Definition June 2019 - Sampler

ONES TO WATCH CINE GEAR 2019

THE MOVERS AND SHAKERS AT THE SHOW P20

June 2019

£4.99

INTERVIEW

GAME THEORY

Technical stories behind the latest GoT series

SENSE OF UNITY

The game engine advantage in filmmaking

GOOD OMENS

Creating the visual world for the end of world

OUR WINNERS REVEALED

ALSO KIT REVIEWS | WOMEN IN CINEMATOGRAPHY | JVC’S CONNECTED CAM INSIDE TARANTINO TITLE SEQUENCE | LATEST IN LIGHTING | CAMERA LISTINGS

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W E LC O M E

© Fabian Wagner

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EDITORIAL Editor Julian Mitchell 01223 492246 julianmitchell@bright-publishing.com Staff writer Chelsea Fearnley Contributors Phil Rhodes, Madelyn Most Chief sub editor Beth Fletcher Senior sub editor Siobhan Godwood Sub editor Felicity Evans Junior sub editor Elisha Young ADVERTISING Sales director Matt Snow 01223 499453 mattsnow@bright-publishing.com Sales manager Krishan Parmar 01223 499462 krishanparmar@bright-publishing.com Key accounts Nicki Mills 01223 499457 nickimills@bright-publishing.com DESIGN Design director Andy Jennings Designers Lucy Woolcomb, Emily Lancaster, Emma Di’Iuorio Senior designer & production manager Flo Thomas Ad production & designer Man-Wai Wong PUBLISHING Managing directors Andy Brogden & Matt Pluck SOCIAL MEDIA Facebook @definitionmagazine Twitter @definitionmags Instagram @definitionmags

Banks of Arri SkyPanels light up The Long Night episode from Game of Thrones Season 8

WELCOME

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here is a dirty little secret that traditional broadcasters have been hiding ever since they started emulating streaming only platforms like Netflix and Amazon Prime.

But when The Long Night episode in Season 8 of Game of Thrones was broadcast by companies like Now TV (part of Sky in the UK), it was there for all to see – and boy did that set the social media trolls off. My picture was a mess of compression banding and blocking that all but ruined the watching experience.

As is usual with these keyboard warriors, they lashed out at who they thought was to blame. And in this instance, that was the DOP, Fabian Wagner. Poor Fabian’s social media channels lit up with uninformed opinions that this was his fault, after he mentioned in an interview that some viewers might not know how to adjust their televisions.

I’m guessing that none of those trolls read this magazine, but watching my Now TV broadcast of episode 3 made me yearn for my old DVD player. Let’s hope that the experience doesn’t stop Fabian playing with light as brilliantly as he does.

MEDIA PARTNERS & SUPPORTERS OF

JULIAN MITCHELL EDITOR

Definition is published monthly by Bright Publishing Ltd, Bright House, 82 High Street, Sawston, Cambridge CB22 3HJ. No part of this magazine can be used without prior written permission of Bright Publishing Ltd. Definition is a registered trademark of Bright Publishing Ltd. The advertisements published in Definition that have been written, designed or produced by employees of Bright Publishing Ltd remain the copyright of Bright Publishing Ltd and may not be reproduced without the written consent of the publisher. The content of this publication does not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher. Prices quoted in sterling, euros and US dollars are street prices, without tax, where available or converted using the exchange rate on the day the magazine went to press.

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ONCE UPON A TIME

© 2019 Columbia Pictures

This is a real snapshot from Hollywood: A-list actress Margot Robbie strutting down a Hollywood street being filmed by legendary DOP Robert Richardson on his favourite Chapman Leonard crane, with his hands on a Panavision Panaflex Millennium XL2 film camera. All for Quentin Tarantino’s ninth film, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. The movie celebrates the final years of Hollywood’s Golden Age in 1969 Los Angeles, with the backdrop of the Charles Manson murders – Robbie plays Sharon Tate while Brad Pitt plays stunt double Cliff Booth.

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T E C H I N N OVAT I O N AWA R DS | S E T- U P

THE WINNER’S STORIES AWA R D S

Finally, we have the results of our inaugural Tech Innovation Awards, but instead of just listing them, here’s a bit more information...

W O R D S J U L I A N M I TC H E L L

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here is a danger in awarding prizes for products. There are inevitable comparisons to be concluded, and this is something we didn’t want to do with our first awards: the Definition Tech Innovation Awards. We wanted to dig a little deeper, and maybe reward research and development over marketing.

We also wanted to make our categories purposefully unfocussed. A category like Capture, for example, included Cooke’s /i Technology and Radiant Images AXA rigs, but it was Red’s Gemini sensor that won. Colour Science is not an individual product, but as part of a camera’s sensor cluster chain, it’s a huge tool.

Optics is perhaps our only clear category and long may it remain that way.

Codecs are a techy’s dream and this year has seen some major advances. Movement, again, is a wide choice, but look at the advances and you can’t really look past robotics. Playback is another category full of choices, but a 4K, 10-bit Teradek Bolt is hard to argue with.

For Virtual, we are only touching the surface of what will become available – keep your eyes on Arraiy. For Lighting, we wanted all the modern technology wrapped up in the best practical help for modern lighting design: Cineo Lighting and NBCUniversal fitted the bill.

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WINNER OF CAPTURE

RED DSMC2 GEMINI 5K S35 SENSOR The Red Gemini sensor was a surprise to the market when it was soft launched by the company last year. The headline feature was its low-light capability, and it’s another great product from wherever Red get its sensors. Red initially saw the market for Gemini as being a specialist one, but it was too good just for that.

As a comparison to the rest of the Red range, the Gemini offered superior lowlight performance to the Helium sensor.

The sensor is taller inside the DSMC2 brain, with a 30.72x18.0 mm size and a diagonal of 35.61mm, which only achieves 5K resolution compared to the Helium’s 8K resolution, but allows for greater anamorphic lens coverage than with the Helium or Red Dragon sensors.

However, for most people the 5K resolution is more than enough, as this resolution fully complies with broadcast 4K requirements, so is quite happy with drama and natural history programming.

The Gemini 5K S35’s party trick is the dual sensitivity modes – probably the reason for the name – which Red calls standard and low light modes.

Add 96fps at 5K, and you have a sensor performance that stands up against anything in the S35 market.

SHORTLIST Red DSMC2 Gemini 5K S35 sensor n Radiant Images AXA VR rigs nC ooke /i Technology n

WINNER OF COLOUR SCIENCE

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Light Iron was a fast growing postproduction house specialising in digital intermediate, also reaching into the acquisition space with Outpost, its DIT mobile lab service. The Cioni brothers, Michael and Peter, have acute business sense and colour science knowledge from years of DI, which made them a perfect fit for Panavision, with an acquisition in 2015 as Panavision’s latest digital camera was fast approaching its launch.

What Light Iron was able to add to the Panavision DXL camera was an inbuilt colour science engine. It wanted to offer what you could achieve in a DI lab inside the camera when you shot. The idea was to offer similar colour tuning through the camera as Panavision offered through their lens tuning. Light Iron Color 2 deviates from traditional digital colour matrices by following in the footsteps of film stock philosophy, instead of direct replication of how colours look in nature.

Light Iron claims a revolutionary image mapping process, delivering a rich, cinematic look right out of the camera, with ‘film-like density, neutral shadows and natural skin tones’. But more than this, users of Panavision’s DXL2 camera now have something that Red Monstro 8K users don’t, as, apart from LiColor2, the cameras have the same sensor chain.

SHORTLIST n Panavision Light Iron Color 2 n Red Image Processing Pipeline [IPP2] n FilmLight Baselight v5

S E T- U P | P R E V I E W

CINE GEAR EXPO 2019 SHOW PREVIEW

The SoCal trade show is once again upon us. Here’s our show preview WORDS CHELSE A FE ARNLE Y

GFM g-f-m.net Grip Factory Munich (GFM) has worked hard to become one of the leading providers in the design and production of high-end camera support equipment. This year, GFM returns to Paramount’s backlot with its simple yet elegant strap bracing kit.

On the stand, you will see the GF-8 Xten Camera Crane, GF-Slider System, GF-Iso Dampener, GFVibration Isolator, as well as other GFM rigs and jibs.

SONY sony.com Visitors at Cine Gear Expo will be able to experience Sony’s nextgeneration, full-frame motion picture camera system, the Sony Venice, most recently used to shoot political thriller Official Secrets and the Netflix series Sex Education (see our March issue). It will include the recently released firmware Version 3.0 (and upcoming 4.0) as well as its Expansion System (CBK-3610XS), which is currently being used to shoot the Avatar sequels.

Sony is also showcasing its wider range of solutions, designed to support filmmakers in their mission to deliver emotional impact on screen. The versatile PXW-FS7 II camcorder will be on display, alongside the compact 4K PXW-FS5 camcorder. While the latest BVMHX310 Trimaster HX Professional Master Monitor will also be on the stand, with the 16.5-inch Trimaster EL OLED critical reference monitor, the BVM-E171.

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NBCUNIVERSAL & CINEO LIGHTING nbcuniversal.com & cineolighting.com NBCUniversal Lightblade and Cineo Lighting are debuting the latest model of their Standard series. The new Standard 480 has the same output, colour rending and saturated colour technology as the Standard 410, but with several innovations.

The most significant is the in-built touchscreen control environment. It simplifies local and remote operation, offering identical user control on mobile and tablet. Remote control is available via DMX/RDM, sACN/ArtNet, CRMX wireless and Bluetooth.

The Standard 480 supports single zone and patented multi-zone operation for advanced dynamic lighting effects, and several new applications will be available in coming months, including CIE colour pickers and effects recorders. The new NBCUniversal & Cineo Lighting LightBlade Edge fixtures will also be on display, combining a variable white spectrum, full-gamut colour and a suite of control options.

P R E V I E W | S E T- U P

SMALL HD smallhd.com SmallHD set the industry standard for monitors with the 702 Bright. It was the first seven-inch, full HD, daylight viewable on-camera monitor with a compact form factor.

Small HD will now display the next generation 702 Touch, with 50% more brightness and DCI-P3 colour reproduction.

The Cine 7 will also be on the stand, Small HD’s Teradek Bolt-integrated wireless monitoring system with 1800 NITs, 100% DCI-P3 colour, locking connectors and wired cinema camera control software upgrades.

Filmmakers can get the Cine 7 with a built-in Teradek transmitter and can change settings such as white-balance, shutter speed and record start/stop from the daylight viewable display. Meanwhile, the monitor can send lossless HD video in up to 500ft of range.

COOKE cookeoptics.com

DMG dmglumiere.com DMG Lumière by Rosco will be showcasing the Maxi Mix for the first time in Hollywood. Maxi Mix was designed as a hybrid LED soft light to be used in studios and on location shoots, and can be rigged as a fill or key light with its all-in-one on-board controls.

Mix technology is equipped with six exclusively designed Rosco LEDs. The bespoke LEDs have opened up a vast colour spectrum, and also contain verified Rosco gels.

QUASAR SCIENCE quasarscience.com Quasar Science returns to its roots as a pioneering motion picture-compatible LED light bulb manufacturer. The new and improved Filament LED light bulbs replicate real filaments by using LED diodes tightly packed along tiny substrates.

The six-watt A19 size Filament LED is flicker-free and compatible with most professional and consumer dimmers, and all Filament LED light bulbs can be switched between 5600 kelvins or 3000 kelvins for colour temperature accuracy.

Cooke has been at the heart of filmmaking business for over one hundred years, and while it’s hugely aware of its legacy, it’s also looking forward and continuing to lead the way by introducing new and innovative products.

Cooke will present the latest version of its /i Technology, now with shading and distortion mapping. The ‘intelligent’ technology enables film and digital cameras to record key lens data for every frame shot and provide it to postproduction teams, an instrumental process that will help save time.

On the stand you will find the new 18mm and 180mm lenses from its S7/i Full Frame spherical range. These, together with the 27mm, are going into production over the coming months to round out the range. Cooke will also display the painterly vintage Panchro/i Classic range, as well as the Anamorphic/i Full Frame Plus range, which are available with SF coating.

Additionally, Cooke Optics TV will be on the stand, shooting and broadcasting live to Facebook and YouTube throughout the show, interviewing cinematographers, camera departments and film production professionals.

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DRAMA | GAME OF THRONES

GAME MANAGEMENT Now the dust has settled on the finale of Game of Thrones, it’s time to look back at the technical story

W O R D S J U L I A N M I TC H E L L / P I C T U R E S P I C T U R E S H B O / FA B I A N WAG N E R / J O N AT H A N F R E E M A N

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DRAMA | GOOD OMENS

IT’S RAINING MEN, OMEN Or does the apocalypse bring raining locusts? We talk to DOP Gavin Finney about how he created the aesthetic for the impending end W O R D S C H E L S E A F E A R N L E Y / P I C T U R E S A M A ZO N P R I M E V I D E O & G AV I N F I N N E Y

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ood Omens was written as a bit of fun between two young friends, who later went on to become Neil Gaiman and Sir Terry Pratchett. Next year, Good Omens turns 30, and in those three decades, it has sold millions of copies around the world and is – at Pratchett’s last wish – currently being adapted for television.

Gaiman previously said he would not adapt the 1990 fantasy novel without Pratchett, who sadly died in March 2015 from a rare form of Alzheimer’s disease.

The long-time friends and co-authors had bargained from the offset that all things Good Omens would be worked on together.

But in a memorial event for Pratchett, a year on from his death, Gaiman announced to whistles and cheers that he personally would be adapting the novel for television. He explained that he had been spurred to change his mind after receiving

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a posthumous letter from Pratchett, requesting that he write a screen adaptation by himself, with the late author’s blessing.

An adaptation of the novel – which finds angel Aziraphale and demon Crowley working together to try and prevent the world’s demise – has, in the past, been notoriously challenging for scriptwriters to actualise. Gaiman and Pratchett’s writing is extremely descriptive, visual and often absurd, and writers have either turned the job down or, in Terry Gilliam’s case, failed in several attempts at it.

Before Pratchett’s death, director Dirk Maggs – at Gaiman’s instigation – adapted Good Omens for BBC Radio 4, which broadcast in 2014 and included cameos from both Pratchett and Gaiman. Gaiman says he urged BBC Radio 4 to adapt it so that Pratchett could enjoy their shared creation while he was still alive.

In the six-part television series, soon to air on Amazon Prime Video, Gaiman is the scriptwriter and the showrunner. For DOP Gavin Finney, this auspicious arrangement was paramount in building the visual world of the show. “He [Gaiman] was invaluable in updating the story and making it work for the screen,” says Finney.

“Pratchett and Gaiman’s descriptions were key to the whole design aesthetic.

We started with the idea that nothing was impossible, and if we could imagine it, we could do it. The range of looks throughout the series is huge. In episode three, we move through ten different time periods/ locations in the first 30 minutes, and that’s not counting Heaven and Hell.”

THE GUISE OF TIME Finney tells us that he had read Good Omens some time ago, so he had an idea

GOOD OMENS | DRAMA

Heaven occupies the best penthouse offices, while Hell is stuck in a mouldy basement of what he was getting into. “I came onto the show quite late in the day – I was on a plane to Cape Town one day after getting the job – so research was on the hoof, with many grabbed meetings between myself, the director, Douglas Mackinnon, and the designer, Michael Ralph.” He continues, “Ralph had already started design drawings and those were a starting point for everything else.”

Gaiman had strong visual ideas for the series by this point, but it didn’t make for a strict retelling of the novel; liberties had to be taken to elevate the narrative. Crowley gets a completely original 30-minute backstory at the beginning of episode three, and Shakespeare, who only has a small citing in the novel, gets an entire sequence shot at London’s Globe Theatre.

The story moves through different eras in time to tell the tale of Aziraphale and

Crowley, representatives of good and evil, who have decided the upcoming apocalypse is a bad idea, not only for humanity but for their own comfy lives on Earth. To stop it, they need to find the Antichrist, an 11-year-old boy named Adam, who they have misplaced at birth. (Did we mention that Good Omens is a black comedy?)

“Each era had a different design treatment, obviously in the case of costume and production design, but also in the way that we shot each scene and the way in which they were lit. Neil had always imagined the scene in the church during the Blitz to be an homage to the film noir style of that time.”

“Ancient Rome was given the patina of an Alma-Tadema oil painting; Elizabethan London was shot in Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre; and the 1960s were shot in our Soho set, which was redressed with posters from that time. We also changed the lighting so that it used more neon and bare bulbs for the signage,” says Finney.

Gaiman wanted Heaven and Hell to feel like two parts of the same celestial building, so Heaven occupied the best penthouse offices, and Hell was stuck in a damp, mouldy basement down below, where nothing works properly.

“We found a huge empty building for the Heaven set that had shiny metal flooring and white walls. I frosted all the windows and lit them from the outside using 77 Arri Skypanels linked to a dimmer, so that we could control the light over the day. We also used a Zeiss Rectilinear 8mm lens to make the space look even bigger,” says Finney.

“The Hell set used a lot of old, slightly greenish fluorescent light fittings, some IMAGES Different looks from the story’s many eras and locations needed to gel successfully

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F E AT U R E | W O M E N I N C I N E M ATO G R A P H Y

I HAVE KNOWN AND LOVED WOMEN ARE RISING THROUGH THE RANKS IN FILM PRODUCTION

– AND HAVE BEEN FOR SOME TIME. MEET THE FEMALE FILMMAKERS, CINEMATOGRAPHERS AND DIRECTORS WHO HAVE INSPIRED ME, GIVEN ME DIRECTION AND SHOWN ME THE WAY IN THE FILM WORLD W O R D S M A D E LY N M O S T

As a young student in Paris, I binged on films at the Cinémathèque at Trocadero, where the Nouvelle Vague movement of the sixties impacted the screens, and the outspoken militant voice of its only female member, Agnès Varda (pictured right) – prolific photographer, writer, cinematographer, director, fine artist and painter – came to my attention.

Internationally recognised as one of the great pillars of documentary and fiction filmmaking, the news of her sudden and unexpected passing on 29 March at the age of 90 shocked the world.

Belgian-born Arlette Varda (Arles, for the home of photography, changed to Agnès for her Greek father) was still working in 2017, with her most recent documentary, Visages Villages (Faces Places), a hit with young audiences.

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Varda had just returned from the Berlinale film festival in February, where she was awarded the Berlinale Camera award, the last in a long line of awards including an honorary Oscar, an honorary Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival and an honorary César from the French film academy. Quirky, defiant, politically outspoken, fiercely independent and curious about everything, Varda broke the rules with her experimental, optimistic documentaries and her uniquely personal storytelling.

She led the way for other rule-breaking women to enter a male-dominated industry. (At this year’s Cannes Film Festival, four of the 19 directors competing for the Palme d’Or are female – a record, but one that could still be improved upon.) Meet a few of my favourite women shaking up the film industry...

W O M E N I N C I N E M ATO G R A P H Y | F E AT U R E

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L I G H T I N G U P DAT E | F E AT U R E

THERE’S NOTHING LIKE A MAJOR EQUIPMENT TRADE SHOW TO BRING OUT THE LATEST LIGHTING TECHNOLOGY. THIS IS

WHAT WE FOUND AT THE NAB SHOW

WORDS PHIL RHODES

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ED lighting is no longer a special case. The days when manufacturers struggled to achieve a reliable white light are over, and full colour mixing is increasingly normal, with advanced control systems including wired and wireless control from lighting desks and cellphone apps. At the same time, higher power levels are becoming available, so LEDs can start to replace ever higherpowered conventional lighting. Perhaps the largest option on the planet appeared at NAB as Mole exhibited the hugely powerful “20K LED” (actually a 3KW device, presumably equating to a 20K tungsten).

LED has arrived.

Another company dedicated to pushing up power levels is Hive Lighting,

whose 575W Super Hornet has a fraction of the Mole’s power but is still one of the most powerful point-source LEDs around.

The prototype wasn’t run for long periods in Las Vegas, but a more final example is scheduled to appear at Cine Gear where it will take pride of place among Hive’s selection of hard lights. The company started out making lights using lightemitting plasma technology, and while the LEPs are still available it has become best-known for LED PARs. Hive’s products are unusual because they combine two things: first, they are not examples of the soft light panel that’s most often associated with LED lighting, and second, because they offer full colour mixing. No price was posted for the Super Hornet 575.

The days when manufacturers struggled to achieve a reliable white light are over

LEFT The Astera Titan Tube in action – and in plentiful supply – at a conference venue

FIILEX Sticking with hard light, Fiilex has been selling its flagship Q8 Travel light since early last year. At 320W it’s a little less powerful than the (unreleased) 575W Hive, but Fiilex’s light concentrates on producing tuneable white light output, not colours, a choice which potentially redresses the balance a little. It still offers both adjustable colour temperature and greento-magenta shift, and is therefore capable of closely matching inaccurate LEDs, ageing HMIs or changeable daylight.

As an eight-inch Fresnel, it’s optimised for controllability rather than the sheer brightness of a PAR, and the Q8 Travel is certainly controllable with conventional cutting and shaping tools thanks to its compact emitter array. The trick, as with Hive, is packing all those watts into a small light source, so it can cast sharp shadows

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USER REVIEW | HIVE BUMBLE BEE

HIVE BUMBLE BEE PRICE £ 350/$299

Hive lighting is concentrating on high-output LED lighting but that doesn’t mean that their small lights are any less innovative WORDS PHIL RHODES

ntil recently, LED lighting was mostly limited in power to about the size of a very small HMI. Over the last year, more and more powerful options have emerged, until NAB 2019, where Hive Lighting showed a prototype 575W LED that should outdo a 575W HMI in sheer output and offers full colour mixing. While the world is pushing for more power, though, Hive has also launched its smallest ever light.

The Bumble Bee is a 25W LED that follows the established design of Hive’s hard-light LED family quite closely. The company is unusual in that it produces (among other things) LED hard lights, which represent much more difficult engineering than the common soft light panels. The

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design of LED lights is mainly about managing heat, and concentrating all of the emitters together in a tiny area makes it even more difficult to stop things melting. The light under review was a prototype, missing a couple of features such as a locking power connector, which is reportedly under consideration for the final version.

CONNECTIONS The company is planning accessories to allow for battery power, but for now takes power from a mains power supply via a common coaxial DC connector. Most of Hive’s hard light range uses XLR connectors, but it’s immediately obvious why they’ve been omitted here: it would have been too bulky, as the 25W Bumble Bee is tiny. Alongside

BELOW The Hive Bumble Bee 25-C is tiny, only two and a half inches long and under 500g in weight

the DC jack is a pair of miniature 3-pin XLRs for DMX, the remotecontrol antenna, and not much else, no power switch nor any on-board control of brightness or colour. The light maintains the same 100mm diameter of the others in the range, which ensures compatibility with Profoto accessories and allows for the same tidy ring clamp mount. The upside to all this miniaturisation is that the light is two and a half inches long and weighs under half a kilo.

The Bumble Bee is essentially a driver module, available in kits with various modifiers, from PARs to Fresnels. Perhaps the most immediately useful accessories are the clip-on Fresnels, which use a crafty combination of collimating and Fresnel lens elements in a single

HIVE BUMBLE BEE | USER REVIEW

moulding and snap easily onto the front of the emitter. Because that lens is then not enclosed, there is a small amount of sideways leakage, but no more than some theatrical lighting.

There is currently no way to put barn doors on the front of these, but there are other options via Profoto accessories if that’s a requirement.

Hive also supplied a narrow parabolic reflector, which produces a nicely defined beam.

APP Control of colour, saturation and colour temperature (of white light) is via a smartphone app, which scans automatically for nearby lights. Lights can be assigned to groups, and there’s the option to store and recall several colour settings, stored optionally either on the light or in the app. It’s all very straightforward, and unlike some lights there’s no distinction between colour and white modes – for white light simply turn down the saturation.

There is no explicit user interface for magenta-green shift, though it can be achieved using a little creativity with the hue and saturation controls.

Photometric measurements were taken with a UPRTek CV600 colour meter at 2800, 3200, 4200, 5600, 6500 and 8000K colour temperatures, and at 100, 50 and 5% intensity, with the medium-dispersion Fresnel lens installed. The UPRTek meter declined to calculate a CCT or TLCI for the minimum 1650K setting, which is reasonable given most people would describe it as “amber.” Most LED lighting maintains its colour quality less well at very low output, and the worst-case TLCI on the Bumble Bee is a perfectly acceptable 83 at 5% power with 5600K selected. TLCI rises to 86 at the same selected colour temperature at 100%.

Otherwise, colour quality is generally better with warmer light, as is the case with most LED lighting;

IMAGES The colour, saturation and colour temperature of the Bumble Bee 25-C can be controlled via an app

“IT’S EASY TO IMAGINE THE LIGHT BEING USED ON GAMESHOW SETS” warmer colours convert more of the blue LEDs’ output to orange and yellow using phosphors, which usually have a broader spectrum of output than simple coloured LEDs. Measured colour temperature was generally 200-300K lower than indicated, which is a slightly-visible error through most of the range, though most people will simply eyeball the match anyway.

Light output is reasonably consistent over the CCT range, generally measuring around 540 lux at beam centre one metre from the light, with a slight fall-off to 450 at 6500K.

WHITE EMITTERS The Bumble Bee is perhaps unusual in that it has no white-emitting LEDs; it mixes its white from red, green

and blue LEDs, which more or less requires phosphor-converted LEDs for acceptable-quality white. There isn’t really a standard for assessing saturated colour light output; it’s noticeable that the phosphorconverted green (Hive calls it “lime green”) LED is fairly desaturated, and the Bumble Bee is not capable of producing a deep, saturated green, which affects its ability to produce deep yellows. This is reportedly an engineering compromise around size: the tiny 25W emitter simply lacks the space for more colours.

Hive sells a lot of lighting to museums, exhibitions and other installations, but it’s easy to imagine the Bumble Bee being used on TV gameshow sets and as an accent light in a jobbing camera operator’s kit bag. At a frugal 25W it’ll never be an absolute powerhouse, but neither is it very power hungry and, especially with the PAR reflector, might work well as a colour-matching fill or hair light for interviews. Hive promotes the Bumble Bee 25-C at $299, and they have many other options if anyone feels the need to go for more power with the same features. There are comparatively few LED hard lights and very few which offer full colour mixing; the Bumble Bee is both and as such rounds out Hive’s range nicely.

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4 K C A M E R A LI S T I N G S

ARRI ALEXA LF

ARRI ALEXA MINI

ARRI ALEXA MINI LF

ARRI ALEXA SXT W

SPECIFICATION SENSOR – FORMAT AND SIZE

Full-frame CMOS, 36.70x25.54mm – 4448x3096, ø 44.71mm

Super35 CMOS, 28.25x18.17mm – 3840x2160, ø 33.59mm

Large format ARRI ALEV III (A2X) CMOS sensor with Bayer pattern colour filter array

Super35 CMOS, 28.25x18.17mm – 3840x2160, ø 33.59mm

FRAME RATES

ARRIRAW: 0.75-150fps ProRes: 0.75-100fps

ARRIRAW: 0.75-30fps, ProRes 0.75-200fps

LF Open Gate ProRes 4.5K: 0.75 – 40 fps; LF Open Gate ARRIRAW 4.5K: 0.75-40fps; LF 16:9 ProRes HD: 0.75-90fps LF 16:9 ProRes 2K: 0.75-90fps

ARRIRAW and ProRes: 0.75-120fps

LENS MOUNT

LPL, PL

LPL, PL, EF, Leitz M, B4 w/Hirose connector

LPL lens mount with LBUS connector PL-to-LPL adapter Leitz M mount (availbale from Leitz)

LPL, PL

RECORDING OPTIONS

4448x3096 ARRIRAW and ProRes 4.5K open gate and 2.39:1, 3840x2160 ARRIRAW and ProRes 16:9

3840x2160 ProRes4K, 3424x2202 ARRIRAW, 2880x2160 ARRIRAW and ProRes,1920x1080 ProRes HD and Anamorphic

MXF/ARRIRAW MXF/Apple ProRes 4444 XQ MXF/Apple ProRes 4444 MXF/Apple ProRes 422 (HQ)

3424x2202 ARRIRAW and ProRes, 3414x2198 ProRes, 2880x2160 ARRIRAW and ProRes, 2560x2146 ProRes and Anamorphic

EXPOSURE LATITUDE

14+ stops from EI 160-3200

14+ stops from EI 160-3200

14+ stops over the entire sensitivity range from EI 160 to EI 3200 as measured with the ARRI Dynamic Range Test Chart (DRTC-1)

14+ stops from EI 160-3200

BLACKMAGIC DESIGN URSA

BLACKMAGIC DESIGN URSA MINI PRO G2

CANON EOS C200

CANON EOS C300 MARK II

SPECIFICATION

78

SENSOR – FORMAT AND SIZE

25.34x14.25mm – 4.6K 22x11.88mm – 4K

Super35 CMOS 25.34x14.25mm, 4608x2592

Super 35mm CMOS, 4096x2160

Super 35mm CMOS, 4096x2160s

FRAME RATES

23.98, 24, 25, 29.97, 30, 50, 59.94 and 60fps supported

Blackmagic Raw 4.6K to 120fps, UHD windowed 150fps, HD windowed 300fps, ProRes 4.6K to 80fps, UHD windowed 120fps, HD windowed 240fp.

4K 24/25/30/50p. HD 120fps

4K 30/29.97/25/24/23.98fp, 2K 60/59.94/50/30/29.97/25/24/ 23.98fps

LENS MOUNT

N/A

EF, PL, B4, F

EF

EF (PL optional upgrade)

RECORDING OPTIONS

CinemaDNG Raw 3:1 – 180MB/s CinemaDNG Raw 4:1 – 135MB/s

4608x2592, 4608x1920 (4.6K 2.40:1), 4096x2304 (4K 16:9), 4096x2160 (4K DCI), 3840x2160 (Ultra HD), 3072x2560 Anamorphic

4096x2160, 3840x2160, 2048x1080, 1920x1080, Cinema Raw Light, XF-AVC, MP4

4096x2160, 3840x2160, 2048x1080, 1920x1080, XF-AVC

EXPOSURE LATITUDE

N/A

15 stops

15 stops

15 stops

D E F I N I T I O N | J U N E 20 1 9

I N A S S O C I AT I O N W I T H

ARRI ALEXA 65

ARRI AMIRA

BLACKMAGIC DESIGN URSA BROADCAST

BLACKMAGIC DESIGN MICRO STUDIO

BLACKMAGIC DESIGN POCKET CINEMA 4K

ARRI A3X CMOS sensor, 54.12x25.58mm, 6560x3100

Super35 CMOS, 28.25x18.17mm – 3840x2160, ø 33.59mm

2/3 inch sensor when using 4K B4 mount 13.056x7.344mm

Single CMOS, 13.056mmx7.344mm

Four Thirds CMOS, 18.96x10mm, 4096x2160

ARRIRAW: 20-60fps

ARRIRAW: 0.75-48fps, ProRes 0.75-200fps

23.98, 24, 25, 29.97, 30, 50, 59.94 and 60 fps. Off-speed frame rates up to 60p

HD 1080p23.98, 24, 25, 29.97, 30, 50, 59.94, 60 Ultra HD 2160p23.98, 24, 25, 29.97, 30

4K 23.98, 24, 25, 29.97, 30, 50, 59.94, 60fps, windowed HD 120fps

XPL

LPL, PL, EF, Leitz M, B4 w/Hirose connector

B4 2/3in

Active MFT

Active MFT

6560x3100, 5120x2880, 4320x3096, 4448x3096 and: 3840x2160 ARRIRAW

3840x2160, 3200x1800, 2048x1152, 1920x1080 ProRes, 2880x1620 ARRIRAW

3840x2160, 1920x1080, CinemaDNG Raw, ProRes 4444, DNxHQ

3840x2160, 1920x1080, 1280x720,

4096x2160, 3840x2160, 1920x1080, 10-bit ProRes 422 and 12-bit Blackmagic Raw

14+ stops from EI 160-3200

14+ stops from EI 160-3200

12+ stops

11 stops

13 stop

CANON EOS C700

JVC GY-HM170/180

CANON EOS C700 FF

JVC GY-HM500/550

JVC GY-HM250E

Super 35mm CMOS, 4622x2496

Full frame CMOS, 38.1mmx20.1mm, 5952x2532

Single 1/2.3in CMOS sensor, 12.4 megapixels

Single 1/2.3in CMOS sensor, 12.4 megapixels

Single 1in 4K CMOS sensor

4K Raw 60/59.94/50/30/29.97/ 25/24/23.98fps, up to 120fps with external recorder, 2K cropped to 240fps

5.9K Raw 60/59.94/50/30/29.97/ 25/24/23.98fps, 2K cropped to 168fps with external recorder,

3840x2160/30p, 120fps HD

3840x2160/30p, 120fps HD

3840x2160/50-60p

EF, (PL and B4 mount adapter options)

Canon EF Mount with Cinema Lock/PL Mount (Cooke/i Technology compatible)

Fixed lens

Fixed lens

Fixed lens

4096x2160, 3840x2160, 2048x1080, 1920x1080, Canon Raw, XF-AVC, ProRes

4096x2160, 3840x2160, 2048x1080, 1920x1080, XF-AVC, ProRes, 5952x3140, 5952x2532, 4096x2160, 3840x2160 2048x1080 Canon Raw to recorder

4:2:2 50Mbps 4K Ultra HD recording HM180 has live streaming and full screen graphic overlay

4:2:2 50Mbps 4K Ultra HD recording live streaming and full screen graphic overlay

4K UHD 50/60p Apple ProRes 422 10-bit

15 stops

15 stops

N/A

N/A

N/A

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