Potentially Pretty good B-Cam for FS700/FS7: Axiom Beta 4K camera for €2650

C

Colinelves

Well-known member
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/a...mera/x/8621795

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After seeing how the Digital Bolex panned out, I think I'd stay away from crowd-funded cameras.

Put your money into a camera that actually exists today, not one that might exist sometime in the future as long as everything goes as planned for some company that's asking for your money to fund the camera in the first place.
 
My understanding is thay axiom is using the same 4k cmv12000 sensor that's supposedly in the bmpc, ursa, and cion. Seems like those cameras are may be more production ready and even less expensive (bmpc). The iso400 and 12stop DR specs don't impress and may not be a great match for the fs700/fs7, but I guess it could be simply in the sense that it may be OK 4k at a pretty good price...
 
This is more expensive than the blackmagic but use same sensor. Why pay so much for amateur company over blackmagic? No sense.
 
I like the idea. It may have the same sensor as the Black magic (I don't know what they have) - but they max out at 30fps. And well, yes, it's more expensive than the 4K. But it's cheaper than the Ursa - with a lot of the benefits (interchangeable lens mounts, interchangeable sensor etc).

Personally, however, I think the best thing about it is that it's completely open source. Everyone loves magic lantern. F5 users clearly love the 4K internal hack. The problem is that these all 'void' the warranty. Personally I'm pretty sick of having cameras that are deliberately crippled by marketing departments - whereas this is infinitely adaptable, upgradable, developer-able (sorry, that's not a word) and there's never going to be a need to pay for a firmware upgrade that simply unleashes the potential inherent in a camera (a la Sony) Even Black Magic are reluctant to hand out their firmware code for everyone to mess around with.

But yes, mostly I support the philosophy of the project.

BTW. If anyone is interested you can now donate €150 in exchange for a discount on the full camera.
 
Colinelves said:
I like the idea. It may have the same sensor as the Black magic (I don't know what they have) - but they max out at 30fps. And well, yes, it's more expensive than the 4K. But it's cheaper than the Ursa - with a lot of the benefits (interchangeable lens mounts, interchangeable sensor etc).

Personally, however, I think the best thing about it is that it's completely open source. Everyone loves magic lantern. F5 users clearly love the 4K internal hack. The problem is that these all 'void' the warranty. Personally I'm pretty sick of having cameras that are deliberately crippled by marketing departments - whereas this is infinitely adaptable, upgradable, developer-able (sorry, that's not a word) and there's never going to be a need to pay for a firmware upgrade that simply unleashes the potential inherent in a camera (a la Sony) Even Black Magic are reluctant to hand out their firmware code for everyone to mess around with.

But yes, mostly I support the philosophy of the project.

BTW. If anyone is interested you can now donate €150 in exchange for a discount on the full camera.
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People love those hacks because it's giving them something more than they paid for, for free. But that is exactly what they are: hacks. Open source can be great but it's the last thing I want when investing in a professional tool. Heck, I have an open-source 3D printer that I was super excited to get and setup! And after having it for a few months I can count the number of successful 3D prints on a closed fist.
 
slipstrea808 said:
I'm curious at what point someone says "I want/need to make some/more money off of this". And then what happens?
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They're pretty clear that the price you get from the kickstarter (€2650) is 'at cost' only covers the cost of development, parts and production.

The RRP is at €5990 and indicates that they're looking to make €3340 profit per camera when it goes into full production. I'd say, if nothing else, they're being pretty damn honest about everything.

I'd also say that what I'm really interested in (I was one of the first to back the campaign, so I've got skin in the game) is getting the associate discount on the Axiom Gamma - as I think that camera will be a real game changer.
 
Colinelves said:
They're pretty clear that the price you get from the kickstarter (€2650) is 'at cost' only covers the cost of development, parts and production.

The RRP is at €5990 and indicates that they're looking to make €3340 profit per camera when it goes into full production. I'd say, if nothing else, they're being pretty damn honest about everything.

I'd also say that what I'm really interested in (I was one of the first to back the campaign, so I've got skin in the game) is getting the associate discount on the Axiom Gamma - as I think that camera will be a real game changer.
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The problem is most of these campaigns don't really know the timelines/costs associated with making something. Not saying I do, but I've backed many Kickstarter projects just to see the creators take an extra year to finish because they didn't realize how many manufacturing setbacks and obstacles there would be. Heck, one guy was making a board game and ended up losing over $50k (beyond the money he raised on Kickstarter) because of manufacturing issues, shipping costs, and other set backs.

That's not to say it couldn't turn out great. Printrbot started on Kickstarter, and I bought their Printrbot Metal Simple (the 3D printer I mentioned earlier). But I waited until they were established and making new products before I dove in, because I wanted to buy a 3D printer, not donate money to a potential 3D printer.

If you have the extra money to invest in something like this and you enjoy seeing/being part of the process, more power to you. But I'd be hesitant to call it an FS700/FS7 "b-cam" when the estimated delivery is April 2015 and I've yet to see a crowd-sourced product hit its estimated delivery date.

I don't mean to piss in your froot loops. It looks cool but I prefer to treat these things as what they are--ideas, parts, hopes, and dreams. There is still a lot between now and being able to call it a camera.
 
jshbckr said:
The problem is most of these campaigns don't really know the timelines/costs associated with making something. Not saying I do, but I've backed many Kickstarter projects just to see the creators take an extra year to finish because they didn't realize how many manufacturing setbacks and obstacles there would be. Heck, one guy was making a board game and ended up losing over $50k (beyond the money he raised on Kickstarter) because of manufacturing issues, shipping costs, and other set backs.

That's not to say it couldn't turn out great. Printrbot started on Kickstarter, and I bought their Printrbot Metal Simple (the 3D printer I mentioned earlier). But I waited until they were established and making new products before I dove in, because I wanted to buy a 3D printer, not donate money to a potential 3D printer.

If you have the extra money to invest in something like this and you enjoy seeing/being part of the process, more power to you. But I'd be hesitant to call it an FS700/FS7 "b-cam" when the estimated delivery is April 2015 and I've yet to see a crowd-sourced product hit its estimated delivery date.

I don't mean to piss in your froot loops. It looks cool but I prefer to treat these things as what they are--ideas, parts, hopes, and dreams. There is still a lot between now and being able to call it a camera.
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+1

i like the idea too and really hope they succeed but it's a pretty big risk that they'd get anything out on time. How many designers/developers do they have? Look how long it takes CD and BM to get products out even with a reasonable sized team.
 
Seriously guys I sometime think some of you only come here to moan.

It's a BETA camera. You can tell by the name. Hence my use of the word 'potentially' in the header.

I fully expect there to be delays, and problems and, again, the development team are pretty damn open about all this - unlike Black magic, Red, etc etc and Sony, let's not forget - how long did we wait for our promised 4K Raw? How disappointed were we until CD stepped in to save it and how disappointed are we still given the delays with the O7Q! Call me a pessimist, but who here thinks the FS7 will actually be fully functional on release? With all the advertised features fully enabled?

At the end of the day, these guys are only asking for €350 to cover development costs and then you get the option of buying camera at cost (which may or may not be another €2300) or, indeed, you only pay €150 and you get a 20% discount. Personally I'm paying because I want them to succeed. Both to get the camera and to disrupt the market, the way Red disrupted the camera market something we're all benefitting from with our FS700s! There is no way Sony would be selling a camera like this for $6,000 if it weren't for Red. NO WAY. In the future I'd like to see all firmwares open - so we don't have to rely on hackers like the Magic Latern guys to allow the cameras we pay good money for to reach their true potential.

I don't know about you but I'm pretty sick and tired of seeing the products I own crippled by manufacturers to serve their marketing departments or have them demanding I fork over an additional thousand dollars for licenses to 'enable' features inherent in them - and that's what an open source camera might achieve.
 
I think this will take so long to arrive and will be outdated when it comes. How can poor low tech company offer better and cheaper product than corporations with experience and money? How can hand made camera be cheaper than bulk made one of same quality? I think this is pipe dream. Sorry.
 
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This thing is not a 1-piece-camera.

When it's put out one day, a lot of things can change and a lot can still change after
the camera hit the market. It's a real module design, where you can exchange modules
when you want (and they are available).
Of course nobody knows what exactly comes out at what exact date, but: What the heck!

I don't want 2-3 big companies to rule the market. That's why investing is a good point here.
It's not only to buy a cheap camera that is better than anything else...
 
SJX said:
I think this will take so long to arrive and will be outdated when it comes. How can poor low tech company offer better and cheaper product than corporations with experience and money? How can hand made camera be cheaper than bulk made one of same quality? I think this is pipe dream. Sorry.
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Well... First off. CD is a poor low tech company and they seem to be making a pretty good product.

Black Magic is also petty small (compared to Sony, Canon & Panasonic) and they have made a couple of very disruptive cameras, by all accounts using many of the same components as the ones Apertus are intending to use (it looks like the 4K Camera uses a Cmosis CMV1200 sensor and the Pocket and Cmosis CMV2000).

Then there's the fact that the camera is totally open-source. Every piece of information about it is freely available. Everything. This means that any other small tech company with an interesting new product, approach or idea can start making components or accessories for it. Now, Sony et al may be big, but not as big as the combined powers of lots of smaller specialised companies.

As for being outdated - I'd say that's a potential problem with the Beta camera (as it is slightly less modular) but the Gamma they're looking to develop after the Beta is specifically designed to be out-dated proof, because every module is replaceable/upgradable. So: Say a newer, better chip comes on the market. At the moment you'd have to replace the whole camera. With a Beta or a Gamma, you just replace the sensor module - everything else is the same. If a new processor gets developed - that will expand the capabilities of the current sensor, great, swap out the processor module.

At the end of the day, the pro camera market has changed significantly in the last few years. We've moved into an era of permanent beta products and super fast redundancy as every company rushes to get out a 'new' camera as soon as it's possible to beat their competitors. So we have new models coming out practically every year, forcing us as users to 'upgrade' our cameras far more often than we'd like or need to. To be honest, the only solution to this situation I can see is a modular system. With open software that is developed by a community. It's how it works with computers now: multiple component manufacturers and open source systems (like Linux).

At this stage the main downside of the camera is that their sensor choice (and the sensor is the key component in a digital camera) is limited as they need to go with a company that is happy to release all their data without an NDA. This means that the choice is somewhat limited.

At the moment it seems that Sony, Red and Arri have pretty much the best sensors out there - but none of them make them available to third parties. Unfortunately Arri and Red produce systems that are very very expensive while Sony deliberately cripple their sensors for marketing reasons. As do Black magic by the look of it (if they are using a CMV12000, why is the 4K camera choked at 30fps? When the sensor can do 180fps in 4K at 12bits?). Will this situation change in the future? Possibly. If Sony think they can make more money selling their high end sensors to smaller camera manufacturers then maybe that will happen. More likely they'll decide that modular is the way to compete with these young upstarts - at which point we can all get back to having cameras that last a good 10 years or more, rather than 2!
 
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