2022 was a quiet year for camera technology, thank goodness. The decade plus I’ve been covering camera breakthroughs on this website has been a rocket ride. So much velocity, so little time to stop, catch one’s breath, smell some roses. Ask yourself, who can any longer tell the difference between film and digital origination on the big screen? Be honest. No less than Roger Deakins declared film a dead issue half a dozen years ago. His latest, Sam Mendes’ Empire of Light, shot using Arri Alexa Mini LF (large format) and spherical Arri Signature Primes, is a loving paean to […]

We shot most of Channel B over a weekend, but it was only two weeks later, during an evening of pickups, that the aesthetic of the movie really started to come together. This probably happens a lot, especially on little rinky-dink shoots like ours. We were about to do a third take of one of our last setups, shooting in a public park, a few benches down from some drunks. I asked Cory Popp, our director of photography, to shift the first part of a camera movement just a little bit, and when I watched the playback on our one […]

This was my first year at the gear-head mecca of NAB. It definitely did not disappoint, and I had a blast attending, checking out new gear (which you can see a list of here) and finally meeting some people I’ve only had contact with in the online world. Here are some of my overall impressions about what I saw (or didn’t see) on the showroom floor and the conference itself. Very Few Surprises and Not a Whole Lot of New 4K The #1 question I keep getting asked is, “What was the best thing you saw?” And I really don’t […]

While today is the official day the exhibition halls open their doors at NAB, last night some companies got to release a sneak peek of some do their new products. Definitely the most exciting in the production field is Ronin, a new handheld gimbal stabilizing system that’s a direct competitor to the MoVI. Like MoVI’s manufacturer, Freefly Systems, Ronin comes from a company with a background in making aerial drones with gyrostabilizers, DJI. They’re probably best known for the Phantom, the GoPro aerial drone that’s made high altitude shots available to just about anyone. While Ronin and MoVI look pretty […]