Aja has an $8,995 S35 4K camera, the Cion

[Jim Martin]

Jon-
Great post and maybe it will enlighten those who are not familiar with the process, time and effort in bringing a camera to market. We're excited here at EVS to sell this camera and, based on our customer inquiries, feel the camera is going to be a success......now we're just waiting to find out when we'll get our first batch!

Jim Martin
EVSonline.com

[Jim Michael]

Originally Posted by Peer Landa

Although I truly enjoyed reading Jon's lengthy post, to me this camera now seems even more like vaporware. Most everything was covered in Jon's post (sans his childhood pet) but yet no shipping date. I'm too old for sale pitches like these (deja vu all over again, Bill Southworth, etc.). Sorry.

-- peer (would love to purchase this camera if it existed)

I'd rather they take their time and get it right. Too many companies give in to pressure and release things before they're ready.

[David Heath]

Originally Posted by Jim Michael

I'd rather they take their time and get it right. Too many companies give in to pressure and release things before they're ready.

Yes - but I likewise don't think it helps in the long term when companies announce product too far ahead of it actually being available. I suspect they do it in the hope that potential customers will wait for it and not purchase something else in the meantime - in practice it too often seems to backfire and just gives rise to "vapourware" speculation - as well as allowing their competitors more time to respond.

In this case I suspect AJA have lost out to Sony and the FS7 by too early an announcement - AJA announced months before, but it looks like the FS7 will be first to ship.

As far as Jons comments as such, then I'll agree with most of it in principle, but in particular what was music to my ears was "So I believed whatever camera AJA made needed to be ergonomic. To me, that meant it sat on your shoulder, not out in front of it." be nice is all manufacturers realised that!

[Chris Hurd]

Originally Posted by Jon Thorn

This will be a very long post in order to help answer some of the questions that have been posed by Steve Phillipps and others in the thread.

Much appreciated, Jon! Now published on the front page:

Exclusive: AJA’s Jon Thorn answers questions about the Cion

[Jim Martin]

Jon-
One thing that I've brought up with your reps regarding the CION.....you have the camera coming in PL mount only and that is going to be a problem...you have a great $9000 camera that you are forcing people to buy $5000 lenses. At NAB, your sales force was pitching the 3rd party PL to EF adapters as a way to use EF glass. The problem is the adapters don't work 100%...none of them get far focus because of the flange focal distance issue. Have you guys looked at offering the camera in EF?...or are you working on a better work around or a neutral mount that can include those 80+ million pieces of glass that are out there?...and I'm not sure if it is even do-able. The main thing is we want you and ourselves to sell a lot of these cameras and I'm a bit worried about this issue effecting that.......

Jim Martin
EVSonline.com

[Jon Thorn]

Hi Jim,
I think you're a bit confused about how the alternative lens choices for the CION are accomplished. I'll try to clarify this. The entire lens mount may be swapped out on the CION. This is not just an adapter connected to the existing PL mount, but rather an entirely new lens mount. You can see images of this on the following web page:
AJA Announces CION Support From Top Camera Accessory Manufacturers - Top Stories - News - AJA Video Systems

This means that virtually any type of lens mount may be created for use with the CION (as long as the lens mount and the associated lenses offer coverage of the sensor). Swapping the lens mount is accomplished via four bolts so switching between mounts is pretty painless. I appreciate that not everyone will want to use PL mount lenses so the camera was designed from the beginning to accommodate using other lens mounts.

I hope this is a helpful clarification,
Jon Thorn
Senior Product Manager
AJA Video Systems

[Jim Martin]

Jon-
Thanks for the clarification......we've had many clients who are planning to buy but were a bit confused on the lens options and were concerned that 3rd party adapters were not going to work 100%.

Jim Martin
EVSonline.com

[Art Adams]

As I'm sure you're aware, I wrote an article recently here at DVInfo that was highly critical of the Cion demo footage that was released a short while ago. While I appreciate your post here, I find it odd that you spent so much time stating that the Cion was not designed to compete with the Sony FS7. That may be the case, but given that they are coming out at approximately the same time (assuming the Cion will ship as promised, in the very near future) at roughly the same price point it's hard to see how they wouldn't compete, even if they aren't meant to.

The FS7 seems to be a mature camera. I'm had some hands on time with a pre-production prototype and while some software bugs are being ironed out it's a very mature camera. It has a number of looks built in, including Sony's attempt to emulate film (by taking some imaging cues from Alexa), and while I don't believe it offers ProRes, cameras aren't generally designed with an emphasis on post. Their footage should be easy to work with in post, but the primary purpose of a camera is to make it simple for someone like myself to create great images. Sony has that down, but so far you've shown me no evidence that the Cion can do the same.

I'm not talking about making images that are comparable to the FS7, but simply nice images, period. The demo reel that I saw was clearly shot by someone who was not all that experienced in shooting sophisticated images along the lines of what I would use the camera to produce, and there was an awful lot in the images that I found distasteful: magenta flesh tones, clipped highlights with rings around them, minimal shadow detail, blues that shifted green, etc.

Beyond that there was much that wasn't shown at all: high contrast imagery, tungsten-lit environments, etc. The impression I came away with was that the camera doesn't handle highlights gracefully, may have difficulty resolving color accurately under tungsten light, the color science is still very much a work in progress, and the stated dynamic range of 12 stops may be optimistic.

For a company that's determined to offer a camera that's a game changer, it appears that very little money or effort was used to produce a reel that would convince us of this.

Given all that, the last thing on my mind is whether it allows me to record ProRes or not, or whether its ergonomics are satisfying. First and foremost I want pretty pictures. I'll take an Alexa covered in spikes that records to 8-track cassettes long before I'd settle for a perfectly-balanced mink fur-covered GoPro that records to ProRes.

So, like it or not, Cion is in competition with the Sony FS7. Your task is to prove to us not that it can shoot the same images as the FS7, but that it can shoot pleasing images at all. So far I've seen no test footage that convinces me that Cion has cleared basic technical and artistic hurdles, which--in my mind--is necessary not for the camera to compete with the FS7, but for it to be considered a viable professional option at all.

When can we expect to see a new round of footage, shot by a professional cinematographer, that shows us how the camera responds favorably in all the circumstances I've outlined above?

[Steve Phillipps]

Agree 100% with all of that Art.
Steve

[Jon Thorn]

Thank you for sharing your opinion with us.

Thanks,
Jon Thorn
Senior Product Manager
AJA Video Systems

[Chris Hurd]

Many thanks to you, Jon, for being here and taking the time. Much appreciated!

[Mike Watson]

Originally Posted by Jon Thorn

Thank you for sharing your opinion with us.

Thanks,
Jon Thorn
Senior Product Manager
AJA Video Systems

I apologize for Art's tone.

I may or may not buy a Cion (there are several contenders, but I am certainly in the market for a new camera in this range), but it never ceases to surprise me how personally some people take the production of a broadcast videocamera.

I promise that, unless you come and punch me in the stomach, I will not treat you like you've punched me in the stomach.

I appreciate your candor and verbose responses to this forum, I find them insightful, and if anything, the look behind the curtain moves me closer to a Cion and farther from an FS7, Ursa, etc.

[Chris Hurd]

Something I've learned the hard way over the years, try not to read too much into any post regarding its tone. At the end of the day, it's just text without the benefit of inflection and sometimes it's easy to misinterpret the emotion behind it. It's certainly possible to be critical and cordial at the same time, and I think Art does that very well.

[Steve Phillipps]

Agree with that 100% too Chris! :)
Steve

[Loch Phillipps]

Have there been any new additions to the EF mounts being made for the Cion? I've been in contact with Wooden Camera and checked out MTF to see what their EF mounts for the Cion are like. Both are passive. I'm not sure what the use of these would be. How would you change your f-stop if these are not electronic? What is the point of having a passive EF mount? Maybe I'm missing something.