Lumiere 4K Digital Motion Picture Camera (Japan)

Lumiere 4K Digital Motion Picture Camera (Japan)

"Lumiere is a new 4K digital camera system of 60 frames per second (fps) x 4096 x 2048 pixels 12bit raw images. This is a PCI Express external cabling based digital camera and the data rate is over 700MByte per second."

And if you care to read more..... in Japanese >>>

A reader brought this to my attention and I wanted to share and see if anyone out there has any more information on this. Looks interesting.

Here are the basic specs:

4096x2048pixels

60fps raw 12bit data

PCIe x4 external calling technology

Non compressed raw image data into main memory directly

External frame synchronize

Data capturing SDK

Image resolution: max4096x2048 pixels

Frame rate: 60fps, 60x1000/1001fps

Weight: 1250g

Image sensor: customized CMOS sensor, rolling shutter

Output format: RAW12bit (in PC memory)

Power supply 12V (supply from PC)

External frame sync: format 480i, 480p, 1080i, 1080p

input signal : CVBS, S-VIDEO (bi-level, tri-level sync)

Lens mount: Nikon F mount

GPIO signals: inputs 4ch, outputs 4ch (opto isolated)

connector: 12bins (HR25-9TR12S)

Interface: PCIe x4 external cabling

Power supply: 12V (supply from PC)

Power consumption: Approximately 24W

Dimensions: 114mm (width) x 114m m (hight) x 164mm (length)

I remember hearing about another digital cinema prototype camera recently, it was German I think, and yellow. Maybe the "Egg"? I can't remember where I read about that and I didn't think to keep a link. If anyone knows anything about that too, let me know.

Always nice hearing from you. Please feel free to send me anything that may be of interest. It's Friday isn't it? Happy Friday!

Sparta CineRaw

Sparta CineRaw

http://www.cineraw.es

This looks really cool but I don't speak Spanish so sadly can't learn about it! I really wish they had an English language version of this page. It seems like a camera that can shoot a bunch of different codecs and take just about any lens you could come up with. I'd love to learn more. Someone want to forward me a translation if it's available?

Apertus Open Source Cinema

Apertus Open Source Cinema

Here's something interesting I recently stumbled on - a public project to create an open source software and hardware camera system based on an Elphel 353 High Definition Closed Circuit Network Camera. That's right, a surveillance camera. Turns out it makes pretty nice pictures so a few guys got the idea to find a new application for it.

From the Apertus site:

"Our goal is to create a powerful free and open cinema camera that we as filmmakers love to use. The idea of using an Elphel camera for this particular purpose was born in 2006, found many followers over the years and ultimately resulted in this community driven project entitled "Apertus" and this website."

This is the camera:

and here are the specs - cliff notes style (from their site):

Sensor:

The camera uses an Aptina CMOS bayer-pattern sensor with an optical format of 1/2.5" (5.70mm x 4.28mm) and a native resolution of 2592x1944 (5 Megapixels). It features a 12 bit ADC and supports: region of interest, on-chip binning and decimation. Aptina claims that the chip has 70db of dynamic range at full resolution and 76db when using 2x2 binning.

Lens Mount:

The camera has a standard C-mount but ships with an adapter ring that allows to mount CS-lenses as well. More adapters are in planning stage.

Resolutions:

The recording resolution can be freely adjusted to anything starting from 16x16 to 2592x1944 in 16 pixel steps. This includes Apertus AMAX (2224x1251), Apertus CIMAX (2592x1120), 2K (2048 × 1536), Full HD (1920x1080), HD (1280x720) and of course all lower resolution SD formats like DV PAL, DV NTSC, etc.

The lower the resolution the higher the maximal possible framerate. At the full sensor size (5 million pixels or 5 Megapixels) the maximal frame rate is 10 fps in normal color mode and 15 fps in JP4 RAW mode. JP4 achieves higher framerates in general as some camera internal calculations are skipped and need to be applied later in postproduction (like debayering/demosaicing).

Because this project is essentially a public effort, it's a little difficult to ascertain what stage of development it's in and even how involved the Elphel company is. It's a great idea and I love the DIY spirit. The main Apertus site doesn't disclose much so if you're interested learning more, there are a number of sites to read:

Apertus Open Source Cinema Page

Elphel 353 in a nutshell Wiki

Elphel 353 HD Cinema Camera Development FAQ

Elphel, Inc

Elphel Wiki