Ikonoskop A-cam dII at IBC2008

[Chris Hurd]

Ikonoskop introduces its new digital motion picture camera, the A-cam dII, on Friday 9/12 at IBC2008.

For more info, see A-cam dII - The camera loves you | A-cam dII | Products | Ikonoskop

[ update: more photos at http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/digital-c...ii-photos.html ]

[James Millward]

Originally Posted by Chris Hurd

Ikonoskop introduces its new digital motion picture camera, the A-cam dII, on Friday 9/12 at IBC2008.

For more info, see A-cam dII - The camera loves you | A-cam dII | Products | Ikonoskop

I like what Ikonoskop are doing. They seem to know what people want. Ie Low cost, New, no nonsense cameras.

They are releasing a new super8 along the same lines as the 16mm as well!!

Nice one Ikonoskop!

James

[Giroud Francois]

better than D90, cheaper than red:
A-cam dII World Premiere at stopmebeforeiblogagain

[John Sandel]

Wow. Nice, simple design.

[Miklos Konczol]

Originally Posted by Giroud Francois

better than D90, cheaper than red:
A-cam dII World Premiere at stopmebeforeiblogagain

RED ONE is 4K. Scarlet is much cheaper!!! and 3K and 180 fps (120 continually) D90 is a still camera.

[Brian Drysdale]

Originally Posted by Miklos Konczol

RED ONE is 4K. Scarlet is much cheaper!!! and 3K and 180 fps (120 continually) D90 is a still camera.

This camera has interchangeable lenses, which RED has stated costs more because the market is much smaller than for cameras with fixed lenses. There's a possibly floating around that it uses a CCD rather than a CMOS sensor.

The camera weighs 1.5 kg, so lighter than a Scarlet, for those situations when that might matter.

It records RAW uncompressed, so seems to be addressing a different market to the Scarlet. Although, perhaps some form of compression may have to applied in practise when downloading - interesting to know if Cineform or other 3rd party will get involved.

[Chris Hurd]

I'm hoping someone attending IBC will drop by their booth, takes some pics and post them here.

Meanwhile: More info on A-cam dII | News/blog | Ikonoskop

[Drew Long]

They've updated their website to show the sensor is CCD, global shutter and the RAW video is captured as DNG sequence.

[Johnnie Behiri]

The camera (concept) and the people behind it are just amazing.

Just back from IBC, and will seat tomorrow to write a short report concerning the camera.

BTW, the pictures at the web site do not do justice with this beautiful camera.



Thanks.

Johnnie

[Klas Persson]

Originally Posted by Brian Drysdale

This camera has interchangeable lenses, which RED has stated costs more because the market is much smaller than for cameras with fixed lenses. There's a possibly floating around that it uses a CCD rather than a CMOS sensor.

The camera weighs 1.5 kg, so lighter than a Scarlet, for those situations when that might matter.

It records RAW uncompressed, so seems to be addressing a different market to the Scarlet. Although, perhaps some form of compression may have to applied in practise when downloading - interesting to know if Cineform or other 3rd party will get involved.

Not to mention the S16 sized sensor... Like the specs a lot.

[Kurt August]

The footage they showed at IBC looked very good. Looking quickly at it, I believe the sensor could be rated 400 to 500 ISO. The footage looked really clean, except for some night shots, where you could notice some read noise (I suspect) in the blacks (not that I worried that much). And since it is uncompressed, normal lit footage looked very nice, better than some artifacts I've seen in graded Red footage. But I guess the sensor could still be optimized a bit, color wise. Too bad there weren't any daylight scenes with skin tones. It was a bit hard to judge how natural color rendition is.
Obviously, the financial backing is less than other companies, but the footage looked as good as what I saw from Red two years ago at IBC. But that may be comparing apples and oranges, I guess.

On the communication side of things:
I do hope they take their time to post test footage on the web. The footage I've seen needed to be filmed really quick before they left for IBC and lighting and glass weren't optimal. And if it's not looking perfect, they will be flamed on every blog or forum discussing it. And perhaps unjust.

As for the out of the box experience: I really hope they keep everything in the final package (lens, body, battery, charger, memory cartridge), even when it means that the price will go up (hopefully not too much). But I believe those cartridges are very expensive to produce. Not much profit there. Fingers crossed.

Marketing wise, I guess it would be smart to show two outfits: one very discreet with c-mount for low-profile use and one elaborate with pl-mount that shows it with all the bells and whistles so people understand it can be a complete camera system (optical viewfinder, external monitor, external recording system, matte-box, follow focus).

The only thing I'm wondering about is if there are many C-mount lenses that have the same optical resolution as PL-lenses. C-mount lenses have the advantage of a much shorter focal flange and can therefore be less complicated. But I simple don't know enough about lenses to have the right answer. Does anyone have any good examples?

The way they explained the camera, it's use -buttons, menu's- have been really thought through. Let's hope it also works that way. I'm sure they will elaborate on that the next weeks.

Also, I appreciate them for not throwing around product announcements and release dates all the time, even though they realize it would be great marketing.

All in all, I really love their approach and eagerly wait for more news. I also admit I've pre-ordered one. This should be the camera I've been waiting for a long time. I always hoped for some sort of digital-bolex-equivalent. Red One or SI-2K is often too bulky for me and Scarlet just doesn't feel right to me at this point.

[John Sandel]

Originally Posted by Kurt August

This should be the camera I've been waiting for a long time. I always hoped for some sort of digital-bolex-equivalent.

Exactly my thought, Kurt. Thank you for your thoughts on this very interesting camera.

[Marc Jayson]

Rick Youb did an interview with Ikonoskop.

MacVideo - Camera Technology - Features - The Ikonoskop -A-cam dII - a different sort of digital cinema camera

[Matt Jeppsen]

The A-Cam dII is a very interesting option at this stage in the game. People are already starting to compare it's announced specs to those of the (in-development) Scarlet and of course the Red One. Thinking about that discussion, I've personally come to the conclusion that the dII is a unique offering, and the guys at Ikonoskop have wisely developed a featureset that places it nicely into it's own niche.

I've written an article at PVC that outlines why I believe this to be the case, and how Red, Scarlet, and the A-Cam dII will coexist with minimal overlap. I'd be interested to hear what the community thinks.

[Anmol Mishra]

Something important everyone missed. Its not just uncompressed, not just RAW but 12-bit TWELVE bit RAW.

Most cams use 8-bit i.e. 256 value for color this uses 2^4 i.e. 16 times as many - 4096 values..

No rolling shutter, no skewing, and no fluoro lines after setting the right frame rate (try shooting with CMOS under flickering fluoro lights).

S16 sensor is about 1 inch if I remember right. Lets see how the CCD handles blooming..
Amazing - uncompressed 12-bit HD.
Does anyone know how does a DNG workflow look like ? I only know photoshop for DNG as its still a still image format. I don't think they are using CinemaDNG as its not a final standard yet..
So do we use photoshop for editing ???????