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Aaton HD mag


Stephen Williams

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ISO is apparently switchable between 800 and 100 based on Dalsa sensor technology.

 

Bear in mind this is as much vapourware as anything; what they showed today was an empty plastic case.

 

Perhaps they might have something a bit more functioning for the CML hands on session at NAB.

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Sorry for butting into this thread, but could someone tell me exactly what this camera is? I'm really a green-horned idiot when it comes to digital cameras, particularly this one.

 

The Youtube clip states that it's a "film" camera, but it's a digital film camera with a film magazine? Am I missing something?

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It's their 35mm Aaton Penelope camera (3-perf/2-perf) but with an attachable 35mm digital sensor (4K RAW, I believe) mounted where the mag goes. Joe Dunton had the same idea years ago for an HD sensor for an Arri-SR camera.

 

Someone at the ASC mentioned to me that he held one of the Penelope digital mags and it was a bit odd to have the sensor so exposed.

 

The sensor is supposedly made by Dalsa but it is not the sensor from the Origin.

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post-1346-12750811181659.jpg

 

I was talking with Jean-Pierre during the Cannes film festival and he confirmed the sensor is made by Dalsa. It basically is the Origin sensor, but there is a special system that allows the dual sensitivity. And yes, it is 4K RAW

 

You can read more informations here. It's a French forum, but you can find in the topic some informations in English as well.

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post-1346-12750811181659.jpg

 

I was talking with Jean-Pierre during the Cannes film festival and he confirmed the sensor is made by Dalsa. It basically is the Origin sensor, but there is a special system that allows the dual sensitivity. And yes, it is 4K RAW

 

The Dalsa Origin sensor was something like 29mm wide, like the Mysterium-X sensor (30mm wide), sort of an APS-H size. I heard that the Dalsa sensor for the Penelope was actually Super-35 in size, i.e. 24mm wide.

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Yes David, you're right. The sensor has had some improvements but it's built on the basis of the Origin's, if I understood well what Jean-Pierre said. He enlighted the low smear ability of the sensor for instance, and put forth the fact that the high sensitivity is due to the low amount of lost space between pixels.

 

It's like the Alexa's sensor took benefit of the ARRI D-21's R&D, making the Alexa much cheaper than the D-21. They improve their sensors, but the basis is the same, making the new ones cheaper, therefore.

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What's really interesting about the DALSA-sensor is it's fill-rate (the amount of area which is actually light sensitive) - Aaton claims it's close to 100%, while high-end CMOS-designs barely reach 70% - that's an ideal starting position to achieve high DR and low noise.

 

There have been major improvements in sensor design over the past five years, therefore it's very unlikely that it's based on such an old design (Origin). Sure, it's based on DALSAs past experiences and propably design philosophies - but a sensor with another fill-rate and/or pixel-pitch has to be a complete redesign - other than the MFDB-sensors from DALSA which are offered in different resolutions/sizes but are cut from the very same wafer and made with the very same technology.

 

Cost is an issue because of the high R&D-investments for advanced semiconductor design and manufacturing, the D20/D21 or Origin was a working prototype, the ALEXA otherwise is a larger production-scale model from ARRIs perspective. The manufacturing costs themselves and the ways to improve them (by reducing the reject rate for example) are only relevant for REALLY large scale-production, it doesn't change the cost of a >50k€-system (I think the optical viewfinder model will cost as much as the D21) - these are professional systems, designed with high quality-standards, finest materials, skilled technicians make them (and not Foxconn in some sweatshop with workers trained a few weeks) and tight tests assure tight tolerances (and propably high reject rates) - I don't think we will see cameras in the class of ALEXA or the Aaton HD-mag much cheaper, not because of lower semiconductor costs.

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The ALEXA's sensor is an evolution of the D-21's sensor, and the Penelope-Delta's sensor will be an evolution of previous Dalsa sensors. The chip that will be inside the Penelope-Delta will not be the same as what was in any of the Dalsa Origin or Evolution cameras, and even those cameras had different chips during the course of their brief history. These new chips are years of improvements beyond the previous versions.

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I get the distinct impression that outfits like Dalsa have a portfolio of sensor design components that can be replicated across a wafer more or less at will and with comparatively little R&D involvement. Assuming they weren't just lying (which I don't necessarily assume), this is how Red built their first sensor. But then, Red's first sensor was, eh...

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