On June 4th STOPP Stockholm hosted, “ the world of 4K cinema” event, which in fact turned out to be the ultimate cinema camera shootout. With Canon, Panasonic and AJA present and showing their newest 4K specified items the head turners were the 5 cameras lined up, prepped and ready to shoot.
The contenders were:
- Sony F65
- Sony F55
- Phantom Flex 4K
- ARRI ALEXA XT
- ARRI AMIRA
All the units were connected to a Protel switcher, which fed into STOPP’s grading suite, which then projected the images on two large 4K monitors.
This enabled instant takes and projection from all the cameras, for immediate image comparison. All the units were pointing at a propped set-up of a bar courtesy of Virtuous Vodka, to our great surprise it was actually a fully functioning vodka bar! Thanks to the bartenders and their inventive, colorful and tasty concoctions the guests were happily hydrated. The different colored vodka flavors gave a nice range of colors and reflections. DoP Andres Rignell FSF lighted the set, which was set-up in such a way that gave numerous focal points for the cameras so as to investigate their strengths and weaknesses. Another feature which was tested was shooting at different frame rates, this was obviously to be expected with the Phantom and the AMIRA present, the footage produced did not disappoint, it was impressive.
What was a surprise for the visitors was the long awaited and just delivered ARRI/Zeiss Master 100mm Anamorphic. Thanks to Ljud & Bild Media the lens was available and readily mounted on the ALEXA XT, which in turn using its full 4:3 sensor and set-up to ARRIRAW displayed truly breath taking images, it duly quickly became a bench mark for image quality.
The whole event, with all the equipment displayed and operational including the accessories and tools, which make movie making a reality, was nothing less than impressive. The venue was set-up in such a way which made it possible for the visitor to truly compare each unit and formulate his/hers own opinion. Apart from the actual footage other aspects of the cameras were also explored, aspects such as ergonomics, user friendliness, portability/weight, set-up times, options/features etc. The importance of all these points was also discussed, including the point of the unit being “future proof” and of course what this future is likely to consist of.
It was an eye-opening event and we would like to thank STOPP for the opportunity they gave us to take part in it. In turn we hope for more similar type events in the not so distant future.