Cine Gear is held on the first Friday and Saturday of every June on the Paramount lot in Los Angeles, but you could actually get a sense of what companies and products were featured if you just spent a single day at the event. That’s really not enough time to take in everything though, so spending both days here is essential.

After a successful Day 1, we wanted to make sure we talked with some of the companies that were showing off LED lights and copters but also stopped by a session with a couple PVC writers that was as informative as it was stimulating.

Once again, you can click to the next page to see more pictures from the show.

Art Adams & Adam Wilt – The F55 as a “Swiss Army” Knife

Although we tend to focus on exhibitors and products at these trade shows, we couldn’t resist stopping by a presentation that was being put on by PVC writers Art Adams and Adam Wilt. Their session explained the different ways the F55 can render color and tone, and the guys really showed the audience what the camera is capable of doing.

Adam went over the camera's versatility, and laid out in plain English why there’s not much it can't do. He also showed some antique aircraft footage and time-lapse footage that showcased how the camera can make something ordinary look stunning.

Art then took over and played some video comparisons that showed off the different ways the F55 can render color and tone. Even he was surprised to see how stark the differences were on the big screen.  He also talked through issues like gamut choices in Cine-El mode and color gamuts as film stocks.

Anyone curious about “how” they can and should use the F55 should check out the presentation, which should be available on Sony’s site soon.  And if Art & Adam are ever presenting in an area near you make sure you make the trip to see them. Until then, you can check out their PVC archives which are full of articles that are both informative and timeless.  

Art Adams – Stunning Good Looks

Adam Wilt – Camera Log

Sony

Speaking of Sony, they of course had a large presence and were showing off various products and solutions. Peter Crithary, Marketing Manager for Production at Sony, gave us the details about all of them, and you’d be surprised to see how much attendees were able to check out.

“At Cine Gear 2014 we’re showing off 4K technology everywhere, from acquisition to display to workflow and pretty much everything in-between,” Crithary told us. “We’re showing off the F65, V4, which has live color grading on output. We have the MoVI M15 model that supports the F55 which is coming out in August. We also have the FS700 camera which is the under 10K 4K camcorder that supports output to the Odyssey 7Q recorder, so you can record 2K and 4K RAW as well as ProRes. We worked with Convergent Design to enable support for the RAW signal coming out of the 3G-SDI output of the FS700 to do 2K and 4K RAW recording. So it’s very exciting.”

Sony's cameras and hardware solutions are a staple of the industry, so it's always worthwhile to stop by their booth and see what they're showing off. Of course, their physical products weren't the only focus, as they also had an entire section dedicated to workflow.

“On the workflow side, we’re showing the native support for our RAW, for our XAVC and for our HDCAM SR codex which are spread out through the different camera technologies,” Crithary said. “These are things our users want and need support around, so we want them to know we can give them that support.” 

CopterShop

The amount of copters featured at Cine Gear was stunning, and they all came in different shapes and sizes. Jeff Foster writes about this technology on a regular basis, and in fact just rolled out his hands on review of the DJI Phantom 2 Vision+. We weren’t about to go into such detail at Cine Gear, and instead found out what companies like CopterShop were talking to attendees about.

“Anybody can pick up the Phantom 2 Vision and Phantom 2 Vision+ and learn how to fly it in about five minutes,” said Steve McIrvin from CopterShop. “Most people don't realize how easy it, and once they know that you can see them thinking about how they'd be able to use it.”

You can check out Jeff’s channel to get much more detail around how these copters perform, and it was easy to see why his articles are so popular. The CopterShop booth was always crowed and there were various companies that had a copter of some sort, so it seems they've captured the imagination of a lot of people.

“This technology really shows you that people are always willing to experiment and try new things,” McIrvin said. “The Vision+ comes with its own camera that allows you to view the footage right on your phone, so it gives people the ability to really be creative in a way they can pick up on almost immediately.”

Dracast

Cine Gear is obviously cine-focused, and that’s something you realize immediately when you notice how many LED’s are on display throughout the show. It felt like every company had some sort of light to show off, so we stopped by the Dracast booth to see what they featured to stand out from the pack.

“Our newest edition is the T1000, which is a tube series fixture,” said Rodney Miller, Sales Manager at Dracast. “It has 1,000 watt light output but is only drawing 50 watts of energy. Also, the tubes are fully removable and are incredibly durable, so you can do just about anything to them and they won’t shatter like a traditional fluorescent.”

In addition to being shatterproof, the lights are flicker-free, instant-on, zero-hum, battery operational, and bi-color but are also available in single color. Their high output, soft light banks really do make them different, but that's not the only thing that makes them stand out.

“It’s got a ball swivel mount on the back with a ratcheting handle, so you can mount this light wherever and however you want,” he said. “My favorite part is that if you’re missing one tube or you want to swap one out, the other two will still power on, so that opens up a lot of different possibilities for users.”

Kessler

Kessler products have gained the reputation of being reliable and versatile, and both of those things are a must for a production no matter how large or small. At Cine Gear, we talked with someone who has a unique perspective on how Parallax and UniDrive from Kessler can be used.

“Parallax is a bar that’s an add-on to existing Kessler sliders,” said Tom Guilmette, a Boston based DP who makes a living using Kessler products. “It’s a mechanical panning camera platform that has this car that rides up and along the rail that’s added to the slider. If you adjust the angle of the rail it does different things to the camera platform during the slide.”

Guilmette explained how he uses this for wrapping around an object in space, like someone in an interview. He could have the camera slowly wrapping around the interviewee, which makes it perfect as far as a pan. Since it’s a mechanical device, every time it’s adjusted it has a perfect movement. And when used with UniDrive, it’s even more versatile.

“UniDrive is designed to be a simple motion control device that can control up to three motors. It can do slide, pan and tile,” he said. “The beautiful thing about UniDrive is that it’s super simple. You set an in, at the beginning, and an out at the end, and everything in-between mellows itself out. Real time camera movement, time-lapsing and stop-motion animation is all possible with this system, and that’s in addition to looping which is what I really like. You can just have it loop infinitely back and forth. It’s a super simple device to perform amazing motion control.”

Anton/Bauer

“Anton/Bauer V-Mounts are brand new for the company,” said Sherry Fragomeni, from Anton/Bauer. “We heard customers’ feedback, and basically they were wanting a high-quality, safe, reliable battery, but they were not open to changing their mounting system. We have a lot of accessories that are V-Mount oriented, so we’re addressing two types of customers. They come in three different sizes, or three different watts. We have a 90 watt-hour battery, 150 watt-battery and a 190 watt-hour battery.”

Longer life is of course critical, but not knowing how much of that 190 watt-hour battery is left can become a major issue. Luckily, these new products can give you the details you need to know.   

“The LCD display for Gold-Mount and V-Mount is new and improved. You can see it display when the camera isn’t even on, but then when you switch on the camera it calculates how many hours and minutes are left on it,” she said. “If you add lighting, digital recorder, etc. it will re-calculate your run time.  We have someone using the prototype and he said after you get used to this, you can’t imagine how you ever lived without it.”

Click here to see more pictures from Cine Gear 2014, or check out our Part I coverage.

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