New star rises over digital cinema – noX HD/2K

[Ken Diewert]

Originally Posted by Tyson Perkins

What a great reply under such immense judgement from the members here - it makes me quite contended to see that people are pushing out cameras (whatever their target market might be) and providing people with further options to consider and tools to use to elucidate their visions; whether this cam will 'lose' to the RED and SI cams or not is yet to be seen but im sure there are filmmakers out there who will find this camera the perfect product for them.

And in response to the whole idea that DVINFO only really serves a low end target market - i think that for now that is true however the notion that the lines between the high end, high budget filmmaker or a low budget indie composer are becoming blurred with the introduction of ever cheapening cameras such as RED and SI - and even the noX is 20,000 dollars cheaper than one of its counterparts - is really reflected on this forum and you can really see that indicated in Chris's consistent inclusion of these newer (albiet cheaper) projects that are aimed squarely at proffesionals - not the 'dreamers' - cutting a long story short i think we are headed in the right direction.

Tyson,

I agree, 'it's all good'. The more choices and competition the better for us, the consumers. I don't think that NoX or Marc is getting unfairly hammered. Sure people are asking tough questions, but I seem to recall RED getting scorched pretty good in the early days. If you want to sell an unproven product for 50-70k, you've got to expect some scrutiny.

[Tyson Perkins]

yes you do - but im saying that i was glad that he remained a calm as he did under this scrutiny - and i am also not denying that he does need to answer some very very tough questions.

[Ash Greyson]

The problem here was the original presentation... "A new star rises..." and then a (seemingly unintended) stab at RED marketing.

I guess the best question is... what does the noX do that RED cant?



ash =o)

[Greg Hartzell]

Originally Posted by Marc O. Hardt

Finally, digital cinema has reached the level of film in matters of picture quality.

Sometimes it's not about counting the pixels, but making the pixels count.

What is the noX? She is a full HD / 2K cinema camera and she produces astonishingly film-like pictures.

Most current HD cameras take pictures which look like video, so we created a digital alternative for people using film.
Furthermore we wanted to find the fine balance between the resolution which is needed to look good on the big screen and the resolution which is still manageable without collecting loads of terabytes.
Finally we wanted to create a workflow which is easier, faster and more flexible so there is more time and energy to focus on what really counts - filming visual dreams.

In all sincerity: we did it.

Many HD cameras claim to produce beautiful film-like pictures, but to be honest – not many are able to keep this promise. Check out the sample stills of the noX to see that digital pictures can look like film, especially regarding skin, hair and DOF. Stop doing video – start doing photography again.


Marc O. Hardt

Marc,

Sorry to chop up your original post, but it seems to me that most of your statements above go unfounded. In today's world outsouced manufacturing and a broad array of available components, it wouldn't be very hard for any company to release a digital video camera like yours. I think there could very well be more competition for this segment in the future.

That said, what is it that makes the images that this camera produces decidedly film like? Many productions have used HD cameras, HDV cameras and Film cameras seamlessly together. How does your camera produce images that don't look like video?

You created a workflow? You have said nothing on this since this post.
Though your camera looks to be about the same size as a film camera, and honestly a bit larger. What is a camera op. and asist. used to an arri or panavision going to think when they approach this camera? What about steady cam or handheld set-ups?

The nice thing about 35mm is it is completely scalable, you use the same film stocks and lens setup no matter what camera your shooting with. I think Red can offer the same scalability with its modular design. Arri and Panavision both have their own digital cine cameras, that look and act very much like their film cameras. Why did you guys go with an lcd? This would suck on a bright day or bright set. Would there be a viewfinder option for the camera op? Why would DPs and cam ops choose your camera?

[Ben Winter]

Originally Posted by Aaron Burtle

Are you guys using an Optical Low Pass Filter?

I don't believe they are. That's why it looks so aliased.

[Wayne Morellini]

I decided to show this photo here, it is an private photograph, all copyright applied, but it may illustrate something I think they maybe getting at.

This is from an old camera I tested a few years ago, with up to 20 stops of latitude. It was taken from my place, the blurriness is an quirk on the shot. The exposure is similar in appreciation to exposures you get in Hollywood cinema. It was close to noon on an extremely bright summers day, around an 1000KM from the equator (stacks brighter than what you are normally used to in Europe/States). The leaves on the cane, to the side, normally have large broad burnout on an consumer camera, and are quiet glary/white reflections to the eye, but are well exposed here, while maintaining an lot of features in the shadow under the mango tree (turn up the brightness ion your monitor to see).

This is taken using an latitude extension feature sadly neglected in Cinema cameras around here. The old camera, is an maybe $69 credit card camera, with fixed set lens. It uses one of the cheapest sensors (in dollars) and one of the worse I have seen on some measurements of the earlier age of sensors, with SN of 30db from memory and plenty of image artifacts at times, but 20stops of latitude when it wants to. It is an shame not more expensive Cinema camera manufactures could at least take advantage of cheap technology like latitude extension, even when the senor had it. Puts the prices in the Digital Cinema realm into an bit of perspective.


Thanks

Wayne.

[Glenn Chan]

Wayne: very cool.

Perhaps the video equivalent of the Holga camera? (A medium format still camera that is charming because of its technical flaws... vignetting, softness, etc.)

[Wayne Morellini]

Embarrassment, blush :) , it is only the exposure latitude (and maybe color) we are looking at here. Looks like I bumped the camera on closer examination. It was one of the senors I was examining for the Digital Cinema camera projects, but the Fill factory Ibis5a offered around 60db SN at that stage (when using external ADC circuit that is properly setup) and 90db of latitude extension. Now days that is all old hat, and there are better cheaper sensors.

[Aaron Burtle]

Wayne, when you say, "latitude extension" are you referring to an antibloom on the chip? The main problem with antibloom is that the only chips that can utilize it effectively generally have a small fill factor to begin with. Antibloom also typically involves a trade off in full well capacity, which when you already have a low charge capacity, will result in less exposure latitude.


Or is this something else? 20 stops of latitude sounds great!

[Wayne Morellini]

No not that, I see this feature more on CMOS sensors, but it is features like dual/multi-slope and autobrite, as two examples, that allow an much greater number of stops. The sloping technology exposes the pixel, then resets it for an different exposure time on each pass, the two results are combined on chip into an new pixel value. Autobrite, from what I can tell, adjusts the gain (up or down) of the pixel to bring it into exposure. For the dual-slope Ibis5a had reasonable fillfactor (less microlens) and good well capacity, for an cmos sensor. QE and SN ratio, the Altrasens scores better in cmos sensors of the time (well it got delayed an lot).

Interesting to note, that the sensor company in the camera above, and the Fillfactory company that makes the Ibis5a sensor, are now owned by Cirrus Semiconductor.

[Aaron Burtle]

I have only read about dual slope (and not much at that), so I wonder if you can comment on how it effects uniformity, linearity, and frame rates.

[Wayne Morellini]

Can't remember too much, it was 3 to 4 years ago I looked at it. With different exposures, of the slopes colors respond differently, so it does nit look right (I wonder if color correction can be applied). Obviously there is going to be different performance throughout the range, but there is an technology that retains conformity. The technology requires correct setup so it blends together nicely and doesn't jump. But Andrey can tell you much more accurate detail then I can, he used to use the Ibis, but was not impressed with it's internal ADC, that could not produce sufficient enough quality for him.

I remembered last night, I think there is an anti-blooming use of multi-slope.

[Aaron Burtle]

Sounds to me like a version of antibloom where by the charge which is drained to avoid blooming is recorded so that the full-well capacity is now full-well + charge drained. It sounds to me like it would reduce uniformity, linearity and probably frame rate, as well as adding another transistor possibly reducing fill factor. But the trade offs could be worth it, especially since highlight have always been a weak point with imaging sensors.

[Wayne Morellini]

I suspect it might decrease maximum shutter, but you can still do normal frame rates. Linearity, what was that again, am I assuming right? I think it works by reseting the pixel.

[Aaron Burtle]

Linearity is essentially a euphemism for predictability. But yes, that sounds correct to me.