— Diane Wallace
Adorama loves NAB
We’re right at home among production professionals but there’s lots of great stuff here for all of our friends who keep an eye on new camera gear and accessories. Here’s a quick overview of just a few of the cool new things we saw on Day 1 at NAB 2015 in Las Vegas..
Getting a slight jump on NAB, Canon announced two new video cameras. The EOS C300 Mark ll digital cinema camera was designed with extensive user input. It’s operability advances include in-camera 4K recording to dual CFast card slots and Full HD recording to SD card slot, up to 15 stops of dynamic range, 10-bit Canon Log Gamma 2 recording and MXF support. The C300 Mark ll also has a completely redesigned imaging system that includes a newly developed 8.85 megapixel Canon Super 35mm 16:9 CMOS image sensor, powerful Canon Dual DIGIC DV5 image processors and the Canon XF-AVC codec. All of these together provide assets such as Dual-Pixel CMOS AF with an expanded focusing area and Face Detection (when used with Canon EF lenses), reduced visual noise and high-sensitivity shooting up to 102,400 ISO.
The Canon XC10 is Canon’s newest entry into the 4K compact camcorder arena. The small and affordable XC10 is designed for cinematic 4K and Full HD video shooting, 12 megapixel digital still images and 8 megapixel still photo capture from 4K footage. It features a Canon 10x wide-angle zoom lens with 2x digital teleconverter, Canon image stabilization, auto focus with face detection and built-in Wi-Fi. The XC10 also has multiple “look” settings, which makes it integrate seamlessly with other Canon Cinema EOS cameras when using this one as your B unit, C unit or crash-cam. But with its high sensitivity of 20,000 ISO and 12-stop dynamic range, you just might want to keep this camcorder close by for your A shooting, too.
Newest out from drone-maker DJI is the Phantom 3 Professional, which comes with a 12 megapixel camera that shoots 4K at up to 30 fps, and 3-axis gimbal for stable video even while hovering for a long shot. Its f/2.8 lens has a 94-degree field of view, which goes a long way to combatting lens distortion in your images. And both the camera and gimbal are fully controllable by the included remote controller and the DJI Pilot app. DJI also showed the Phantom 3 Advanced, which shoots 1080p HD video at up to 60 fps from its built-in, 12 megapixel camera.
It was busy at Nikon’s booth, too. There was an excellent display to promote the recent announcement of the summer release of new firmware for Nikon’s D4S, D810 and D750 SLR cameras. The new firmware will ‘improve recording command functions with HDMI output to external recorders.” Which translates to usability with Atomos Shogun and Ninja-2 external recorders, which will be able to recognize the cameras’ operations and work together with them. The new firmware is being demo’d at NAB now.
Show attendees also flocked to Nikon to hear various professionals discussing a wide range of topics, but the message was loud and clear – when you’re shooting high resolution images with the likes of Nikon’s D4, D810 and even the new D5500, its all about that glass. NIKKOR lenses were the real celebrity today at Nikon, with pro speakers discussing their importance in showcasing the real potential of high resolution still images.
