Phantom 65

[Mitch Gross]

David, I fully agree that good workflow means both onset convenience and offset efficiency. That's part of the reason the CineMag technology has taken quite a while for Vision Research to develop. And it's why the Dalsa Origin has had trouble gaining a foothold, as well as the Viper and other designs. Even RED and Silicon Imaging are dealing with the issue.

 

The Phantom cameras were designed initially for specialty use. They are capable of incredibly high-speed performance, better at being faster than anything else on the market. We are not marketing these as general-purpose Digital Cinematography cameras at this time. That's because the types of issues you raise are still being dealt withactively. Once completed, the Phantoms will be amazing machines to work with. But I for one will always strive to make the best machine possible. Strapping an SRW deck to the camera may be functional but not ideal. Ifa better solution can be had then that's the goal. Going to HDCAM SR or any other format means baking things such as gamma in, so even if there was a completely uncompressed tape format that wasn't raw then I would still argue for the file-based format over the video one if it were possible.

 

RAW is like shooting film negative; there's so much more information to work with. File-based workflow is the future of our industry once someone can figure out how to make it work efficiently. That's a good goal as it increases options.

 

All that said, I fully understand your desire for a good, workable here-and-now workflow. It is a consideration that has not fallen on deaf ears.

[Joe Anderson]

I have worked with slightly older models of the phantom on 2 shoots and I while I would not say they are appropriate for narrative shoots, they were quite successful on 2 music videos I've done as an AC/DIT.

The biggest hurdle these cameras have is the upload time of recorded data. When shooting at high resolutions with high color bit rate, it can take over 10 minutes to upload. Imagine doing 2 or 3 takes, then having to wait. This is very damaging to the production's momentum.

Also the cables supplied, both Ethernet and AC adapter, are cripplingly short.

 

HOWEVER, one aspect of the camera that is bafflingly overlooked is that the sensor at 30 fps has an ISO of 600!

 

Sensitivity to light, is the one issue that is often overlooked in the digital vs. film debate. Most HD cameras (unless increasing gain) have an ISO of 250 or 320. Until recently, film has had the distinction of being much faster. Now that resolutions are more similar, digital cameras with more light sensitivity are the real threat to film.

 

Below is a link of a video shot on the Phantom. You'll have to excuse the Times' compression quality.

http://video.on.nytimes.com/?fr_story=ac3f...3be85c002a4218e

 

JANDY