Freefly Launches Ember: Ultra High Speed, Super 35, Compact Cinema Camera

[rand thompson]

BY YOSSY MENDELOVICH

Article
https://ymcinema.com/2022/12/20/freefly-launches-ember-ultra-high-speed-super-35-compact-cinema-camera/

 

[rand thompson]

Freefly Systems EMBER– 5K 600fps & 4K 800fps in ProRes

by Newsshooter

Article
https://www.newsshooter.com/2022/12/...fps-in-prores/


Sample clips on Vimeo- Its probably best to click on the Newsshooter Vimeo link which works. The below will most likely give you an error message

https://vimeo.com/user/974269/folder/14183739

 

[Ruff]

If Red released a competitor it would be very attractive.

 

[Mike P.]

It's global shutter? Wtf! 800grams! (Only 11+ though... so basically MX DR).

$18k is a lot though... But like, not phantom price... and also 800grams and 20~40Wh is very nice.

 

[rand thompson]

It's global shutter? Wtf! 800grams! (Only 11+ though... so basically MX DR).

$18k is a lot though... But like, not phantom price... and also 800grams and 20~40Wh is very nice.

Here's More info at the freefly website

Ember Specs - Freefly Systems

yeah it says ''GLOBAL ELECTRONIC'' on their website and 11 stops is not that bad for the kind of framerates it is offering at high resolutions.

 

[JessieJim]

wow looks impressive

 

[Zack Birlew]

It uses E-Mount!? Very interesting! Clearly we now have a specialty high speed action camera for the Sony crowd in particular, also Nikon Z9 and Kinefinity by adapters.

 

[M Harvey]

It uses E-Mount!? Very interesting! Clearly we now have a specialty high speed action camera for the Sony crowd in particular, also Nikon Z9 and Kinefinity by adapters.

Important to note it's a "dumb" E-mount, with no ability to operate focus or aperture, so you can't actually use Sony lenses on it (unless we mean PL-mount CineAltas via adapter). It's basically a mount meant exclusively to accept adapters, though I guess there probably are some fully manual 3rd party e-mount lenses...

 

[Remington Chase]

Got to play with it a few months ago, impressive but needs a lot of light.

 

[rand thompson]

by Freefly Systems


Ember - The Unseen

Ember - Ease of Use - BTS

Ember - Colorful World

 

[rand thompson]

Freefly presenta Ember S5K

by TransAudioVideo

 

[rand thompson]

Freefly Systems Ember S5K Camera Introduced – 5K at 600fps


By CineD

Article
https://www.cined.com/freefly-systems-ember-s5k-camera-introduced-5k-at-600fps/

 

[rand thompson]

I brought one of the ''Original'' clips from the FREEFLY website into Davinci Resolve into an ACES Project workflow to just try messing around with the footage and something weird happen. It raised the shadows significantly which are really noisy but left the rest of the image mostly as is. I added some contrast according to the Mid Gray point for ACES.


Update: Images corrected because I was using an ACES Candidate 2.0 REC709 ODT that made both the Skin-tone and Wood in these look a little too Red

Originally how it looks on their website

How it looked brought in an ACES Project with some Noise reduction

 

[rand thompson]

PHFX-Phil Holland
PHFX.COM | tools - formatCompare - Freefly Ember S35 5K 5:4 & RED V-Raptor 8K S35 8K 17:9 - Crop Factor Datasheet


Thanks to Phil Holland for updating his FORMAT COMPARE tool so fast again!!

 

[Les Hillis]

Downloaded one of the clips and fiddled with it a bit in Resolve. Don't want to rain on anyone's parade so I'll keep the images to myself, would just say I like the colours and general image quality, but you'd want to be handy with the noise reduction, and if you're sensitive to horizontal sensor stitching...

 

[rand thompson]

Downloaded one of the clips and fiddled with it a bit in Resolve. Don't want to rain on anyone's parade so I'll keep the images to myself, would just say I like the colours and general image quality, but you'd want to be handy with the noise reduction, and if you're sensitive to horizontal sensor stitching...

Les,

After fooling around with it myself, Yeah you and whatever noise reduction tool you use will become very close friends. The native ISO of 300 is not very good for any scenes that doesn't have a shit load of lighting. Also this camera doesn't currently even shoot in LOG and is limited to a REC709 Color Space so forget about any HDR deliveries. If it wasn't for ACES, trying to get a half-way decent exposure and color image for the clip, it would require increasing the exposure which would decrease saturation which would then necessitate an increase back of saturation to like 75 to 90 Sat.

Also on the Freefly forum users complain about the lack of an true "BLACK LEVEL" and there is no "BLACK SHADING" available which results in "FIXED PATTERN NOISE" which even one of the members of the Freefly team in the Freefly presenta Ember S5K video above says is there.

I don't know what "COLOR SCIENCE" they are using with this camera and will it be truly supported by any major NLE. I personally can't see any reason to get this camera over say a RED V-RAPTOR S-35 which is a much more "Developed" and more feature rich camera than this one for only about $2000 more unless you are going to make "SLOMO...The MOVIE" or really need to see every flap of a humming birds wing.

 

[rand thompson]

Please excuse my not so great Noise Reduction in this sample video below of two of the Freefly Ember video clips I haven't done it in awhile. The video is nothing fancy, no titles or music just two sample video clips graded and thrown together.


FREEFLY EMBER Sample Video

 

[Les Hillis]

I don't usually use NR either, finding it too problematic to balance getting rid of noisy artifacts and maintaining fine detail.

I found with this test shot though, the most basic and easiest adjustment worked better than I was expecting.

Unlisted video example -

http://youtu.be/aUKDwi8raHQ

For the grade I mostly just cranked the contrast and saturation and was fine with still seeing some noise.

It reminds me of grainy 16mm Reversal film stock in the end, in regards to the final look and in having to get the image as right as possible in-camera, but the sensor quirks and workflow are definitely their own thing.

Wouldn't be my tool of choice, but you could definitely make nice images with one.

 

[Alex Stolpakov]

Is it 300 ISO (that is nothing out of the ordinary) or Is it that 600-800 fps needs 24-32 times more light?
Alexa can be rated 400 ISO easily as Red One or Epic.

 

[rand thompson]

I don't usually use NR either, finding it too problematic to balance getting rid of noisy artifacts and maintaining fine detail.

I found with this test shot though, the most basic and easiest adjustment worked better than I was expecting.

Unlisted video example -

http://youtu.be/aUKDwi8raHQ

For the grade I mostly just cranked the contrast and saturation and was fine with still seeing some noise.

It reminds me of grainy 16mm Reversal film stock in the end, in regards to the final look and in having to get the image as right as possible in-camera, but the sensor quirks and workflow are definitely their own thing.

Wouldn't be my tool of choice, but you could definitely make nice images with one.

Les,

Yeah, trying to maintain most of the detail while removing unwanted noise is always something I have always had problems with and needed to greatly improve upon. I used to be kind of good at removing noise in each of the Red, Green and Blue Channels but I`ve fallen out of practice and need to improve at it again. I think maybe why the scenes that you and I selected were so dark to begin with was to maybe try to hide some Fixed Pattern Noise. I think well lit daylight and interior scenes could significantly reduce some of the Fixed Pattern Noise. However, you'll have to be careful not to blow-out the Highlights since I believe the camera only has an 11- Stops Dynamic Range. I think for controlled well lit Daylight scenes where you watch your Highlights this camera is at it's best, wide lighting ratio dark interior scenes (4:1 or 5:1) will end up biting you in the ass noise wise.