Where have all the cameras gone?  

When I started reaching out to people in general manufacturing, everyone told the same story,  lamenting that there is nothing that anyone can do, except pay more or wait until the market catches up.  However, when not one single person would allow me to mention their name or quote a company affiliation, I knew there was a story. It was clear from the indications I was getting that there were some issues on the manufacturing side.  

While online retailers like B&H and Adorama appear to have inventory for their most popular items, the larger group of independent retail camera dealers are not so lucky, scrambling behind the scenes to find cameras and accessories for their customers. When asked to look into it, little did I know I would delve into corporate intrigue, worldwide shipping issue, cutthroat manufacturers and Covid. 

A very large part of the supply issue is undoubtedly a residual effect from Covid. Pandemic restrictions tightened every manner of supply chain around the globe.  The pandemic started with hoarding toilet paper and disinfecting wipes. Now, 18 months later, most of the world’s commodities and supply chains have been ravaged too. Like most electronics, chips, cameras, and lenses cannot be created on a Zoom call or be assembled in a home office. Adding that most of the world’s population outside the United States are less than 10% vaccinated, many of the people I talked to are convinced the supply chain for some cameras and a number of accessories to remain constrained for another 12-24 months. 

Everyone thinks about the CPU and GPU chips in their computers, but few think of the thousands of other chips at play in all of our devices, from the USB and Thunderbolt controllers to the chipsets that handle connectivity via Bluetooth, Wifi, Ethernet, or cellular communications all need to be delivered, assembled and tested before that product makes it to market. Supply chains rely on “just in time” or scheduled manufacturing. In that model, sub-assemblies and selected components arrive at the factory just prior to being assembled into the final products. When critical components do not arrive in a timely manner that delay effectively shuts down that product’s assembly line.

While the manufacturing delays do not affect all devices, it is a single subset of chips that are being affected most. Called a “Field Programmable Gate Array” or FPGA, is the data processing monster at the center of our world. Cars use them for smart functions like lane assist or collision avoidance, integrating your phone, or control of your car’s self-driving or parking functionality. In cameras, FPGAs control the data throughput, from frame rates and color science to the flavor of Raw, ProRes, or H.264 compression used. It is that reprogrammability that allows your I/O, graphics cards, and camera’s functions to be modified by the OS or upgraded via “firmware” to change the embedded command code that controls the functionality in each chip. 

It is that programmability causing the issue. In the automotive marketplace, vehicles have more parts and procedural avenues to absorb or manufacturers redirect the increased chip costs within their pricing structure. Why sell chips to a camera company when some of the auto manufacturers are willing to pay 2x-3x the commodity pricing for FPGAs? When there are 150 or more programable chips in every new car or truck on the market, those couple of chips in your camera just don’t have the same fiscal weight in the marketplace as the auto manufacturers, reaffirming the old adage “money talks”.

What does all this mean for us in media and entertainment? 

The limited worldwide market for professional cameras systems and their accessories will limit increases on the price camera manufacturers are willing to pay for chips. Restricted by the low profit on most professional and consumer products, that need to be profitable as compared to the open markets in gaming or crypto-mining where the wildly fluctuating cost of goods is just absorbed.

I predict that higher-end camera systems will stay in restrained supply for the next 6-12 months, and it will take a bit longer for new any major new camera designs to appear on the market. I stay with the impression many of the higher performance accessories required in video monitoring, remote camera control and wireless transmission will stay in limited availability for an extended period of time. 

It means you may have to wait a little longer for products to arrive.  There will be a short-term reduction in product development as manufacturers wait for chip pricing to stabilize.  These shortages may also drive an increase in more diverse manufacturing capabilities and facilities worldwide as the cost of goods levels out as manufacturing stability returns to the marketplace. 

Much like the limited supply of toilet paper at the beginning of the pandemic, once people stop panicking, the market will stabilize, the available supply levels will increase and products will rebound. 

In the pre-pandemic years, lighting fixtures for film and video production all seemed to all take on innovative attributes as light tubes or flexible mats. While some sources used LED’s, others offered the latest in Remote Phosphor technologies with varying results. Many of the latest LED fixtures use RGB LEDs, increasing the spectrum available by adding multiple White LED’s for increased luminance and for increased bias control in the color spectrum. 

The latest advancement in LED lighting from newcomer Prolycht, takes that up by utilizing the latest six-channel (RGB+A+C+L) color matrix, using the addition of Amber, Cyan and Lime lights to the base RGB source, creating a light source that displays the Full Color Spectrum and allows it to be controlled from 2,000K to over 20,000K, without the insidious green spikes or limited color rendering of some sources. Those oddly colored LED’s allow projection of a nearly continuous color spectrum, with increased levels of brightness accurately. There is nothing new in the way this works, photo printers and printing presses have used additional ink color channels to refine or customize colors in print materials for decades, here the LED lighting technology is catching up by mimicking an analog solution used to achieve better colors on paper.

Yet it is that color quality in Prolycht’s Orion 300FS, that you have to see for yourself to appreciate.  There is a unique quality observed in viewing full spectrum light sources that is far more pleasing and comfortable to the human eye. Yet the color quality of the light is but part of the story here, as the 300FS unit comes with an astonishing array of capabilities that allow you to match 46 existing natural and artificial sources by just dialing them via the menu tree. The unit also comes with presets for over 300 different Rosco & Lee designated filter types, an additional 19 user customizable effects that include fire types, lightning strikes, emergency vehicles from US and EU and more.

There are many little things that make life easier on set, such as a magenta / green bias adjustments,  5pin DMX I/O, RJ-45 Ethernet, with Bluetooth and WiFi connectivity that includes the free ChromaLink App with full control of the unit remotely whether you are using a phone or a full lighting board.

Separated into an 8lb/3.7kg lamp and a 7lb/3.2kg control ballast, the Orion 300FS is far easier to work with onset because of the reduced weight of the lamp and its Bowens mount accessories. The 2-part aluminum design of the head and ballast allow it to be used on lighter weight stands and boom arms, while a simple 5 meter, 4pin cable with an IP 65/67 rating (waterproof) with a twist-lock LP-style connection connects the 2 pieces, highlighting the processing capabilities that are available in both the Lamp-head and Control Ballast. That distributed processing eliminates the need for an expensive and complex cable architecture between the 2 devices, allowing the available 10m extension cable to maintain flexibility at an affordable cost. 

Due to an issue with my schedule, I loaned the demo unit to Michael Muser, an Instagram influencer (@photo_muze), Podcaster, Sommelier and business partner with Chef Curtis Duffy. Mike is an incredible visual artist, generating nearly all of the social media content for their Michelin starred restaurant Ever here in Chicago.

Working in Muser’s new studio space, I set up the light, told him how to download and setup the Chroma Link app to control the light, powered it up and left him to his own devices. Since Mike shoots all of the food and people for promotion, I left him with both the 36” Prolycht soft box with grid, leaving out the internal diffuser panel, giving the source a little more localized contrast, essentially a soft diffuse light, yet strong with directionality. I also included a 4ft x 6ft Chimera Lightbox to give him a “window” sized source utilizing the inexpensive Bowens S-type adaptor for mounting.  

While Mike and I could not be farther apart in our visual styles or technical abilities, we both relished the simplicity of use and the quality of luminance.  “There was something in the quality of the light that was missing from the lighting I have been working with, the Prolycht light just looks better. “I see cleaner looking highlights and more appealing food” chimed Muser, referring to the color equality of the full color spectrum output from the Orion verses his existing LED sources. 

 

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With a street price around $2100 USD, the Orion 300FS is roughly one-third the cost of its closest RGB+ACL lighting competitor.  The Bowens S-type reflector mount is stronger, easier to use and costs far less than I remembered. Prolycht is directly positioning this lighting system at owner-operators, industrial, corporate and the online influencer segments of video production with Bluetooth and the ChromaLink App, while not ignoring the Ethernet and DMX connectivity to seamlessly integrate into your existing studio or stage lighting grid. 

Note:  I was told the Prolycht company name is a play on the word licht, the Scottish word for light and it is pronounced as “Pro-Light.” 

Ten years ago this month, on July 20, 2010, I posted one of the very first video’s of the ALEXA’s iPod like user interface.

As I understood the Apple philosophy on the ProRes intermediate codecs better than most, I had a small part in the early success of ProRes adoption though my work with Aja and the knowledge I gained as an early leader in the Final Cut Pro User Group community.

Apple’s codec, designed to allow for the ease of use and less restrictive playback requirements in post-production, was a welcome relief from the lossy, highly compressed and hardware based HDV based encoding favored in the video cameras of the era. Apple’s ProRes codec was barely 3 yrs old at this time, while the ugliness of compressed HDV tape maintained its wide popularity for its ease of use and low cost. DSLRs were just becoming popular for video production and RED was struggling to deliver a second round of the initial RED One. Cameras of all types were being released at a break-neck pace for broadcast and television production as the cinema side was still fighting it out with film. At NAB2010, nine PL-mount camera announcements were made after ALEXA’s Hollywood launch party, held at the Directors Guild Office, just a week before NAB 2010 was to start.

One of the first productions that wanted to go with the ALEXA here in Chicago was an NBC show called  Chicago Code. While this production was slated to shoot on the ALEXA and record directly to HDCamSR tape, as was the practice at the time, I was tasked prior to the start of production to test some of the tapeless possibilities from Aja, STwo and the more established CodexOnBoard recorder that had gained success with ARRI’s previous digital camera offering, the ARRIFLEX D-20/21.

The first task was to establish, then test multiple workflows that could be used when handling the ALEXA’s media. ARRI’s decision to choose an established media manufacturer allowed them to widen accessibility for tapeless acquisition from the prohibitive cost of the early Codex solutions. By choosing Sonys popular SxS card media, designed around the Express3/4 card slot found on most PC laptops and on Apples MacBookPro at the time, ARRI showed insight to the coming changes that were about to tear through our industry, and ones that continue to ripple through the technological landscape today. 

Both of these ideas, while not new, broke ground for a new way of shooting and working at a time when connectivity was still defined by analog boundaries. The US had passed through the transition to Digital Broadcast Transmission barely a year earlier. While ARRI had been working on a version of their digital cinema camera for a while, most people did not understand ARRI’s mindset at the time, nor their rather forward understanding of the digital process and how it might evolve. Unlike the other camera manufacturers building their digital camera designs on the existing designs of their broadcast offerings, ARRI did something radically different. They built their camera using the knowledge they had gained from making film cameras and scanners, almost as if they turned an ARRI Scanner on its end and started mounting cine-style lenses on it.

That is a fundamental difference in how ARRI brought the ALEXA to life, by not expanding on a broadcast or scientific sensor design like other manufacturers. ARRI built and refined their own unique sensor and capture system, one that was initially developed around the existing ARRI Laser Scanner. Digital Fim scanners are designed from the beginning for converting conventional motion picture celluloid frames to the digital files required for use in non-linear editing systems. It is not that ARRI redesigned the wheel, they just came at the sensor issue with some 90+ yrs of knowledge of film acquisition and more than a decade of scanning feature films for the growing market blossoming in digital post-production. Now a decade later, ARRI has adapted the ALEXA’s sensor technology as the foundation of an entirely new generation of film scanners designed for the digital age and a wide range of cameras for the needs of cinematographers. 

There was something else about the ALEXA too, something you could feel when you picked it the first time. The ALEXA was a camera made to be used, to be handled in the wildest and most extreme environments around the world. One of the earliest cameras even kept working after being nearly destroyed in a fire, something that would have destroyed every other digital camera of that era. Don’t get me wrong, other camera manufacturers make sturdy, well-built cameras, but the ALEXA was machined from a block of aluminum with precision and the attention to detail that German manufacturers are renowned for. Beyond that, ARRI had more than a fundamental understanding of ergonomics and how a camera and operator move and perform during a TV, Film or Documentary production. While this might seem odd now, at the time it was a fairly radical change from existing digital cameras.

ARRI’s ALEXA was designed for film and television production from one of the companies that founded the film industry. With more decades of technology and advances in film production around the world at the time the ALEXA was released, ARRI knew what needed to change more than most companies. Film productions have always had a multitude of people required to be in and around the camera for the entire production day. So with that mindset, ARRI wisely took the camera controls away from the operator, as it was standard practice in film cameras, and placed them on the opposite side of the camera, for camera assistants (and Digital Imaging Techs, like me) to have direct access to the camera controls even while it was being operated.

Yet, ARRI did not stop at just changing just the outside of the ALEXA to better suit production crews, they were one of the first camera manufacturers to fundamentally change the look and feel of the user interface and how people interact with a cameras operating system. ARRI’s overall philosophy in camera design and ergonomics learned in 100yrs of production, carried through to the digital camera menus, relieving us from the never-ending menu style found on the Japanese digital cameras to this day. This gave users the look and feel of an iPod like navigation wheel, mimicking the Apple products simplicity of navigation that has influenced other camera manufacturers and how users interact with menu structures ever since.

In the decade since the camera was created, nearly 20 versions have followed if you count the ALEXA 65 and the amazing popular Amira models. This showed ARRI’s commitment to building and designing what are arguably the best tools in the business. I saw that commitment very early in the ALEXA  s development and it reinforced everything I had ever heard about.

At the 2010 IBC Show in Amsterdam, ARRI was publicly showing the ALEXA to the world for the first large show in the European Union, after NAB and Cinegear shows in the US. The ARRI booth was adorned with the names of the people that had influenced the ALEXA’s development including my work testing ProRes and a video walkthrough of the interface posted online. The booth was so packed all the time it was not until the 3^rd day that I realized that my name was on that wall too (along with the name of  PVC contributor Art Adams, now an ARRI employee).  

It was on that day that I had a chance to run by the ARRI booth before the show opened and it was the point when I got to see something that I would have never imagined. In a discussion with Marc Shipman-Mueller, the ALEXA Product Manager,  I made an offhand comment about a minor detail that bugged me after working on and around the camera onset for the 5 previous months. During some fast-paced production at one point, I had a difficult time getting the media bay door open to exchange the SxS cards the camera recorded ProRes onto, and found a minor but noticeable issue: the top tab on the media door was something approximately 1 mm longer than the tab on the bottom of that same access door. Upon hearing my comments Marc paused then signaled to another individual and in a couple of minutes, many of the senior engineers on the camera were asking questions, testing my issue for themselves, and photographing hand movement when I was working on the camera.

That whole scene took maybe 10 minutes and I never thought another thing about it until the next time I worked on an ALEXA, albeit one that had just come back from ARRI with an update. It was a minor change, one that most would have not seen, but it was a change that was instantly noticeable to me. I found out a couple of months later that ARRI had started replacing that part when cameras came in for service, so unbeknownst to most owners, it was quietly and seamlessly updating cameras so that no one else would have the same trouble that I had taking media out of the camera while the camera was on the operator’s shoulder. To this day it still stands as one of those moments in my career that I look back on with amazement, that any manufacturer actually listened to their customer base, and would take it upon themselves to correct minor flaws just to make the tool better for their customers.

I wanted to give special thanks to my friends at the former Fletcher Camera and Lenses in Chicago, without whom I would not have been able to be at that place and time.  While the Fletcher name and assets are gone, the people have spread out across the county and are still making waves in film and television technologies. Camera Technician Mike Sippel, now coordinates new technologies for ARRI Rental, based out their facilities in NYC.  Megan Donnelly, now head of training for AbelCine, along with Rental Coordinators Jim Summers (Keslow Chicago), as well as Stan Glapa and Lens Specialist Al Collins (Panavision Chicago) for their help, guidance and assistance. Lastly I send my thanks to Tom Fletcher, who’s guidance and friendship remain part of my life. 

(Note: This was updated to say Fletcher Camera and Lenses)

Duclos Lenses is introducing the Premista Motor Bracket Kit designed and manufactured specifically for Fujinon’s latest  28-100mm and 80-250mm Premista Large Format zoom lenses. 

Duclos has designed specialty mounts, handles, and brackets for a wide variety of lenses. The efficient design provides a robust mounting point for Heden M26T and CM55 zoom motors while minimally adding weight to your camera package. The compact zoom gear extension bracket segment maintains the motor as close to the lens as possible without interference. By attaching the motor mount directly to the lens, the Duclos Premista Motor Bracket kit simplifies the configuration, reducing gear slippage or torque misalignment of your FIZ motors, allowing users the smallest, lightest external motor configuration possible for use with Steadicam, gimbal or drone use. 

“We spent months refining this product. Utilizing sophisticated generative design software to conceptualize solutions allowed us to achieve the most efficient design possible. I’m pleased with the result and look forward to seeing our clients pair the Premista zooms with our new Motor Bracket” – Matthew Duclos, Chief Engineer

This kit includes an adjustable eccentric ring that mounts directly to the lens to achieve the perfect mesh between the zoom gear and the motor. Installation is quick, user-friendly, and requires no modification to the original lens.  The motor bracket kit is designed, machined from billet 6061 aluminum, and assembled in Chatsworth, California and is available direct from Duclos at the MSRP of $795.

About Duclos Lenses

Duclos Lenses, Inc. is a family-owned and operated business with decades of optical knowledge and experience. As the premier source for motion picture lens sales, service, and accessories – Duclos Lenses continuously strives to provide the absolute highest level of professional, personal lens service and repair to the global motion picture industry. www.ducloslenses.com

I arose on Tuesday to a flood of messages from friends and media sources regarding a leaked WWDC announcement that Apple would be developing a line of computers using their own ARM chipsets rather than the existing Intel x86 chip architecture that Apple has used since 2006. This is not breaking news, as this idea has been swirling around in the rumor mill since the first pronouncements around Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference in 2012.

The bigger surprise to me was the response online, Apple stock prices jumped overnight setting a new record high in spite of the pandemic or other economic indicators, but I understand. Apple has had a tenuous relationship with Intel over the years, with multiple Apple product deadlines missed due to Intel chip delays, especially since Intel has not been able to meet a single chip product’s projected delivery deadline in over 5 years.

I doubt the conversion will be easy this time either. Apple’s 2006 change over from PowerPC chips to the Intel x86 architecture was painful for professional users and messed with workflows and deliverables for nearly 6 years after the projected launch, an issue related to many user’s reluctances to accept change. Failures during the transition were mainly the parts of the workflow that get the least amount of public attention, as it was the plugins and drivers that took the longest to fully update, leaving many of the smaller developers out of business rather than suffering the costs of converting their entire codebase to work on an entirely different platform. I expect the same will happen again.

Changing the chip architecture is not an easy thing. The computers we work with are often defined as being either RISC (Reduced Instruction Set Architecture) and those chips are usually designated for consumer-facing products like phones and tablets versus the CISC (Complex Instruction Set Architecture) processors that are found in most workstation level products. Think of the chip instructions that are being sent to be processed as you would any language, the RISC (ie: reduced) instructional command is simplified for increased performance speed and significantly reduced power consumption, while the more complex CISC instructions allow for dynamic re-adjustments but with higher power consumption, more heat and with increased costs to produce and to program.

In a reduced programing language, the programmer strives to reduce the options available for branched decision making. The RISC chips only understand “rain” as the soft summer rain of May, not the bone-chilling sideways blast of a nor’easter, the percussive deluge of a summer thunderstorm, nor able to discern the differences between freezing rain, sleet or hail either. While the CISC architecture can understand all of the nuances and can decide between a light mist, a spring rain or a full-on thunderstorm, it just requires the programmer to include those options in the codebase.

Apple has been working on this for more than a decade. Shedding Intel to embrace their own “A” series chipsets has been in the works for a long time. If you have a MacBook Pro, MacBook Air, MacBook, iMac or MacMini made since 2017, chances are you have at least one of Apple’s “T” series chips tucked away in your machine. The T1 and T2 series Apple chips handle some of the most secure transactions on your devices, namely Fingerprint and Face ID security scans stored in “Secure Enclave” while at the same time managing the “Control Strip” as a dynamically changing input device. Indications are that the foundation in the T2 chip will also accelerate the hardware-enabled encode and decode of audio and video, so that my future Mac might finally be able to playback the H.265 HEVC compression my iPhone 11 Pro records in without transcoding first.

Eight years after the first trial balloons, Apple may actually make the jump this time. Because of the foundations of iOS, Apple controls a huge supply chain and cash reserves that did not exist for the struggling company in 2006. Suppling their own chips for their higher performance systems will increase productivity, reducing the cost per chip by more than half in some industry estimates. An Apple-designed chipset would speed the connection between GPU, CPU, Secure Enclave, and the system architecture in a way that could take us all to the future.

The tech Apple is pushing has already proved itself in millions of devices. It will streamline access and control over disparate services such as accelerated I/O, enhanced security, and hardware encoded and decoded video playback, albeit with a loss of external functionality for items such as camera codecs and wide range of legacy devices used in media and entertainment. It will make us better and faster, just not initially upon launch

Now if we can just get through the Catalina transition

Since about half of my contacts have reached out to me regarding an article that appeared on The Verge regarding a vulnerability on computers that have Intel’s Thunderbolt chipsets and were manufactured through 2019 and may have an exploitable flaw that would allow a hacker access to your files.  I will respond directly that, yes, there is a hardware-specific flaw that would allow a hacker to access your files, bypassing any and all restrictions and security measures. 

To make sure that this was not something new I reached out to Intel’s Thunderbolt team for comment.  In a short blog post by Intel’s Jerry Bryant mentions the intrusion by the Eindhoven University of Technology, dubbed “ThunderSpy” where they show a new vulnerability via a physical attack on systems that have not upgraded. The blog post also reminds users “In 2019, major operating systems implemented Kernel Direct Memory Access (DMA) protection to mitigate against attacks such as these. This includes Windows (Windows 10 1803 RS4 and later), Linux (kernel 5.x and later), and MacOS (MacOS 10.12.4 and later)”  

So most media and entertainment users can relax, because not every security flaw affects everyone in the same manner. The ThunderSpy vulnerability requires the hacker to make a dedicated, specific attack on your physical device. This vulnerability is not a sniffer, a snooper, it is not logging your keystroke or a bot to steal your data, and as indicated in the video. A hacker would need to build a device to capture then re-write the boot sequence from the chip itself. Then the hacker would need to write or modify an existing application to override the boot sequence in a forced bypass of the normal startup process so that it can rewrite the chip’s programming while needing to be in physical contact with your computer for not quite 10 minutes while they dismantle it to gain access to the physical chip.  

The first versions of this issue came to light in 2014 via the BadUSB exploit, one that stems from an “invisible” microcontroller in most USB devices, where a modified USB adapter was able to redirect the computers network traffic to new Domain Network Server (DNS) assignment address, giving the hacker access to the computer and network infrastructure just by attaching a USB device to your computer. It is also the reason that starting in late 2014 that Operating Systems started requiring users to manually acknowledge that a new device was attached and wanted access to your computer. The OS then maintains an internal archive of each peripheral device’s MAC address that you have given the “always connect” status too, protecting from a “drive-by” exploit from malware that infects your system during boot. 

This type of exploit is hardly new. These Direct Memory Access (DMA) attacks, can also happen via 1394/FireWire, PCMCIA, CardBus, ExpressCard, and others. They have existed as long as there has been this level of PCI level bus connectivity. PCI devices are DMA-capable, allowing them to directly read and write to system memory at will, without having to engage the system processor (or security subsystems) in these operations. The DMA capability is what makes PCI devices capable of the highest performance in devices available today. Historically these devices have only existed inside the computer, either connected as a PCI card or soldered directly on the motherboard. Access to these devices required the user to turn off power to the system and disassemble the chassis. Today, this is no longer the case with Thunderbolt and USB enabled workflows. 

In closing, remember that no computer is truly secure, especially if someone else has physical access to it. But in all honesty, the ThunderSpy flaw is only dangerous if you were to lose your computer or if you are working on a secret government pandemic project, but for the vast majority of users, simple due diligence will protect them and their data from this exploit, for now at least. 

Fujinon’s North American associates posted some simple and effective methods to keep your broadcast and cinema lenses free of germs and contamination without damaging your delicate optics or the mechanical performance of their lenses recently on Facebook, however since so many people are no longer on that Social Platform, Fujinon agreed to allow ProVideo to republish the info here. 

I will note, that while this document only references Fujinon’s products, the process and procedures outlined illustrate a viable working process across a wide range of lenses, cameras, and optical products we all use regardless of the manufacturer. These are the same procedures I utilize for cleaning my still cameras and lenses, microphones, and cine-style camera and lenses and accessories too. So, with permission we at ProVideo offer them to our readers as a sensible guideline for the safe and germ-free cleaning and decontamination of phones, tablets, wireless controllers, camera cart and computer surfaces,  to make yourself and everyone around you safer and healthier when we all get back t0 working. 

To most effectively clean your Fujinon broadcast and cinema lenses of germs and contamination without damaging the optics or mechanical performance, follow these instructions.

When cleaning a Fujinon broadcast or cinema lens there are two separate areas of concern:

• All coated glass surfaces
• All other surfaces including lens barrel/housing, servo handgrip, accessories.

When cleaning the Fujinon glass surfaces the following steps are recommended:

1. It is recommended rubber gloves are worn when cleaning the lens
2. Blow/brush the surfaces clean of any debris.
3. Dab a new/clean lens towel/tissue in 99.9% isopropyl alcohol and wipe the surface clean in a circular motion from center to edge of the optical element.
4. Discard the cleaning tissue after every wipe.
5. Ensure 99.9% isopropyl alcohol[1] is used to ensure fast evaporation and minimize the chance of streaking. (alternate lens cleaner option in link below)
6. Kimwipe style dust free tissues are recommended.
7. Never spray alcohol or any other liquid directly onto the lens elements
8. Wash hands thoroughly when complete

• If the glass surfaces of the lens need to be cleaned in the field, Fujifilm recommends the use of: https://nanomagic.com/product/ultra-clarity-1oz-spray-packs/

When cleaning the other surfaces of a Fujinon lens ie: barrel, handgrip or accessory product:

1. It is recommended rubber gloves are worn when cleaning the lens.
2. Blow/brush the surfaces clean of any debris.
3. Dilute a clean microfiber towel/rag in a 70% alcohol solution.
4. Wipe all surfaces until they are thoroughly cleaned.
5. Allow all surfaces to dry
6. Never spray any liquid solution directly onto the lens for risk of droplets penetrating the barrel and contaminating internal surfaces.
7. Denatured alcohol is NOT recommended for lens cleaning
8. Used microfiber towels should be cleaned regularly
9. Wash hands thoroughly when complete

Thank you for your support of Fujinon lens products. If you have any further questions or concerns please contact your nearest Fujifilm, Optical Devices Division sales or service representative at:  www.fujinon.com

[1] Due to the high flammability ensure to handle 99.9% alcohol safely 

{ Note: the use difference between using pure isopropyl alcohol and denatured alcohol, which contains both ethanol and methanol, and is more commonly used as a fuel or in hand sanitizer) 

Announcing that the USB4 standard will fully support the coming DisplayPort Alternate Mode v2.0, with higher resolution display capabilities, faster data transport and noticeably higher refresh rates via USB TypeC connections. This is USB4’s first expansion beyond the existing infrastructure built on and around Intel’s Thunderbolt 3 physical layering (PHY) that relies on the same interoperability and standards.

This change will facilitate the seamless interoperability with the new USB4 specification published by the USB Implementers Forum (USB-IF). It will also enable features in the latest release version of the DisplayPort standard (version 2.0) via the USB Type-C® (USB-C) connector.

“The USB Type-C is becoming the connector of choice in notebooks and mobile solutions,” said Syed Athar Hussain, VESA board vice-chairman and display domain senior fellow, AMD. “With the new DisplayPort Alt Mode 2.0 specification, USB Type-C now delivers compelling single-connector solutions for docking, gaming, AR/VR HMDs, and professional HDR displays that combine 80 Gbps of video bandwidth and other important features of DisplayPort 2.0 with the transport of USB data and power delivery”

USB4 is built on the foundations of the current Thunderbolt 3 Titan Ridge chipset, with 40gbps of data throughput, multi-device connectivity while supporting dual 4K displays and power over a single cable. Thunderbolt keeps them aligned in their individual pathways or PHY layers, with the display protocol defined along its own dedicated pathway. The addition of the DP 2.0 Alt Mode allows your computer to send DisplayPort data across both the data and display pathways effectively doubling the bandwidth for display connectivity.

Since its announcement in June 2019, the enthusiasm for the new DisplayPort 2.0 standard has been overwhelming, offering 3x the data bandwidth as compared to the previous version. Additionally, it addressed the growing requirements for 8K deliverables and the greater need for display processing for Augmented and Virtual Reality. The color processing and metadata capabilities will be foundational for the coming revolution in Virtual Television and Film Production.

DisplayPort 2.0 delivers a maximum payload of 77.37 Gbps across the four PHY layer lanes (at up to 19.34 Gbps per lane) which is supporting ultra-high display performance configurations such as an 8K (7680×4320) display with a 60 Hz refresh rate with full-color 10 bit 4:4:4 HDR resolution uncompressed, and up to 16K (15360×8460) at 60 Hz with 10 bit 4:4:4 HDR resolution with compression. With the release of DisplayPort Alt Mode 2.0, all of these high-performance video capabilities are now available to the USB ecosystem.

VESA is now taking responsibility related to high-performance displays over USB-C, whether through a native DisplayPort or USB-C connector or through tunneling of DisplayPort 2.0 over the native USB4 interface. The 10bit DisplayPort standard is the default protocol used in the Thunderbolt interface, making it the de facto video standard across computers and mobile displays.

I am expecting to start seeing USB4 and DisplayPort 2.0 products being announced starting late 2020, with widespread adoption by 2022 by the drive manufacturers. I also expect we’ll see the displays following 12-18 months behind the storage rollouts.

• Canon C500 Mark II
• Sony PXW-FX9
• Sony Venice (Updated Firmware version w/ higher frame rates)

You can download the updated version here.

Compiled by Thomas Fletcher and myself with additional information and opinions gathered from conversations with numerous cinematographers, rental houses, and the manufacturers themselves, the Camera Comparison Chart is both a labor of love as well as a resource that is utilized across the industry.

From its introduction, the Camera Comparison Chart was designed to provide a tool to educate producers around the wide variety of tools that are available to them for content creation. For more than a decade we’ve kept up with updates to the Camera Comparison Chart but have kept it focused on mainstream production-centric cameras that are available for purchase and rental around the world. That’s the reason that cameras such as Arri’s Alexa 65 and Panavision’s DXL cameras are not included, even though those cameras are widely utilized in both television and feature film production.

The Genesis of the Camera Chart

Being relevant to the rental industry has always been our key focus. Tom’s former company, Fletcher Camera and Lens, was one of the most influential rental houses in the earliest days of HDTV as it provided education to both crews and productions. All of that laid the groundwork for the burgeoning delivery of 4K and HDR content. We’ve always felt that rental houses have been a focal point for advancing production technology in the film and television communities they serve. The rental houses are important because many new generation production cameras are often out of the price range most users could comfortably afford. Renting those cameras allows a wide array of users to access the highest level of cinematic production tools that could not have been achieved in any other manner.

When we started there was not a large amount of information compiled or published on cameras that were being used as part of most projects. Nearly all high-end projects were shooting film and the cameras were sometimes secondary to the film stocks that were used. The advent of digital production made everyone far more aware of the differences between cameras and each manufacturer’s product. Showing each cameras credit’s list allowed us to better understand what needs, requirements and looks we are trying to achieve for our own productions. We’ve all gone to a movie or watched a TV show and wondered what it was shot with. By allowing us to credit the cameras, those productions and their Directors of Photography were able to be highlighted, and supporting the manufacturer’s marketing efforts was a nice bonus.

The best example of that on the 2019 Camera Comparison chart is Canon’s C300MK2, where every credit listed for that camera was nominated for the Academy Award for Documentary Filmmaking. And yes, that’s every single film.

Chart Logistics

The relevant cameras on the list have changed multiple times over the years. For example, take a camera like Vision Research’s Flex4K. It is not any less of a camera than when it shipped, yet it is no longer on the current chart. Nevertheless, it’s still as viable a production tool now as it was when it was released.

The number of cameras is fixed. There is a fixed number of positions available, so cameras come and go regularly. The main reasons we limit the chart to 2 pages is simply about the time involved. Second is that many schools and rental houses print the chart out to hang in their prep areas. We’re open to expanding the length of the chart and feature updates for the zoom lens chart as well as one for anamorphic lenses, but that’s a large undertaking without financial support, which we’re open to discussing with the right vendor.

Tom and I have always thought the sensor sizing info is incredibly important, when we started there were still 2/3” sensors that used B4 mounts on the Varicam’s and HDCam’s. Now everything is mostly PL or Canon EF mount with Arri’s new LPL mount taking hold to bypass limitations as we zoom pass full-frame 35mm sensors.

We maintain the imagery to visually refresh peoples thought process. I use that info when I have speaking sessions to point out that Sony’s Venice is the only “true” VistaVision sized sensor based on the Academy’s published size. That RED’s Monstro and Arri’s LF sensors are larger than that does not take away from their capabilities anymore than choosing between 3-perf or 4-perf 35mm film stocks.

Understanding the Camera Chart and the Market it Highlights

As part of both our businesses, Tom and I regularly interface with the Product Managers, rental companies and selected DP’s about the ever-changing state of the marketplace. With every new camera model, we do the necessary research and then we hand off our best effort to the companies so the technical assets can be proofread. We list all our contributors on the release announcement to let our consumers know we strive to have the most accurate technical information possible and that it comes directly from the manufacturers and the rental houses we work with on a daily basis.

In closing, I am always being asked about upcoming trends that would affect our industry and the one I am seeing now is that sensors are getting larger. I expect them to continue to grow, but that does not really change things for the thousands of S35 imagers on the market. Without the physical limitations of analog film, larger format sensors and the corresponding data requirements will prevail. It was those limitations of size and weight that allowed 16mm and S35 formats to maintain such an extended lifespan. In the digital world we live in now, often the optics weight far more than the rest of the camera package combined. As someone that grew up making a living with 4×5 and 8×10 still cameras, having a cine camera that records on a 6×4.5cm sensor reminds me of the Hasselblad cameras of my youth.

On the other end, manufacturers are once again making smaller 2/3” sensors for broadcast solutions that need that extended depth of field and lensing capabilities those smaller sensors allow in news and sports.

Download the 2019 Camera Comparison Chart

So, Apple reached out and wanted someone to attend a PR event in the Tribeca neighborhood of New York and I agreed to wing my way to the Big Apple on a blisteringly cold day. As I was waiting with other invited members in an upscale presentation space, the details of what we were going to be previewing were released on the internet. Apple announced that the New Mac Pro and XDR display would be shipping in December and that the latest laptop, the 16” MacBook Pro would ship next week.

This became the very first Apple PR meeting I have ever attended that did not include signing an NDA, and we were prohibited from taking photos except for the dedicated room showing only the New MacBook Pro sadly all by itself on a table. At every point in the roving “pub crawl” style presentation, between the demonstration areas showing New Mac Pro’s with XDR displays aligned alongside the New MacBookPro’s, reinforcing unified working conditions to highlight both mobile and workstation level usage.

First, let’s discuss the New Mac Pro and Apple XDR display. I have to say they are as gorgeously designed and manufactured as most Apple products are. Stylish inside and out, the MacPro’s sleek all-black interior, hides the chips and layout of the logic board, with little more than the various connectors sticking out of the matte darkness, a design issue that will haunt anyone that reconfigures that machine under a desk or in a dark IT closet. The internal expansion modules are built solidly, so much so that a fully configured desktop is more than 2x the weight of the empty chassis. The individual modules use that weight to assist with passive cooling for the GPU’s and internal storage. It appears to me that users might need custom “sleds” for proper installation of additional GPU’s or storage. The units are impressively quiet even fully configured with the heat of multiple GPU’s running 8K as ProRes 4444, across multiple XDR displays in realtime.  Lastly, while I thought wheels on a CPU was not a good thing, after playing with one of the MacPro’s on wheels, I realized that config would make the installation process a great deal smoother, an idea that some Mac System Admin must have been behind.

The XDR display is pretty impressive. I currently have a 1000nit HDR monitor on my desk and the Apple display brings back many of the things I appreciate. The bezel of the display is slim and low profile, allowing for a clean but not quite seamless alignment of 2 or more XDR  displays. Apple promoted the use of the XDR display as a replacement for the $30,000 dedicated HDR monitoring solutions, however with only Intel’s Thunderbolt 3 (USBc) for I/O, making that leap is pretty limited for anything other than post-production, since there are not any SDI or HDMI to USBc converters available on the market at this time, though I am sure some company is working on it as I type.

But I had come to NYC to hear about the New MacBook Pro. Being a power user, my laptop needs to perform quite often as both a desktop and a mobile workstation. My existing 15” MBP, with 4 Thunderbolt 3 ports, 16GB RAM and a 1TB SSD functions as my main machine most days. I like it for the performance and the weight. Apple’s latest offering, reaffirms that they take mobile computing very seriously, especially if you work in audio.

The New 16” MacBook Pro is clearly a move to the front of the line, roughly the same size and weight of my 18-month-old laptop and has the same 4 Thunderbolt 3 ports (with a single buss on either side of the machine). That’s where the similarity ends, since the slightly larger 3072×1920 display has a smaller bezel, allowing for a slightly larger screen size in the same relative space. Even with the same 500nit’s of brightness in P3’s wide color as the previous version, it paired well in brightness and contrast with the multiple Apple XDR screens positioned around them. This new 16” MacBook Pro is less than 5% larger and under 10% heavier than the current models while also adding 20% more capability to the battery.

Powered by either a 2.6GHz 6-core i7 or 2.3GHz 8-core i9 Intel Chipset, there is a completely redesigned thermal cooling system that includes a 35% larger heat sink and quieter fans. Users can rejoice with options that now allow 32GB and 64GB RAM options that Apple claimed can accelerate Photoshop rendering by a factor of 4,  while the onboard AMD RadeonPro 5500M GPU is offered in both 4GB and 8GB VRAM options. The base configurations now have 16GB RAM, a 512GB SSD and start at $2399.00 while the full maxed out configuration with 64GB of RAM and a whopping 8TB’s of SSD storage is just $6,099.00

Too bad that Apple chose to highlight the power of the updated AMD GPUs capability by comparing DaVinci Resolve render speeds to that of Fortnite and the Unity developer platform, not really suitable analytics for comparison to the Media and Entertainment users this laptop is geared towards. Yet it is certainly indicative of the growing markets around mobile gaming and app development, mentioned as Apple’s largest base of power users.

The real allure of this MacBook is in the audio. Apple has taken ideas and experience from their mobile efforts to create a higher quality audio experience than I have ever personally heard in mobile computing. Starting with the 6 speaker sound system, it is the first Apple laptop that could produce truer stereo output than I have heard before. Most impressive to these ears were the Dual force-canceling woofers that dramatically increase bass and mid-tone levels without the annoying, vibration-induced noise heard when overdriving your laptop’s speakers. Also, know as force balancing, the woofers are paired “back to back” in such a way as to cancel the vibrational forces they create.

Apple has also added what they call the “studio-quality three mic array” on the left side, incorporating some the iPhone’s advanced noise-canceling that does not simply crush the offending frequencies, but samples the ambient signal to noise ratios, applying inverse noise cancellation, thereby improving acquisition by retaining both vocal and instrumental harmonics without adding compression or frequency shift to the recording. I was actually surprised about the audio demo, a rare Apple moment showing both the previous-gen MacBook and a brand new Dell Precision laptop to exemplify how much better the audio recorded and played back with the updated audio hardware is, as compared to a PC competitor.

The 16” MacBook Pro looks to be a powerhouse alongside the New MacPro. The performance and configurations play directly into the needs of Editors, Compositors,  Photographers and Cinematographers without ignoring the needs of musicians, composers and artists. My one concern is with the power; this new device appears to need all the power it can get, requiring Apple to increase both the capacity of the battery and the power supply to power it, as it now wants 94w of power, nearly the 100w maximum allowable over the USBc / Thunderbolt 3 connection.

The problem for me, as someone that powers my laptop from the TB3 connection to my monitor, is that I do not know of any Thunderbolt 3 or USBc peripheral device that delivers that 90w+ of power downstream other than Apple’s XDR display. The question would be on whether the TB3 ports, which generate a large amount of heat when used under heavy data and/or display loads, might reach their thermal limits. Will they be able to supply that much power to the system via the same port or will I need to sacrifice one of the MacBook Pro’s TB ports just to keep the unit powered while working onset.

Oh, I almost forgot, they fixed the keyboard too!  Though I have to admit, I did not think it would (or should) require the 20% of the presentation to cover all the changes to the key mechanism just to tell us it was the same keyboard that ships with the iMacPro.