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Filed under: Cameras •Hardware •Lighting •Production •

Cine Gear Expo 2008 - Day 2

Cine Gear Expo on the blazing-hot Universal backlot

Day 2 of Cine Gear Expo dawned sunny and hot—our in-car temperature display registered 102 degrees Fahrenheit by 1:30pm. Despite the heat, there were plenty of things worth seeing.

European Village, at siesta time.

The picture above is atypical; most of the time, the “streets” of the “cities” in which Cine Gear Expo was staged were jammed with people. But even then, at 11:27am, the heat was causing folks to look for shade.

The backside of a backlot building.

The show took place on the Universal Studios backlot, amidst empty building shells and false fronts. Walking from one end of the show to the other took one from cobblestoned European courtyards to the dusty streets of a Western frontier town (albeit streets with a smoothly-paved concrete center section, all the better for smooth dolly moves).

Unlike my scattershot coverage of Day 1, I’ve tried to impose some order on this day’s coverage (apologies for being four days late, too).

Film Cameras

“Film is dead?” Not by a long shot, especially when it comes to slo-mo. Photo-Sonics is perhaps the best-known supplier of high-speed film cams in both 16mm and 35mm. One of their 35mm cameras runs at up to 360 fps, a 15x slowdown. It’s an impressively-engineered bit of gear.

The film transport of a Photo-Sonics 360 fps 35mm camera.

Photo-Sonics had a cutaway movement in a plexiglass box. Twelve pull-down pins, and four registration pins! This movement gets oiled when a new magazine is loaded, and the movement is built loose: it heats up at speed, and expands to fit its design tolerances.

Photo-Sonics guts revealed.

If 360 fps isn’t slow enough, Millisecond Cinematography offers a drum camera capturing at frame rates from 120 fps to 12,000 fps (5x to 500x slowdown).

The Millisecond camera: it holds only 120 frames of 35mm film...

...but it can expose them at up to 12,000fps!

My pick for most lust-worthy bit of film kit? Aaton‘s Penelope, a 2-perf/3-perf 35mm handheld camera. Check out that trademark wooden handgrip.

Aaton’s Penelope, with a Master Prime.

It’s as if Aaton shrink-wraps metal around the transport mechanism and the film, resulting in the most elegant, minimalist packages around. Aaton says that camera should rest “like a cat on your shoulder”, and the focus on ergonomics is apparent.

Side view of Penelope.

The camera has an integral video tap as well as a big, bright optical finder. The array of silver pushbuttons will have proper labels once this prototype goes into production.

The business end of the Penelope / Master Prime combo.

(While we’re discussing Aaton, their Cantar-X audio recorder was shown by Location Sound. I didn’t get any pix as the Cantar needs to be powered up for its meters to come alive, but there are good images on Aaton’s website.)

Lenses and Controllers

Innovision now has probe lenses for 72mm-threaded camcorders, like the HVX200.

Innovision’s probe lens on an HVX200.

DALSA had a big display of 4K digital cine cams, recorders, and support gear, and they also had a showcase full of lenses. I hadn’t known before that DALDSA had their own glass. But something else snuck in amongst the Master Primes and DALSA lenses…

DALSA prime lenses… and a Lensbaby!

cmotion has shown this handcrafted camera at several Cine Gear Expos.

cmotion’s famous handcrafted wooden camera. Oh, yes: they make lens controls, too.

It’s a BFD that the Bartech Focus Device (a wireless lens controller) has a motor that can drive even the stiffest of lenses. It’s reasonably priced, too, at “only” US$4600 (and no, I’m not being sarcastic: that’s a good price).

Bartech Focus Device: BFD!

Camera support systems are a dime a dozen (or, well, $1500/each, on average, plus accessories), but the CineTech stuff stands out for its wooden focusing knobs, lightening holes (look at the support rods on the shelf below the follow-focus), and almost over-the-top machining.

CineTech always has the most elegant follow-focus systems.

Next: Lighting, camera support, more RED stuff, etc...

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