AJA CION external recorders available supporting 4 x 3g-sdi?

The colour science looks nice, and i like the idea of the challenge of 8stops dynamic range. Unite can be had for $1,500. If they go lower, then i may acquire one.
 
Just don't plan on taking it on any paying gigs. Expect to use it as a toy at home. If you take it out in the field you'll discover a number of issues that will frustrate you to no end, and may easily ruin a shoot.
 
Hey I was looking at one on eBay yesterday. Then I got smart and reread the reviews after it finally came out. I just closed the window and slowly backed away!
 
Mitch Gross said:
Just don't plan on taking it on any paying gigs. Expect to use it as a toy at home. If you take it out in the field you'll discover a number of issues that will frustrate you to no end, and may easily ruin a shoot.
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Oh right, yeah, I'd never use one for gig-work. that would be insanity. Also, I wouldn't need a camera to go below $1500 if I thought I could use it for work...

But I've have an assortment of vintage cameras that I like playing with. The AJA Cion has nice colours, but intensely limited DR by today's standards (even by 2010 standards, hehe). I shot with a DVX100 a couple weeks ago, and really enjoyed the simplicity of the image. Such low resolution, really made me remember the ECU was a thing... I get more detail in a medium shot these days. But what I enjoyed about the limits of resolution, was how much I forced me to tell the story, because it allowed me to withhold information in details, unless I really chose to show them. Shooting in SD makes one more aware of those choices. IN 4K and 8K, you kind of see it all in a medium. Can even see quite a bit in an 8K wide, ....which is another strength. They all have their pros and cons. If a director wanted to play a whole film out in wide shots, I might suggest 8K. There is a classic French comedy that shot on 65mm or some large format for a comedy that played out primarily in wide-shots, with physical humour. The extra resolution helped. I saw it in HD, but hope to see it in 4K someday. Not that I missed much in the HD version, but HD definitely doesn't resolve some of those finer details.


With the AJA Cion, I see a camera that has some good and some bad, I'd like to see how it makes me shoot differently. For creative projects or learning, there really is no such thing as a bad camera. The CION is better than what they had in the 1800's anyway.
 
Tali’s Playtime is indeed a masterpiece, although I generally prefer the observant humor of Mon Oncle.

There’s so many things wrong with the Cion and they’re all the classic things one would expect from a first try at making a camera. The same NAB was when BMD came out with its first camera and I was at dinner with some designers of such products and we went through the list of things we expected each probably had wrong. Most of them turned out to be true in one way or another. My perspective was the long term one: nobody gets it right the first time because you have to learn from the mistakes and traps the hard way. It’s when you get to the fourth or fifth iteration that it can become something formidable. AJA gave up after the Cion (except for an industrial camera) but I think my argument played out quite accurately over time with BMD. Much the same could also be said for RED, Kinifinity and others.

The Cion suffers from a whole bunch of first time issues. Be warned!
 
Mitch Gross said:
Tali’s Playtime is indeed a masterpiece, although I generally prefer the observant humor of Mon Oncle.

There’s so many things wrong with the Cion and they’re all the classic things one would expect from a first try at making a camera. The same NAB was when BMD came out with its first camera and I was at dinner with some designers of such products and we went through the list of things we expected each probably had wrong. Most of them turned out to be true in one way or another. My perspective was the long term one: nobody gets it right the first time because you have to learn from the mistakes and traps the hard way. It’s when you get to the fourth or fifth iteration that it can become something formidable. AJA gave up after the Cion (except for an industrial camera) but I think my argument played out quite accurately over time with BMD. Much the same could also be said for RED, Kinifinity and others.

The Cion suffers from a whole bunch of first time issues. Be warned!
Click to expand...

True, I keep forgetting this camera is a gen 1. That is different than a DVX100, which was made by an establish video camera maker, as well as being a second iteration on top of that. I can see your point about many of the things that could be wrong with the Cion.

There is something to the colour science that feels pretty and realistic at the same time. And it has all the things like XLR etc built in, so it looked appealing as a fun play camera, but I keep forgetting it could have other annoying attributes that would possibly even make it not fun for hobby use.
 
Have you ever used a Ki Pro Quad? Ever try to navigate its menu? Same interface on Cion (and I mean literally, because the back half of the camera is essentially a rehoused Ki Pro Quad.

You know the SSDs where all your recordings go? Friction fit on the top of camera. Don’t go running around handheld.

It only gets worse from there.
 
Mitch Gross said:
Have you ever used a Ki Pro Quad? Ever try to navigate its menu? Same interface on Cion (and I mean literally, because the back half of the camera is essentially a rehoused Ki Pro Quad.

You know the SSDs where all your recordings go? Friction fit on the top of camera. Don’t go running around handheld.

It only gets worse from there.
Click to expand...

I've used the Kipro mini. That menu was.... well, it had options for settings.

Friction fit? Yikes. WTH!?
 
James0b57 said:
The colour science looks nice, and i like the idea of the challenge of 8stops dynamic range. Unite can be had for $1,500. If they go lower, then i may acquire one.
Click to expand...

Aaargh!

Aaaaaaaaargh!

Flordspink glorbleblarbit booboo dipdapdop! Nurmie replosplodbobnik! Memble, MEMBLE! Klapplesplapple! Flibbertigibbet! Bwaaaaaargh.

They made me review it.
 
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