including the camera itself. The Atomos power station seems like an intelligent approach. The common solution to powering a whole camera rig is to use v-mount or other third party batteries as base stations, but they are heavy and can complicate your rig. The Atomos solution uses adapters to accommodate your native camera batteries (2 at a time) as a power source for your camera and any additional accessories. We like the idea. The Atomos power station will be available at the end of next month October and cost $295.

After Kineraw recently started shipping their first 4K cinema camera they just presented their new Kineraw MINI here at NAB: A portable camera that delivers a very brilliant 2K RAW image from a 4K sensor. It costs $3000 and it will start shipping in a month. Just when we thought NAB had not much more to offer than a lot of hype around 4K, we found ourselves spending over an hour at the booth of Chinese cinema camera maker KINERAW. Read on to understand why.