AJA has announced the Cion – a production camera featuring a 4K APS-C sized sensor – at NAB in Las Vegas, Nevada. This is AJA Video System’s first camera, the company being known primarily as a manufacturer of video interface and conversion products. The camera accepts lenses with a PL mount and records to a single proprietary SSD drive. Learn more
[ By Steph in Destinations & Places & Travel. ]
In the middle of Egypt’s inhospitable Sinai Desert, stacked on a rocky hillside overlooking a pile of sticks, row after row of worn wooden movie theater seats sit eerily empty. Why would anyone have built a cinema out here, especially when Egyptian authorities forbid desert visits that aren’t part of an officially sanctioned tour? According to Estonian photographer Kaupo Kikkas, who captured these images, the answer involves a wealthy Frenchman and “some puffs of a magic smoke.”
On a trip to this remote desert location circa the year 2000, the visiting Frenchman looked around at the unlikely setting and somehow thought to himself, “Why aren’t there any movie theaters in the desert?” So he went back to Cairo, bought original seats and projection equipment from an old cinema, and lugged it back out to create the End of the World Cinema.
Never mind the fact that there aren’t exactly hordes of tourists and locals waiting to descend upon this sandy spot to view a film under the hot desert sun – the project was bound to fail anyway, because Egyptian authorities don’t take kindly to this sort of ‘enterprising spirit.’ A number of things ‘accidentally’ went wrong at the premiere, and not a single movie was ever shown.
The theater was quickly abandoned and has sat like this ever since, the building created to house the generator already crumbling. These modern ruins are far from the only ones of their kind in Africa – the remains of the Tattooine set from Star Wars Episode IV can still be found in Tunisia, among many other fascinating abandonments.
A temporary floating cinema nestled in a sparkling blue Thailand lagoon for a festival provides perhaps the most scenic movie-watching experience of all time.
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Public art used to be synonymous with huge and impersonal and location-agnostic sculptures made of metal and marble. Countering that traditional trend …
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Surprisingly, neither is the art of constructing tall buildings, as evidenced by the city of Shibam with its amazing resilience and impressive density.
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[ By Steph in Destinations & Places & Travel. ]
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Metabones has introduced two new versions of its Nikon-F to Micro Four Thirds mount Speed Booster adapters. This time they are designed specifically for the Blackmagic Cinema and Pocket Cinema cameras. The new 0.64x Speed Booster reduces the full-frame crop factor of the Blackmagic Cinema Camera from 2.39x to 1.53x. The 0.58x Speed Booster reduces the crop factor of the Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera from 2.88x to 1.75x. Learn more
Blackmagic Design has announced its Camera 1.5 software update which adds new 12-bit Log CinemaDNG RAW recording to the Pocket Cinema Camera. The CinemaDNG Raw lossless compression works like a ZIP file where the Raw files are compressed during 1080p recording without the loss of any part of the image. This allows videographers to capture files with wider dynamic range for increased flexibility during color correction.
Canon is offering owners of its Cinema EOS C100 the chance to add Dual Pixel AF to this video-centric camera. This will enable continuous autofocus during recording with all Canon EF lenses, and double one-shot AF speed with 104 fully-supported lenses. Interestingly the upgrade doesn’t involve a change of sensor, but instead enables a hitherto-unused hardware capability. However it will require the camera to be sent to a Canon service centre, and in the US will cost $ 500.
Whereas the rate of change in the still camera industry seems to have reached something of a plateau, video is rife with developments. A small Australian company called Black Magic has just started shipping the Blackmagic Pocket Cinea Camera which is shaking up the video marketplace.
I have just spent the past week working in the field with it and my review is now online. Also published today is an article titled The Making of Algonquin Autumn, which describes the process of making a short film with the BMPCC over this past weekend.
"Having been to Antarctica with Michael and Kevin, I would say after having traveled the world and shot nearly my entire life as an exhibiting photographer, it was one of my highlights in my life and I talk about it, all the time. The images and experience of seeing something visionary and nearly extinct from the world, to see and experience the wildlife and scenery that does not fear humans is amazing. The images I shot there won me two Smithsonian awards and nearly 18 other international awards". – Tim Wolcott
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These Expeditions Will Sell Out Quickly. They Always Do
Imagine if your DSLR, and indeed all affordable cameras had very small sensors, and could only shoot JPGs; highly compressed and in a limited colour space. Imagine if only very expensive medium format cameras could shoot raw with large sensors.
That’s been the case till recently in the world of video. Small sensors, no depth of field to speak of, restricted colour space, and baked JPG type images. Not a pretty picture – literally.
Now a small Australian company, Blackmagic, has a series of moderately priced cameras that can shoot raw video. We have been working with the Blackmagic Cinema Camera in MFT mount, and our First Impressions report is now online.
"Having been to Antarctica with Michael and Kevin, I would say after having traveled the world and shot nearly my entire life as an exhibiting photographer, it was one of my highlights in my life and I talk about it, all the time. The images and experience of seeing something visionary and nearly extinct from the world, to see and experience the wildlife and scenery that does not fear humans is amazing. The images I shot there won me two Smithsonian awards and nearly 18 other international awards". – Tim Wolcott
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These Expeditions Will Sell Out Quickly. They Always Do
Blackmagic Designs has announced it is shipping its Raw-video-shooting Pocket Cinema Camera and is reducing the price of its original, larger Cinema Camera. The Pocket Cinema Camera is built around a ‘Super 16mm’ sized sensor (12.5 x 7mm) and can shoot Apple ProRes 422 (HQ) or lossless compressed CinemaDNG 1080 footage at 23.99, 24, 25, 29.97 or 30p. Meanwhile the company has knocked $ 1,000 off the price of its original, 2.5K resolution Raw-shooting Cinema Camera model.
[ By WebUrbanist in Art & Installation & Sound. ]
Public art used to be synonymous with huge and impersonal and location-agnostic sculptures made of metal and marble. Countering that classic Modernist trend are installations like this pair: a set small, site-specific and community-oriented design-build projects located in Auckland, New Zealand, and New York City, New York, respectively.
First, from Oh No Sumo (images by Simon Devitt), the Stairway Cinema, a sheltered spot for watching movies on steps rising right off the sidewalk and open to pedestrians passing by. Public participants are invited to curate the collection of films shown on the screen.
About its creators and inspiration: “Our ongoing goal is to experiment with architecture and the way it can engage with the public in unique and exciting ways. This project takes inspiration from the site and its inhabitants. The intersection of Symonds Street and Mount Street is a place of ‘hard waiting’. Bus stops and laundromats create a hard-scape of poor space for social interaction.”
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Digital video site www.newsshooter.com is at this year’s NAB show in Las Vegas, and has been taking a look at the new Pocket Cinema camera from Blackmagic. The Pocket Cinema Camera is a small, compact 4K video camera with a Micro Four Thirds lensmount and an eye-opening MSRP of $ 995. Click through to see newsshooter’s video, straight from the floor at NAB.