VENICE features an all-new Full-Frame sensor with the classic 36 x 24-mm dimensions that have been a staple of photography for over 100 years. Designed exclusively for high-end cinematography, this sensor can capture images up to a maximum resolution of 6048 x 4032.Switchable imager modes mean VENICE can support an unprecedented number of cinematic aspect ratios for complete creative freedom: Full width 36 mm 6KIn full-frame, you can use the full 6048 pixel width of the sensor for 6K imager modes such as 3:2, 2.39:1., 1.85:1, 17:9, and 16.9. Equivalent to 4-perforation motion picture film, these 6K modes allow for extra-shallow depth of field, super-wide shooting, and other creative effects. Super35 anamorphic 4KFor super-wide screen productions, VENICE offers two full-height 2x squeeze anamorphic imager modes that include 6:5 and 4:3 recording modes for 12:5 (known as 2.39:1) and 8:3 (2.66:1) scenes, respectively.Explore how VENICE can meet your production requirements with the firmware and licensing requirements in the aspect ratio chart. VENICE has a base ISO of 500 to provide the optimal dynamic range for typical cinematography applications with on-set lighting. A secondary High Base ISO of 2500 excels in low-light High Dynamic Range capture, with an exposure latitude from 6 stops over to 9 stops under 18% Middle Gray, for a total of 15 stops.
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Hawk Anamorphic Lenses. Vantage Film has developed a revolutionary motion picture film format that gives cinematographers an entirely new look that is definitely anamorphic. These lenses use 33% more sensor/negative when compared to standard spherical lenses while providing desirable anamorphic qualities, such as barrel distortion, flares,. Features Bokeh Style- Lens Distortion- Focal Depth- LUT Film Filters Depth Data Load and edit shots with depth data for a true depth of field.Depth Data will give you the most realistic depth of field using the actual depth information from the scene.Create beautiful photos with Anamorphic.
High Base ISO 2500 is ideal whenever you’re using slow lenses or shooting dimly-lit environments. Combining ISO2500 with VENICE’s internal eight-step Optical ND filter system offers the ability to emulate different ISOs while maintaining maximum latitude of +6 and -9 stops, enabling you to use VENICE as an ISO1250 camera. VENICE has a fully modular design and even the sensor block is interchangeable. So, as sensor technology advances in far future, you have the opportunity to upgrade without investing in a new camera. In order to maintain ergonomic balance for operators, the top handle and viewfinder are easily adjustable. As the height of the camera from the bottom to the optical center of the lens mount is the same as the F55, base plates and other accessories used for the F55 can be used with VENICE. The AXS-R7 recorder can be attached to VENICE with just four screws.
VENICE has a surprisingly compact design, which allows easier shooting in confined spaces or on drones. Control buttons are carefully positioned for intuitive operation and even illuminate for easy use on dark sets. There are control displays on both sides of the camera, with the main display positioned on the camera outside for fast access to settings by the camera assistant while shooting. The camera operator’s OLED mini display allows intuitive control of commonly-accessed features, and on-set monitoring operation benefits from an extra HD output alongside the standard 12G-SDI (capable of 4K content on a single BNC cable).The control interface is an all-new design based on extensive researches with camera operators.
A key benefit of VENICE is simultaneous recording using two recording media. For example, a production could use RAW/X-OCN data recorded by AXS-R7 for online editing and also use XAVC, Apple ProRes or MPEG HD for offline editing without waiting for any file conversion. VENICE can also record XAVC 4K and RAW/X-OCN. simultaneously. Therefore, another option would be to use XAVC 4K for quick turnaround mainstream production while using simultaneous recording RAW/X-OCN as a future-proof archive suitable for the highest quality HDR applications.Even without using AXS-R7, VENICE itself can record XAVC 4K and Apple ProRes 422 Proxy. simultaneously.
VENICE is designed to support both the highest quality imagery and high-speed workflows. RAW SQ:4K 17:9 (4096 x 2160): 23.98p, 24p, 25p, 29.97p, 50p, 59.94p3.8K 16:9 (3840 x 2160): 23.98p, 25p, 29.97p, 50p, 59.94pX-OCN ST/LT:6K 3:2(6048 x 4032).: 23.98p, 24p,6K 2.39:1 (6048 x 2530).: 23.98p, 24p, 25p, 29.97p6K 1.85:1 (6048 x 3270).: 23.98p, 24p, 25p, 29.97p6K 17:9 (6048 x 3190).: 23.98p, 24p, 25p, 29.97p5.7K 16:9 (5672 x 3190).: 23.98p, 25p, 29.97p4K 6:5(4096x3432).:23.98p, 24p, 25p, 29.97p4K 4:3(4096x3024):23.98p, 24p, 25p., 29.97p.4K 17:9 (4096 x 2160): 23.98p, 24p, 25p, 29.97p, 50p, 59.94p3.8K 16:9 (3840 x 2160): 23.98p, 24p, 25p, 29.97p, 50p, 59.94p.
Theanamorphic process came largely as a result of movie theaters’ low box officeturnouts due to the rise and popularity of television. Movie studios needed to givepeople a new reason to go to the theater, so they came up with ways of makingthe movie theater experience bigger, more exciting and more visceral. Earlyversions of surround sound were developed along with immersive ultra highresolutions formats like Cineramawhich captured images using 3 separate film cameras stacked side-by-side-by-sideand then projected using 3 separate film projectors, which naturally gavethe audience 3 times the detail and allowed for larger screens to project onto.The anamorphic process was another format that developed as a way of gettingmore information and less noticeable film grain as well as another new reason forpeople to go to the movie theater. Of all the new formats that were being developedalong with Cinerama and large formatslike 65mm and 70mm, the anamorphic process was one of the most successful. Newlenses for cameras and projectors as well as viewfinders had to be developed,but the same 35mm cameras could be used as well as the same 35mm film stocks toachieve a larger format.
Even today, IMAX cameras are enormous, loud and heavy.Anamorphic shooting was more practical, and the unique lenses that the formatrequired, happened to deliver a look that was unlike anything else that comebefore, and their look is more popular today than ever. As simple as the concept for anamorphic shooting is, it’s also quite genius. In typical film formats like 1.85:1, we view an image within a rectangular frame, which is more or less arbitrary in it’s aspect ratio. There’s no reason why we couldn’t have a frame that was 2:1, 3:1, or even 10:1 except for the fact that it might get distracting to look at. All of these real and theoretical aspect ratios are all taken from a circular projected image that comes out of the back of a lens, which means we are essentially throwing away a lot of excess resolution since we are taking a square image from a circle.
Therefore the wider your aspect ratio, the more information you are throwing away on the top and bottom of your negative. The closer we get to a square image, or a 1:1 aspect ratio, the more information you are keeping and giving to the audience. If you were to squeeze an image horizontally into that circle and then de-squeeze the image in the movie theater, you could take advantage of more of the vertical recording area on your film. Lenses with a 2x squeeze factor which literally squish the image to ½ it’s normal width, take the most advantage of the extra film negative above and below the typical 1.85:1 aspect ratio.
Asthe story goes the oldest use of cylindrical elements in optics were used intank periscopes in order to see a 180-degree field of view. Lenses were eventuallydeveloped for film using similar cylindrical lens elements that squeezed theimage before it hit the film plane. One of the most popular front anamorphiclens designs actually starts with a standard spherical lens. You will oftenhere about vintage anamorphic lenses having a “base lens” or “taking lens.”Cineovision and Todd AO anamorphic lenses were often based on Canon K-35 orZeiss Super Speed primes.
The legendary Panavision C-Series are based on CookeSpeed Panchros as their spherical lenses. In these, the base spherical lens’focus is set to infinity.
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In front of it are the cylindrical “squeezing”elements. Since the base lens is locked at infinity, you then need a newfocusing group, which often is at the very front of the lens. A commonality youwill see is that this design typically limits an anamorphic lens’ ability tofocus much closer than 3’ on most focal lengths. Another group of anamorphiclenses are rear anamorphic lenses. With this design, the spherical lens isessentially unaltered. The only difference is that the cylindrical squeezingelement is placed at the very rear of lens with a simple “rear anamorphicadapter.” The focus system of the original spherical lens remains unchanged, howeverthis design does not produce oval bokeh or the lens flares achievable withfront anamorphic lenses and you lose about 1.5 stops of light. Otherlenses had to be created for film projectors, which also used cylindricalelements of the same squeeze factor, only these lenses are essentially rotated90 degrees so that when the squeezed image on the film passes through theprojector’s lens, the image is de-squeezed and appears normal on the screen.
Notonly that but the nearly square image when de-squeezed ends up with a finalprojected “widescreen” aspect ratio of 2:40:1. A huge benefit is that you areusing optics to project an image that is using so much more of the negative,which results in more detail, finer film grain, more resolution and therefore amore immersive experience for the viewer. The additional resolutionmade a big difference, but in my opinion, even more impressive was the aestheticcreated by using these new anamorphic lenses. Spherical lenses in many waysmimic the way the human eye sees, and therefore when viewing footage shot withspherical lenses, especially modern ones lacking aberrations and distortion,things look more or less like they typically do.
However, anamorphic lenses arewarping reality in a way that is completely different than the way our visionworks. To me this is a big reason why even to the average movie-goer who has noidea what an anamorphic lens is, subconsciously they know what they are seeingis special. Since you are using longerfocal lengths to achieve the same end frame you would normally need a spherical lenstwice as wide to achieve, there is less depth of field and more separationbetween subject and background with anamorphic lenses. The way objects in theframe defocus twice as much on the vertical axis as they do on the horizontalaxis creates this amazing smearing of out-of-focus objects, in a more abstract andpainterly way. It also results in pinpoint light sources having oval bokehinstead of the typical circular shape seen with spherical lenses. Not only do these unique cylindrical lenselements affect the out-of-focus parts of the frame, but they also create extradistortion due to the way the cylinders interact with the spherical elements.And of course, there are the signature flares. Probably no other characteristicis as iconic as the horizontal streaking lens flares caused by traditionalfront-anamorphic lenses.
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Digitalacquisition is now the norm, and for years, all of the high-resolution digitalcameras had 16x9 sensors. Here we are again extracting a rectangle from acircularly projected image and leaving a lot of potential resolution behind inthe process. In the last few years however RED Dragon’s larger than Super 35sensor, countless larger format DSLR sensors, RED’s VV camera, the PanavisionDXL and of course ARRI’s full line of cameras with 4:3 sensors are allwell-suited to take advantage of anamorphic’s taller format. Again, it’s notall about resolution. You can shoot anamorphic on a super 35mm sensor orsmaller and take advantage of the beautiful aesthetic of anamorphic lenses.
However,it’s the cameras with taller image sensors that can fully take advantage of theentire projected image and all its character. Theanamorphic format was developed to enrich the theater experience but it alsoresulted in lenses that created a look that cannot be duplicated by any postprocess.
It’s a look that is more popular than ever. Not necessarily because ofthe gains in resolution, but because it’s an aesthetic that is unique, abstract, beautiful, and because this look is directly connected with some of thegreatest films even made.
Presently, we are seeing the format used more thanever and not just for the films with the biggest budgets but for smallerproductions too. This is an exciting time for filmmaking and a new generationof anamorphic cinematography is on the rise.
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