New 4K Camera from AJA at an attractive price point

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bobhope

Well-known member
The design of the new CION camera looks interesting. Obviously not targeting the Epic market, but in my opinion the more 4k cameras out there the faster it will evolve as a standard producers want, and that can only be a good thing. Time will tell if this little guy makes any waves, but it looks promising.

We have a preview of the camera from NAB on our blog you can see here
 
For $9k I'd spend a bit more and get a RED scarlet. A little more time tested and true. Plus whether you like RED or not the color science is been mature for a long while now. I can't say the same for other cameras costing less or more than AJA...

Just food for thought.
 
As a Red owner I feel you.

But the one thing AJA has is the ProRes recording, which is what a lot of people are looking for.

Ask Alexa users.
 
It's way too early to tell.

I've heard it looks videoy, but I've also seen some good clips that don't look too bad. Here's my theory on why,

If it's a 12 stop camera they are probably getting that value from when shooting AJA RAW which requires an external recorder.

Internally unless they use hyper/gamma curves the most they might get is in the 9 to 11 stops range, but without any gamma curves you might only get 7 stops ie. REC709. Hence videoy look from it some of us have seen.

If they develop something like a log gamma to maximize the sensor information and dynamic range, the de-logging and color science in post is where I see some the need for good development and support by other software packages for it. Ie. Davinci Resolve, Vegas (also supporting log workflow) , etc..

I know from being a Sony user for 4 years what it's been like trying to get a good base to work with in post, it hasn't been easy. I would hate to see the same thing for the CiON. ProRes doesn't suddenly make things better, there's a lot more to it than just codecs as I've said.
 
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They haven't mentioned anything about how the camera works when it comes to controlling the image in camera. I think it's great they are recording to Prores. How do you control gamma, detail, pedestal, color levels and where are the special gammas like hypergamma or log for managing dynamic range? It's a cinema camera right?

I hope they work it out because the price point is good. It's true that it bangs right up against a Scarlet and they are VERY popular with the people I'm shooting for.
 
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RAW can only be recorded externally so unless it offers some form of log recording internally, it honestly won't be much more than a DSLR without the moire. It won't convince a lot of 7D or 5D to switch that's for sure.. especially with ML.

I think so many of these guys are coming late to the party. With ML for RAW on DSLR and BMD for cheap 4K I think the market is saturated, but time will tell.
 
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yeah but if they are recording internal 10 bit 4:2:2 and 4:4:4 ProRes to that media of theirs, that's way better than DSLRs I would hope anyway. I'm going to Abel Cine tomorrow night and they're going to have one there. Hopefully we'll get a chance to ask some questions.
 
Feel free to ask questions at tomorrow's event in NYC. Honestly, I'd try to answer more questions on these forums, but that's not very practical with my current schedule. Right now I'm typing this from the back of a cab on my iPhone... rough!

There seem to be some assumptions being made that aren't quite accurate... various gamma settings will be offered as well as various color profiles. With anything that is pre-release, we tend to be conservative about what we state.

Hopefully I'll get to meet some of you tomorrow,
Jon Thorn
Senior Product Manager
AJA Video Systems, Inc.
 
Jon Thorn said:
Feel free to ask questions at tomorrow's event in NYC. Honestly, I'd try to answer more questions on these forums, but that's not very practical with my current schedule. Right now I'm typing this from the back of a cab on my iPhone... rough!

There seem to be some assumptions being made that aren't quite accurate... various gamma settings will be offered as well as various color profiles. With anything that is pre-release, we tend to be conservative about what we state.

Hopefully I'll get to meet some of you tomorrow,
Jon Thorn
Senior Product Manager
AJA Video Systems, Inc.
Click to expand...

Yeah, that's what I figured, I just wondered why there has been no mention of it. I like conservative when it comes to announcements. I'll see you there.
 
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