Freefly Systems Camera Launch | Wednesday, October 7th @ 10 am

Run&Gun said:
If true, it’s kind of disappointing for a $10K camera, at least based on the pics. It appears the video out is HDMI only.
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Yeah, if you watch the Instagram story from that poster (@chrisvtv), he breaks it all down and shows more of the camera.

- 4K RAW S35 sensor up 422fps currently, but should eventually be able to go to 1000 fps
- No monitor on the camera, need to attach a monitor with HDMI
- Internal hard drive, probably SSD (but has a USB-C port)
- Need to use Freefly Systems software to handle their RAW files and then transcode
- Freefly Systems Twitter page alludes to it being a native locking E-mount
 
I think it's definitely a space that needed one...something new, different.

If one had dreams of making food & beverage spots/commercials and had some extra money available, this would be a good time to get some practice with it if it ships soon.
 
NorBro said:
I think it's definitely a space that needed one...something new, different.

If one had dreams of making food & beverage spots/commercials and had some extra money available, this would be a good time to get some practice with it if it ships soon.
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I'm not sure it makes a ton of sense for food/beverage given the low sensitivity and DR. At the shutter speed and apertures you need (the latter for adequate macro DOF), the cost of lighting will swamp the cost of camera. Sure, maybe it makes sense for an up-and-comer.

But for sports/action in daylight or bright stadiums, the compact and portable form factor makes sense and the lighting burden is handled.
 
It doesn't appear to have a looping cache other than the entire drive. And no trigger is a feature? I'd like both a pre and post trigger as options. Nice to see a new competitor in the 1k fps space.
 
ahalpert said:
I'm not sure it makes a ton of sense for food/beverage given the low sensitivity and DR. At the shutter speed and apertures you need (the latter for adequate macro DOF), the cost of lighting will swamp the cost of camera. Sure, maybe it makes sense for an up-and-comer.

But for sports/action in daylight or bright stadiums, the compact and portable form factor makes sense and the lighting burden is handled.
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Well, more than half of their reel is food and beverage so...yeah, it makes sense.

It's a primary use of cameras like these. And sports and nature. (Credentials for any pro sports are extremely tight right now.)

Not much else besides random specialized uses (machine processes, creative flames/water/breaking stuff, etc).
 
If anyone is interested in the technical details of the development and engineering that goes in to a camera like this, there is a huge amount of information in a series of blog posts from Shane Colton over the course of the camera's development:
http://scolton.blogspot.com/p/video.html

The posts go into all kinds of details about sensor readout, debayering, wavelet compression, HDMI output, memory and storage interfaces, and more here:
http://scolton.blogspot.com/search/label/WAVE
 
Surely freefly will look to add in-house robot/software to pair with the camera?

Ironically, the wave is a camera least likely to take advantage of their own gimbal.

Except freefly would be ahead of the curve as far as software development so maybe the gimbal tech can be a sideways move into robot programming?
 
NorBro said:
Well, more than half of their reel is food and beverage so...yeah, it makes sense.

It's a primary use of cameras like these. And sports and nature. (Credentials for any pro sports are extremely tight right now.)

Not much else besides random specialized uses (machine processes, creative flames/water/breaking stuff, etc).
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And the XT3 was marketed with a big-budget short shot by Matt Libatique...

Obviously, you can shoot food and beverage with it. I just think that the low sensitivity makes it more challenging considering the light levels required.

And a lot of food/beverage lighting is pretty complicated with numerous instruments. So, a low sensitivity, low DR camera is going to cost a ton to light to 1/2000 shutter f/8. And if you can afford to light that, you could afford a $50k camera instead of a $10k.

Which is all why I feel like it's mpre naturally suited as a product for sports/wildlife where the light is already there and the small size will be more appreciated.
 
HOw sensitive is the fantom?

When I shot with that I had 600w of LED within 40cm of the subject.

I think at 1500FPS world the tech does not allow you to be a chooser - you take the ISO and DR you can get :)
 
morgan_moore said:
HOw sensitive is the fantom?

When I shot with that I had 600w of LED within 40cm of the subject.

I think at 1500FPS world the tech does not allow you to be a chooser - you take the ISO and DR you can get :)
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You're right the flex 4k is slow too -
ISO Color: 250T (EI Range 250-1250)
ISO Mono: 2000T (EI Range 2000-10,000)

I just wonder if anyone in the space will be interested in a cheap camera when the lighting costs put you in a higher budget tier. But options are options. And if its fundamentally better in some way then no one will scoff at the savings
 
ahalpert said:
You're right the flex 4k is slow too -
ISO Color: 250T (EI Range 250-1250)
ISO Mono: 2000T (EI Range 2000-10,000)

I just wonder if anyone in the space will be interested in a cheap camera when the lighting costs put you in a higher budget tier. But options are options. And if its fundamentally better in some way then no one will scoff at the savings
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You can look at it as ‘savings are savings’. If someone was wanting to get into that field, buying a $10K camera instead of a $100K+ camera would let you put a lot more towards your lighting package(last I checked, you’re still over six figures just to get in the door with a flex 4K). $90K can buy you a lot of heat.

Also, if you are just doing small/smallish tabletop style work, you can get a lot of power for a reasonable amount of money now, with some of the really punchy LED sources that are out there, like some of the Apurture’ s.
 
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