Ikonoscope A-cam dII

[Mark L. Pederson]

Mark, as I see it the scarlet and this camera are exclusive markets. Those that need interchangeable lenses in a small form factor aren't going to look at the scarlet. You can put a superspeed on a DII and be 2 stops faster. 2 stops is the difference between working at night on the street with the natural texture of a city's illumination and not being able to capture the scene. A red one allows interchange of lenses but a much bigger camera it is with all of the associated difficulties that come with the large form factor. I have been shooting super 16 and high end HD for quite ome time and the faster stop also allows for a more textural depth of field falloff if done correctly. Just my thoughts.

Fence

I get that. And I thought the same thing when I looked at it. It is something I might rent on a "day play" to get a specific shot, or shoot a scene. My comment was based on how I couldn't imagine it being an A camera on long form narrative in any real practical manner. But I would expect Cinefrom to come knocking on their door (or the other way around) and there is always the Codex box - but then you are tiny camera tethered to a box - and you need some significant storage on location.

 

[Priyesh P.]

it definately needs compression, 12 minutes per cartridge is not enough.

 

[Bruce Allen]

My comment was based on how I couldn't imagine it being an A camera on long form narrative in any real practical manner.

Soderbergh managed it (shooting on 4-5 minute "rolls" for Che). Come on, Mark, I thought you were the guy defending the convoluted Red workflow with "bring it on, our company can do it"!

This one is so simple - as long as they get a faster offload system than USB2 that you can plug the cards into - preferably eSATA. Just buy a bunch of cards and have a little laptop transcoding the raw files to Cineform RAW on set.

That second part can happen without any Ikonoscop people having to do anything because they used an open format. No stupid SDKs, no waiting years for Windows compatibility. It'll just work as advertised, thank heavens.

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com

 

[Fence sitter]

It mentions DNG recording...any idea if it will translate to cinema DNG. If it does you'll have loads of companies working on workflow for the same open standard. That could mean solutions much quicker than one might expect from proprietry codecs developed by small stand alone campanies.

 

[Mark L. Pederson]

Soderbergh managed it (shooting on 4-5 minute "rolls" for Che). Come on, Mark, I thought you were the guy defending the convoluted Red workflow with "bring it on, our company can do it"!

You would have 5 times the amount of data as Soderbergh at a significantly lower resolution. I can manage it Bruce - I just wouldn't want to.

This one is so simple - as long as they get a faster offload system than USB2 that you can plug the cards into - preferably eSATA. Just buy a bunch of cards and have a little laptop transcoding the raw files to Cineform RAW on set.

I love how you think that is easy and Red's workflow is "convoluted".

That second part can happen without any Ikonoscop people having to do anything because they used an open format. No stupid SDKs, no waiting years for Windows compatibility. It'll just work as advertised, thank heavens.

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com

Horses for courses Bruce. I understand your frustration, and the frustration of folks on the PC platform, but I fail to see how your recent posts are constructive in anyway.

I get so tired of hearing "problems with the workflow" etc. - we use several different workflows everyday and we are a very small company - it's not rocket science and you don't need heavy iron.

Our Red cameras work better than advertised, and I'm into my 7th feature film on Red, and we will buy more cameras.

I saw the latest RED reel on the big screen here at IBC and it is nothing short of mind-numbing.

You might think I am just a Red fan boy - and I am very passionate about RED - but if a better technology came along tomorrow from another company - that could convince me they had a better roadmap than RED - well ... business is business.

So far Bruce, nobody is coming close - and I know a lot of people on the inside of many companies.

 

[Mark L. Pederson]

It mentions DNG recording...any idea if it will translate to cinema DNG. If it does you'll have loads of companies working on workflow for the same open standard. That could mean solutions much quicker than one might expect from proprietry codecs developed by small stand alone campanies.

CinemaDNG is not fully spec'd yet. But I assume it's going to be like still DNG and "royalty free".

 

[Priyesh P.]

Just buy a bunch of cards and have a little laptop transcoding the raw files to Cineform RAW on set.www.boacinema.com

yes, but then the whole idea of an ultra compact and fast & easy to use camera is lost, "ikono" tried to recreate a digital counterpart of their a-cam : "load, shoot, unload+reload, shoot..." - not "load, shoot, find a quite place, boot the computer, offload, check for safe transfer, erase the cartridge, load etc."

 

[Bruce Allen]

You would have 5 times the amount of data as Soderbergh at a significantly lower resolution. I can manage it Bruce - I just wouldn't want to.

If you went to Cineform RAW directly and dumped the DNG files, you'd have a lot less data to worry about.

Point is maybe it's not always good to have a FPGA compression engine sitting on your camera, because the whole thing overheats, uses big heavy batteries, etc. Of course with Moore's law this will go away in the future.

I get so tired of hearing "problems with the workflow" etc. - we use several different workflows everyday and we are a very small company - it's not rocket science and you don't need heavy iron.

You have $$$$$ Scratch systems. That's five $ signs. Heavy iron in my book.

By international indie film standards (my background) you are a very large company. Please understand this. A Mac is an expensive, elitist rarity in my home country.

This Ikonoscope thing will work with a mid-$$$ PC on low-$$$$ software. Big difference.

I saw the latest RED reel on the big screen here at IBC and it is nothing short of mind-numbing.

I agree. My Ringo stuff still on it? It'll be a year soon, so I'd guess not?

yes, but then the whole idea of an ultra compact and fast & easy to use camera is lost, "ikono" tried to recreate a digital counterpart of their a-cam : "load, shoot, unload+reload, shoot..." - not "load, shoot, find a quite place, boot the computer, offload, check for safe transfer, erase the cartridge, load etc."

No, it is:

1. buy 8 cards
2. load, go run around and shoot for a few hours
3. hand 4 cards over to DIT during a break (transfer to Cineform)
4. go shoot for a few more hours
5. hand next 4 cards over to DIT, get first 4 clean cards back
6. go shoot some more.
7. transfer the rest to Cineform overnight

If you have the bucks, buy a stack of cards, shoot like crazy and do your transfers later, of course.

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com

 

[Fence sitter]

These specs now in from someone in the field who was nice enough to check it out:

1: Memory card will have an outboard data offloading card reader...USB2 at the moment...thinking maybe Esata though
2. Nice to hold and solid
3. Viewfinder orientates vertically
4. battery loaded next to card under a cover at the rear
5. Audio two channels via lemo
6 HDMI out only but BM make a mini card for HDMI to SDi
7 OLED on dumb side with audio levels and menu...plays back pictures on this also...NICE!
8 Relying on DNG group to do post solutions...no onboard proxies (but DNG I believe is working towards a post generated proxy pipeline)
9 passive cooling...runs without a fan so little heat - no heavy compression/proxy processing.
10 cost of card uncertain but aggressively priced less than P2

Fence

 

[Fence sitter]

yes, but then the whole idea of an ultra compact and fast & easy to use camera is lost, "ikono" tried to recreate a digital counterpart of their a-cam : "load, shoot, unload+reload, shoot..." - not "load, shoot, find a quite place, boot the computer, offload, check for safe transfer, erase the cartridge, load etc."

I'm wondering, and this is only me thinking out loud, if the interface on the camera would allow in field transfers for down times where you don't need your camera or the shooting for the day is limited. No computer required...now that is cool. One pelican case w/lenses, batts (very small), camera and USB drive (FW dual interface of course). The whole kit incl. computer etc etc would be required other times but it would be nice to have this option!!!

Fence

 

[Tar]

So if Ikonoskop were to offer some sort of compression they would need to add hardware, fans, software codecs, ect...? If true, I can see why they left this out. There isn't a camera out there in this form factor with these features/size-I think you'll find a lot of people like this. They are coming from a film background where you can only shoot 12 min/roll max and thats on a huge 400' roll. If you have multiple cards and are smart/selective about the shots you want then you can really do a lot with this. You're not gonna be shooting a wedding or reality TV show-but thats not what this camera is made for anyway.

 

[Dan Hudgins]

About...

About...

These specs now in from someone in the field who was nice enough to check it out:

1: Memory card will have an outboard data offloading card reader...USB2 at the moment...thinking maybe Esata though
2. Nice to hold and solid
3. Viewfinder orientates vertically
4. battery loaded next to card under a cover at the rear
5. Audio two channels via lemo
6 HDMI out only but BM make a mini card for HDMI to SDi
7 OLED on dumb side with audio levels and menu...plays back pictures on this also...NICE!
8 Relying on DNG group to do post solutions...no onboard proxies (but DNG I believe is working towards a post generated proxy pipeline)
9 passive cooling...runs without a fan so little heat - no heavy compression/proxy processing.
10 cost of card uncertain but aggressively priced less than P2

Fence

Could you ask your source to ask what type of viewfinder (eye piece) it is LCD/OLED and the pixel resolution?

Could you ask your source what country or maker the CCD comes from, is it a custom or stock part ect.?

How many bits is the A2D?

 

[Stephen Williams]

Could you ask your source to ask what type of viewfinder (eye piece) it is LCD/OLED and the pixel resolution?

Hi Dan,

I was told LCD at the stand. Pictures looked OK for HD Bayer chip.

Stephen

 

[Stephen Williams]

I saw the latest RED reel on the big screen here at IBC and it is nothing short of mind-numbing.

.

Hi Mark,

I was a few seats away from you yesterday & agree, with your comments. I saw them again tonight.

Stephen

 

[Dan Hudgins]

Thanks for the info.

Thanks for the info.

Hi Dan,

I was told LCD at the stand. Pictures looked OK for HD Bayer chip.

Stephen

Thanks for the info!

I hope it has a zoom mode, even if the VF is sharp, my eyes are not so good any more, better to have an 8x or 1:1 zoom mode...

I wonder why they did not go with 2048x1152 as an option, even if the record time is lower, you could resize to 1920x1080 and reduce the Bayer artifacts a little maybe?

 

[Harva Raj]

it was a announced as 2k camera before. i smell a conspiracy....

 

[JanneJansson]

I have bugged them to allow me a visit to the HQ in stockholm to have a hands-on with the camera. No answer yet. I guess most of them are out untill the 17'th.

 

[Bruce Allen]

I wonder why they did not go with 2048x1152 as an option, even if the record time is lower, you could resize to 1920x1080 and reduce the Bayer artifacts a little maybe?

They are doing 1920x1080 because it simplifies things in post. Not rescaling is good.

And 1920x1080 is fine to print to film from - the difference between it and 2048x1152 is marginal. I've done it many, many times for movie trailers.

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com

 

[Fence sitter]

Thanks for the info!

I hope it has a zoom mode, even if the VF is sharp, my eyes are not so good any more, better to have an 8x or 1:1 zoom mode...

I wonder why they did not go with 2048x1152 as an option, even if the record time is lower, you could resize to 1920x1080 and reduce the Bayer artifacts a little maybe?

I believe it has a pixel for pixel zoom mode but I don't know the rez of the viewfinder.

The chip is a new Kodak CCD bayer due for bulk manufacture Q4 2008

Fence

 

[Fence sitter]

it was a announced as 2k camera before. i smell a conspiracy....

I would imagine that they were waiting on a sensor at that stage as the Kodak sensor is very new. 1920 is only marginally short and this one has a 60fps mode. I suppose they probably weighed up performance and there were better 1920 x1080 chips due to the larger market for the this chip res.

Fence