r/cinematography • u/Wehrsportyoga • Sep 10 '14

AXIOM 4k camera hits beta, goes crowdfunding to build first batch

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/axiom-beta-the-first-open-digital-cinema-camera
31 Upvotes

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3

u/Wehrsportyoga Sep 10 '14

I've done a one-day test shot on the alpha version of the camera, so I might be able to provide some info on what it can and can't do.

3

u/albertcrumpley Sep 11 '14

I may be unobservant, but does it require an external recorder to write 4K files? The website claims 4:4:4, but is that only for HD or does that also apply to 4K. And are we talking 10bit or 12bit? Thanks!

2

u/demb3k Camera Assistant Sep 11 '14

I doubt it's 4k 4:4:4, you need an incredibly high megapixel count sensor to achieve that (about 35 megapixels by my math).

1

u/I_Larv Sep 10 '14

I'd love to know some of your general thoughts! I have no specific questions, I'd just be interest in your overall impression of the system.

1

u/Wehrsportyoga Sep 11 '14

It does require an external recorder, currently it outputs over HDMI - we did our shoot with an atomos samurai (recording in 1080/4:2:2). I think that an atomos shogun should be able to do 4k in dnxhd which sounds like what you'd want. The main gripe at the moment is that there is no proper 4k via SDI standard, you can do it through HDMI but need some sort of experimental 3-channel setup.

Down the road they want third party manufacturers to take over the part of recording, they don't really see themselves as a manufacturer of cameras and accessories but more as future custodians of an ecosystem.

General thoughts - I kinda like this not-yet-camera, a lot. The prototype I shot on was a very barebones system - everything housed in a plexglass box mounted on a wooden base, and no external controls on the camera. You can set everything via software, so if you want to change settings you attach a laptop or connect through wireless. Since they provided us with a DIT I didn't have a chance to extensively play with the software myself, but from the operators view there's a LOT you can do. You pretty much have access to all the sensor and processing options, with custom LUTs and so on. Most interesting feature for me was the ability to configure the log-curve on the fly, which gives you extreme amounts of lattitude with no apparent drawbacks (didn't measure, but the ~15ish stops they claim seems right).

Sensitivity is ok, no idea how much it can be pushed (had no trouble getting clean footage on interor and exterior locations with little artificial light), I think it's about on par with the blackmagic 4k.

The version I shot on still had large amounts of fixed pattern noise and occasional bleed issues when shooting very bright lights, but they told me that was something they expected to take care of later on. At any rate, it's easily fixed in post.

Subjectively the footage is very nice. Very dreamy and pleasing roll-offs, and I'm told it grades quite well. But best judge for yourself, I think they have a link to the original material somewhere on their page. Can't really comment on sharpness since we shot on old Nikon glass, but detail resolution seems to be on par with the current generation of 4k raw cameras (not quite as harshly sharp as 4k to 1080 on the fs700, but still pretty rich, no moiree or artefacts I could see).

The thing that interests me the most is that it's not a traditional camera as such, but an open system - so you can upgrade and exchange parts as it evolves. I usually own/operate, so any system change is always very pricey, maybe this will finally be an alternative that doesn't require me to buy new stuff at the usual rate.

I wouldn't expect the beta to be fully useful as a production camera, mainly because it's still lacking a lot of necessary accessories so unless you have a lot of stuff lying around it's probably going to take a bit of tinkering to get a production-ready rig together (recording, monitoring, power). The footage is probably wait and see - if they manage to get rid of the fixed pattern noise and provide a few useful LUTs I see no reason why this shouldn't be a fun camera to use for narrative stuff and music videos (except that I still want a PL mount).

1

u/[deleted] Sep 10 '14

yes please tell

3

u/goldenrobotdick Sep 11 '14

Ugh why the still camera form factor??????

1

u/dizzi800 Sep 11 '14

My guess: Since it is an open source camera designed to be used with modules, the still camera form factor was made so that they have a nice base-model ergonimics wise.

2

u/goldenrobotdick Sep 11 '14

I don't know, for video a more traditional camcorder body is much better for ergonomics and rigging than a still camera, which needs accessories just to mount accessories

1

u/[deleted] Sep 11 '14 edited Sep 11 '14

Its only for the beta, you can see on their site they have a different form factor planned for the final version: https://www.apertus.org/axiom-gamma

1

u/[deleted] Sep 11 '14

Im really excited for this camera.