K5600′s newest Joker has twice the output of it’s predecessor, the Joker 800, and can still run off a household outlet, HUZZAH. This means you can throw this baby up into the ceiling of your kitchen to justify eating an entire box of Lucky Charms at 11pm because it’ll look like MORNING.

The Joker 1600 comes in the two flavors users of the Joker 400 and 800 are all familiar with, the Bug-lite bare bulb version which adapts to lanterns and softboxes, and the Beamer swappable lens version.


But exclusive to the Joker 1600 is a new version called the Zoom Beamer, which uses no lenses because its housing is focusable like a typical fresnel unit. A Joker without lenses?! BUT NOW WHAT WILL I USE AS MY NOVELTY SIZED MONACLES??


// Litepanels – SOLA & INCA Fresnels

On the tails of Arri, Litepanels just debuted a line of LED fresnel units as well. They come in either tungsten (INCA) or daylight (SOLA) flavors, but there’s no bi-color option. Litepanels says it’s not possible based on their LED technology (BUT ARRI DID IT, SO FAIL, LITEPANELS, FAIL).


I will say though where these units excel over the Arri units is in how the unit focuses. On the Arris, when you spot and flood, instead of the lamp moving within the housing, the fresnel lens in front moves in and out, changing the actual length of the unit. So if you have gels or nets or flags set up close to the unit, spotting or flooding may become an issue in cramped situations, such as porto-potty confessionals. 


The Litepanels fresnels on the other hand spot and flood entirely within the unit like traditional fresnels.

Litepanels also debuted a kit for their popular Sola ENG lights, which are mini on board fresnel LED lights. They’re fully dimmable and focusable with an equivalent output of 250W unit while drawing only 30W.

The kit comes with three daylight units, gels, power cables, a softbox, and three Manfrotto nano stands, which are just like regular light stands… ONLY REALLY TINY.

SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO CUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUTE. Here you can see the p-tap power cable that lets you power them off battery plates. Because of their low draw, you’d have no problem running the camera and light off the same brick if need be. 

The softbox folds flat and just slots around the head of the unit, just like a regular chimera… ONLY REALLY REALLY TINY The whole three light kit ‘n kaboodle is $2995~ At that price point, can’t say it’s an incredible buy. Certainly not as versatile as some of the Arri softbank kits at the same/lower price, but it’s a hell of a lot more portable. They’d really be ideal for on location interview and event work, especially when you need more output than those dinky on-board panel LEDs.


// Kino-Flo – Celeb 200

Kino-flo also debuted an LED unit at NAB this year, forever disregarding the fact the word “fluorescent” is in their name.

With an output of a Diva 400 and drawing only 1 amp, the celeb 200 is dimmable DOWN TO THE DECIMAL. Finally I can tell my gaffer to give me .3% more output and he can’t sass me. 

It’s color temperature is also full controllable, and not only from tungsten to daylight, but green to magenta. And when you find a color you like, you can save it to a preset, the same way we all have 90s on 9 preset on our XM radios.

It ships with a gel frame, and two louvers which narrow the beam to different degrees. YOU CAN’T FOOL ME KINO-FLO, I know these things are just a rectangle frames filled with cut up boba tea straws…

It took me an hour just to upload this photo of Tim Horton’s instead of more NAB swag D: More NAB stuff to come though at the end of this week when I get back to the cold, brute, and mildly racist internet of Manhattan… 


On the plus side, Hasidic Jewish Liev Schreiber was on my flight!

They’re my zombie apocalypse weapon of choice (if I had to choose between parts of a camera rig to defend myself against zombies… otherwise my zombie apocalypse weapon of choice would be this sound cannon thing that can implode things). Aw man, if only there were some sort of establishment in Vegas that made available all my favorite zombie apoc- OH WAIT.

Their motors are actually smaller than Heden motors, and they say they perform just as well… SKEPTICAL. 

I will say though, I’m not a big fan of their receiver design. On this and their remotes they use these buttons that feel like your grandma’s tv remote buttons after she wrapped it in 13 layers of plastic wrap because you kept spilling juice on it whenever you’d visit. There’s not much physical feedback to denote that it’s been pressed, and in the dark, the near-flush buttons may become hard to see.

Here’s an aks block that has a 1/4 20 and 3/8 16 taps to mount whatever your heart fancies to your MMB-2 (I use mine to arm out a mirror to make sure no zombies are attacking me from behind). This way you can get monitors a better distance away from your face as opposed having to crane your head back all the time like you’re avoiding the mouth of that girl at the club who more than likely has mono who’s trying to drunkenly make out with you. Plus it’s only $30! (the aks block, not the girl at the club)

HDMI cable locks are getting pretty popular these days, because it turns out people really like breaking HDMI cable. I KNOW I DO This makes Germans frown though, so here’s Arri’s cable lock system. What sets this apart from most is that it doesn’t mount flush to the body, which often blocks the other ports on the camera. Instead, it mounts to Arri’s DSLR cage. I for one have never been a huge fan of cages. I find it completely defeats the purpose of shooting on a small body~ 

SONAR VISIONNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN

Their new converters come in regular duty and heavy duty flavors (for those of us who use these converters as the chest plate for our Iron Man arc reactors). 

And on top of that, their new “Battery Converters” have built in rechargeable batteries, which is a win. Unfortunately though, not bearing the official Heavy-Duty label, they can’t “withstand being run over by the largest OB vehicle.” (WELL THEN WHAT’S THE POINT?!)

It would have been nice to see some sort of mounting option for these guys onto rails though. Oh well, I guess I’ll have to stick with my current method of chewed bubble gum and hope.

But I digress, ALAS, the Blackmagic Design Cinema Camera.

Look at Mr. BlackMagic’s pimp lean. What a pimp. 

Here are the specs in a nutshell:
- Shoots 2.5K RAW to SSDs
- 13 stops of dynamic range
- Records as Cinema DNG, ProRes, or DNxHD
- EF Canon Mount
- HDSDI out
- Thunderbolt out
- 5″ Touchscreen LCD
- Bundled with a copy of DaVinci Resolve and Ultrascopes
- Choice of soup or salad

All for the delightful price of $2995! Which is actually more like $2000 if you consider the fact that DaVinci Resolve on its own costs $995. BUT, like I said, BlackMagic does own DaVinci Resolve and has been trying to push that “open source” CinemaDNG format for a while now. It’s COMPANY SYNERGY, as fake Martha Stewart explained to me in the made for tv movie Martha, Inc.

It’s a neat camera, all in all, and the test footage that I’ve seen so far isn’t bad~ http://vimeopro.com/johnbrawleytests/blackmagic-cinema-camera

PIC DUMP TIME. 

 

The entire rear panel is a touch screen LCD with 8 physical buttons. The top left one activates iris control to open up or close down the aperture using the FF and REV buttons. The top right is peaking (which is my opinion was pretty shitty and pales in comparison to the peaking on a SmallHD DP6, for example). Double tapping on the screen also zooms in though if you want to focus that way. 

Here’s the Canon lens mount. At the moment, they say there are no plans for a PL version. The sensor size though is only slightly larger than the micro 4/3 sensors on the GH2 or AF100. 

I do like the fact that the mount extends out in front of the body like this though, which make it easier get follow focuses on for lenses whose focus rings are super close to the mount~ 

Here you can see the various outs of the body. The audio in ports are actually 1/4″ jacks, so… yeah, sound things. You’ve got HD-SDI out below that, which has the option of sending a completely clean signal for either a client monitor or recording to an external recorder. You can also record out via the Thunderbolt port below that, which will also be the only way you can view any sort of waveforms or vectorscopes while recording as the built in lcd CANNOT COMPUTE.

Then below that you get the power input. There’s an internal battery that lasts all of about 90 minutes, so you’ll have to bank on feeding power via p-tap to AB or V-mount bricks. Or just make your shoot days 90 minutes long. I prefer the latter option. 

On the other side you’ve got the SSD slot, which takes any ol’ SSDs you’ve got lying around. Just make sure to wipe the porn off of ‘em before someone on set asks for playback. 

Here’s a look at the menu interface. *touch touch touch*

And that’s actually my most fundamental problem with this camera. It’s not that I’m writing it off altogether. I’m actually really interested in seeing what this camera can do. But there are just little things here and there that make me hesitant.

The fact that the touch screen is literally the only way to access particular controls on the camera irks me. I’ve had touchscreens fail me on set (*cough*Epic/Scarlet*cough*) because it was too cold or too humid or too RED. And if the screen gets damaged at all while you’re shooting, then all you can really do is start and stop.

Hopefully by release date they’ll have some option for physical button control of the camera (considering there is a slot for Remote on the side panel), but the BlackMagic rep said there were no specific plans for it at the moment. All I want is a camera that I can control via my PS3 controller, is that really too much to ask?

What also worries me is the fact that the camera uses off the shelf SSD drives, which aren’t exactly designed for production use. They’re designed to be taken out of an anti-static bag and straight into a computer, not tossed around a set. I’ll hand it RED, their SSDs are built like a tank, and I’ve done all sorts of shit to ‘em, JUST FOR FUNSIES.

I realize these are worst-case scenario concerns, but it’s the little things like these that end up setting all these new cameras apart in the end. Putting a sensor in a body is one thing, but putting a sensor in a body that can withstand getting set on fire, on the other hand… 

Again, I know I’m chugging a lot of haterade here (THIS NOVELTY VEGAS CUP IS HUGE), but I’d be lying if I said I wouldn’t jump at the offer to shoot on one.

Third party accessories will inevitably start popping up to make the thing look less like a tiny HP photo printer, and who knows, come next NAB, Zacuto will probably have a whole new line of Zlackmagic Zineza Zamera Zezzoriez that start at $4999 (but have a lifetime warranty!).

In the meantime though, with all these new cameras coming out, IT’S A GOOD THING I FOUND THIS:

Take that BlackMagic! I bet I won’t be able to use the box for your camera as a slate, now will I??