Tom Cubby from Sony dropped by the office to give us a first look at Sony’s brand new full format camera: the PXW-FX9. Join Tom and I as we dive into the philosophy, specs, capabilities, and exciting new features of this compelling addition to the ever-expanding full format video/cinema camera landscape.

I recently had the chance to get a hands-on look at a pre-production prototype of Canon's brand new camera, the Cinema EOS C500 Mark II. Join me and Canon USA Account Manager Jesse Mineo as we go through the features, specs, and concept of the successor to Canon's original high-end cinema camera, the C500. And be sure to stay tuned for lots more on this exciting, new full format offering from Canon. 

Beginning with the ARRI/ZEISS LDS Ultra Primes in 2001 and Cooke's S4/i primes in 2004-2005, many cinema lenses have been able to transmit a lens’ focal length, serial number, current aperture, and the current focus distance via digital encoders wired to the focus and iris rings on their barrels. Many of these metadata-enabled lenses have also featured a multi-pin Lemo port to allow for this data stream to be sent directly to an on-camera monitor (such as the Starlite series of displays from Transvideo). The information would then be shown as an overlay, along with picture, to aid First ACs in focus-pulling and disseminating lens info throughout the set.

The Cameo VESA Mount System by CameoGear is a modular mounting solution for production monitors. We think it's so useful for productions, that we've incorporated it, and many other CameoGear accessories, into our rental fleet.

ARRI now has a line of FSND filters, which stands for Full Spectrum Neutral Density. You might be thinking: there are many choices for ND filters, so what makes these filters unique? Typically, filters are composed of two pieces of optical glass with filtration sandwiched between them. For these filters, ARRI applies the filtration directly to the surface of high-quality optical glass. They are then coated with a protective surface that helps prevent scratching and makes for quick cleaning.

I recently got to spend some time with a Sony VENICE camera body running a beta version of firmware version 4.0 and, of course, the first thing I did was to run through the new high frame rate recording modes to see where each "maxes out" in terms of frame rate.

Recently I had the opportunity to take a first look at the brand new Fujinon Premista 28-100mm T2.9 zoom lens. One of the few full frame zoom lenses, this lens will also have a sister lens released by the end of 2019, the Premista 80-250mm T2.9-3.5.

WonderLookPro is an on-set color grading program from TVLogic that is used in conjunction with their IS-miniX LUT box.

Often when working on a commercial, corporate video, or industrial video, we make a last minute call to add more cameras. Has that ever happened to you? It seems inevitable that a job that started out as a single camera becomes two before the scout, and even three by the time we prep. It can be a struggle to find an operator last minute that owns the same camera already chosen as A cam, or a rental house that has both cameras and lenses available to match both the required look and budget. That is, unless you’re shooting Canon.