Chinese 2K RAW S35 Cinema Camera, 8000 dollars

I find this camera interesting. Looking to create quality 1080 - which IMO means raw colour

The Scarlet is a lot more money.. if you have accs already that dont fit scarlet

BMC.. DNG only is highly inneficient, and a challenging chip size

Sony will cost a fortune with raw recorder..

cineform far more efficient than DNG, 2k cineform seems to be a real sweet spot if 1080 nice colour is your thing

S
 
Indeed but you could easily be transcoding 250-500gb 1TB of data after a day shoot

At that point a camera that costs $4k more and shoots straight to Cineform will pay back in DIT fees or personal blood in a month or two.. IMO

S
 
I'm gonna broken record here at the expense of being slashed for it but... a response to Liam over on BMDuser, who felt that the release of footage without color wasn't a good idea:
Kholi said:
Liam, yes. I've been thinking about this the past week, but with the slew of RAW cameras hitting users hands, it's becoming increasingly apparent that ... well.... the majority of the community isn't ready for a RAW camera.


Between no grades on RAW footage and very very poor grades on most of the footage, they aren't being shown in a positive light. John Brawley was a good choice for Blackmagic, IMO. As a working DP having access to a solid colorist he was able to at least present test footage that represented the kind of look that BMD wanted from the camera (of course since there was also an approval process).


Not pointing fingers, just that a lot of the Blackmagic footage really HASN'T been all that awesome, and mainly because of the lack of experience of the drivers in the RAW realm. That's why I didn't say anything in the other thread about Cinema 5D's "opinion" as he did have that one and only point. With the exception of John Brawley, Jon Carr, and a few random stills that we never got to see video from, all of the other Blackmagic footage wasn't very inspiring.


And, here you have a RAW camera that's likely capable--which I'm also pretty interested in, being shown off as a straight-to-delivery acquisition device EVEN IF the intent was to show the RAW data. Maybe they'll get a colorist to work on the footage and post another version, to me this isn't a good show of what the camera is capable of and there hasn't been one for the KineRAW yet.


I am not familiar with Matthew Allard and/or his work, on the side of choosing testers, like BMD did for their first guy it'd be a bit more refreshing to see them choose someone with access to a colorist that will spend the time on presentation even if as a favor.


As Michael says, though, looks like there's some potential and I'd personally love to get my hands on the camera, rock out some footage and take it over to my post house to see where the camera and go and how much of an alternative it can be considered to what's out there. Especially if these guys are rumored to release an S35 Blackmagic competitor soon.


In this light, however, it doesn't show that S35 will be enough to match the rest of the "magic" that Blackmagic has currently (almost) available today.


Ah well, though.
Click to expand...

Does look like there's something there, yet without a completed image, really don't know.
 
Kholi said:
it's becoming increasingly apparent that ... well.... the majority of the community isn't ready for a RAW camera.
Click to expand...

Kholi, completely agree with you on this. Not only are they not ready for the RAW workflow, they're even less ready for the 4k RAW workflow. So much clamoring for something that the community at large a) doesn't need b) can't deal with.

I'm already seeing a bunch of those battle-tested Scarlets up for sale. Seems like such a good idea until you actually have to do something with it.

BTW, just for perspective, a friend of mine just got back from an Epic shoot. He's editing in FCP7 and wants to output a 5k master out when it's all said and done. So we booted up RedCineX and started crunching out proxies. This is on a 2010 MacBook Pro 17".

Three days later, it was still processing the footage into 720p ProRes proxy QuickTimes. And this was just footage for a 30sec commercial spot.
 
Oof. Yeah don't try to kick proxies out on an older (I know right? 2010 is old now!?) machine. I won't mess with 5K without a Rocket or two. Very grateful that RED engineered that thing.
 
Kholi said:
Oof. Yeah don't try to kick proxies out on an older (I know right? 2010 is old now!?) machine. I won't mess with 5K without a Rocket or two. Very grateful that RED engineered that thing.
Click to expand...

Yeah, the problem with him is that he only has the 2010 (yes, I know what you mean...I'm one of those people who keeps thinking the 90s was 10 years ago too! :undecided) laptop. So no Thunderbolt, and no PCI slots, so he'd have to upgrade entirely to be able to utilize a Red Rock (on top of needing the card itself). Frankly, I wouldn't get heavily involved with Red footage without one. I think the DNG RAW workflow is the only one that I would even consider with out any kind of hardware acceleration directly geared towards it.

Frankly, I would hate to be tied into a camera that could only shoot RAW. I like that the BMC can shoot ProRes/DNxHD as well, and I'll gladly give up a bit of DR and some resolution for that in return. I haven't kept up even with this camera to know of any additional formats, but a solely RAW shooting camera is not something I want to deal with.

I mean, let's be frank, in a world where you can easily bounce between large scale projects and little quickie shoots, sometimes AVCHD is all that you need, and you appreciate the much, much smaller file size.
 
Gary Huff said:
I think the DNG RAW workflow is the only one that I would even consider with out any kind of hardware acceleration directly geared towards it.
Click to expand...

CineForm RAW is even better than DNG. Faster to process, and First Ligth (which comes with the $299 CineForm Studio Premium) makes it very easy to do a simple primary grade (WB, exposure, lift-gamma-gain, contrast, saturation, etc, all affecting only the metadata of the file) and just load it into your editor. I've been playing a bit with the trial version and some BMC footage transcoded to CineForm RAW, and I feel I would be more than ready to work like that.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cvXBacYj0vY
https://vimeo.com/27220198
 
I started owning 'video' cameras in 2008,

From 2002 to 2008 I worked exclusively in raw in my still photo business

I see raw as perfect but data heavy - and that is where I feel 2.5k cineform could be such a sweet spot

To me that is 10X more attractive than an 8bit 4k for example..

S
 
Well, it's not THAT data heavy if you allow for compression...

* 4K CneForm RAW is around 400 Mbps, half the bitrate as the BMC uses in DNG, and about twice as much as debayered ProRes 1080p

* If my stills camera could shoot compressed (5:1) RAW stills, those files would take less space than the HQ jpgs it stores now

Add that to cheap media (standard SSDs) and fast playback (CineForm RAW), and yes, my dream camera shoots RAW :)
 
My friend on the US east Coast just got his BMC camera delievered. It has a canon mount and he's going to shoot a feature in Raw starting in Jan. (his second feature film).

I watched this, and now that I've seen an actual camera in the wild, I"m sold:

http://vimeo.com/52269416#

I know they aren't slinging them out like hotcakes, but they are being delivered now. At 3k that's pretty stiff competition, and I really did like the explanation of the 12 bit versus 8 bit RAw in the video.
 
Hmm, everything was done well with "The Iron Psyche", but for me it felt like looking at sth shot on a 2/3" Broadcast camera, just with less DoF in some shots. Not bad at all, but not the "rich" image, I expect from a digital cinema camera... Is it just me?
 
Spartacus said:
Hmm, everything was done well with "The Iron Psyche", but for me it felt like looking at sth shot on a 2/3" Broadcast camera, just with less DoF in some shots. Not bad at all, but not the "rich" image, I expect from a digital cinema camera... Is it just me?
Click to expand...

Well, the highlights in the windows look blown in many shots and the color grading seems very flat so it's hard to say. Someone could probably put the raw footage in to Divinci Resolve and produce something dramatically different.

They stated they wanted to do a light grade to see what the footage looked like, but I think they should have just graded it to look the best it could to show off the camera. We all know you're going to grade Raw footage, that's the point of shooting Raw.
 
Jasonxinzhou said:
dude, you could take it as a rumor but Chinese guys will soon release a KineRaw 35mini, which is still S35, interchangeable mount, but record DNGRaw only. Its price will be very close to BMCC.
Click to expand...

Recording Cineform Raw only would be a much better solution. The DNG files are just too hard to handle so immediately transcoding to Cineform Raw looks like the quickest and cheapest solution in the long run.

Hopefully the S35mini will be 4k instead of 4k pixel binning down to 2k like the current Kineraw camera.
 
Last edited:
With regard to DNG workflow, I have a freeish solution people can download on my web site, it works with True RAW cameras up to abouy 8K.

That DI system is all that is needed for normal filmmaking (those without CGI) like working with 35mm film. It does the NLR, grading, and sound mixing etc. The playback in the NLE is done with proxy frames made from the DNG that can be made before or after grading, the conform to the edit list done with the proxy frames is automatic and built in. It was designed for Indy feature filmmaking as DIY.

Its possable shooting with the KineRAW-S35 (tm) to use the Cineform (tm) MOV as a proxy for imediate editing in other NLE like FCP, then manually enter the SMPTE into the Edit list of my NLE to conform back to the DNG for final output (which can end up as DPX or TIF for making the JPG2000 DCP in some DCP maker of your choice, of for 35mm filmout).

I have been restricted in showing the footage I have shot because they want to review and apporve the footage and we have some difference of opinion about the type of footage that people would like to see as far as test footage and subject matter. I can say that working with the camera it is able to produce good results as far as my experence with other kinds of cameras, I have footage from several DNG recording cameras to compare with using varous enginering modes of de-Bayer and with my experence designing the monitoring tables. One issue with footage you may be looking at is thet the people going from Cineform (tm) MOV to end use are NOT using the 3D-LUT made from the monitoring tables and may have the head-room set wrong when shooting or not watching the zebras or just underexposing too much because they do not have fill lights. You cannot shoot film without good cinematography methods and get good results, so its not right to blame a camera for the lack of skill of those making the footage. I was accused of overexposing some footage and sent them linear de-Bayer showing that the highlights were well under signal clip, when using some de-Bayer programs like XNVIEW (tm) they apply automatic gain control and can clip the highlights even though the data is in the DNG file to start with, my de-Bayer program is manually controlled to avoid such issues. Also the ITU 601 limits on HD monitors and LCD monitors in general makes it impossable to tell how much of the whites or black will be clipped in what people are looking at, and very much so when going between a MAC and PC with various kinds of monitor or projector being used. Lots of people have an ax to grind on forums so that should be taken into account as well. I do not profit from sales of the KineRAW-S35 (tm) cameras, I did help over the last 5 years with some aspects of development as we worked together on bringing a DNG recording S35 camera to market doing tests and making suggestions.

Even if you get the camera in your own hands though, some understanding of how it was ment to be used and the impact on frame processing and viewing can lead various people to various conclusions about the "camera's quality" when more than not maybe, its the influance of how the footage is processed that is having the larger impact on their opinion. There are conflecting goals in processing for end use as a Vimeo video or Blu-ray (tm) and making a DCP or 35mm release print, because to avoid block artifacts in the H.264 compression noise, and along with it some of the detail, end up needing to be suppressed. So some of the movie film like qualities of the images can get blunted. The Cineform (tm) codec de-Bayer has its own qualities being optimized for real-time playback. Procesisng the DNG in non-real time can expand the options as far as image quality that can be extracted.

The bigger issue of what reason there could be for purchasing a DNG recording camera like SI-2K (through their raw mode to DNG convertor), Acam dII (tm), Kinor-2K (tm), BMCDCC (tm), DigitalBolex (tm) (when it gets out?), Aaton (tm), (Arri with its *.ARI files), and KineRAW-S35 (tm) is what is your end use?

For people only going to highly compressed formats that need quick turnaround like ENG, the Cineform (tm) MOV recording in the camera might be useful, enough, but then it comes down to ergonomics and other factors than image quality.

There is no "best" camera for all possable uses, KineRAW-S35 (tm) is I think useful for its intended end user, but there is a tendency to try to expand sales outside the target end use by all brands, RED (tm) was going to make a 2/3" camcorder with built in zoom until they got wise to the point that their market was profesional filmmaking not socker moms as they had been talking about.

There is room for high quality RAW cameras for filmmaking, like the Acam dII (tm), its a high cost item with a specitaly market, and there is no reason to fault a company for filling the limited needs of a segment of the market that has been ignored by "prosumer" desigened oblesence dished out in micro incrementents by people in Japan who think they control the world of electronic image making.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top