Today, Sony has presented its new CineCamera VENICE, the first dedicated film camera from Sony to feature a 35mm/full-frame sensor (36 x 24mm), at events around the world (including Pinewood Studios).
With the Alpha 7 series, Sony already has some full-size cameras in its portfolio, but VENICE is playing in a completely different league. ARRI and RED will finally be put to the test again. The basic body price of 37,000 euros is noticeably lower than the top cinema models of the competition.
The 6K sensor is the heart of the camera and is said to have been developed especially for VENICE. It shines not only by a very fast readout against rolling shutter artifacts. Special emphasis should also have been placed on colour rendering (especially for skin tones). The Gamut is supposed to surpass the BT2020 color space and also fully enclose the color space of analog film. With more than 15 f-stops of dynamic range, you play on paper with the most competitors in a league. With an estimated sensor size of approximately 6 µm, this indication of the exposure latitude should be quite realistic.
The 6K fullframe resolution also allows 4K recording in the Super35mm window of the sensor (in many aspects ratio variations). Anamorphic recording formats should also be widely supported. The entire sensor block can be exchanged, including the mounted E-Mount. Sony explicitly offers the possibility to upgrade the sensor without having to invest in a new camera. We have heard this promise from several manufacturers in the past, but have rarely experienced a sensible upgrade option in retrospect. On the E-Mount there is a PL-Mount (probably in the default state of delivery) which can also read PL-Lens metadata (Cooke/i).
In front of the sensor there is an 8-stage ND filter which is realized by two ND filter wheels and enables ND values from 0.3 to 2.4. A more modern and technically elegant liquid crystal ND filter solution like the Sony FS5 doesn&t seem to be appropriate for Sony here - for whatever reason.
Both housing parts have (OLED-) operator displays attached to them, but an additional external monitoring solution must be used for the preview. This can be docked via HDMI or 4K-SDI. Sony, of course, recommends the in-house OLED viewfinder DVF-EL200, which has already been designed with VENICE in mind, but will certainly not be a cheap proposition.
Sony has also made sure that many of the F55&s accessory parts can also be found on the VENICE connector. Among others, the AXS-R7 recorder, AXS-CR1 and AR1 card reader, AXS and SxS memory cards. This also leads us directly to the formats of the recording:
16-bit linear RAW and Sony&s compressed RAW X-OCN dialect can only be recorded with an external AXSM recorder. Internally, there is a recording in XAVC 4K on SxS cards (Class480 and Class300, both 4:2:2 Intraframe 10 Bit). ProRES recording is also possible on SxS, but only in FullHD 4:2:2:2 HQ, i. e. mainly for proxy use. According to Sony, more than 60FPS should not be possible in any format. Not even with a later update.
From February 2018, the VENICE will be delivered at a price of 37,000 euros for the housing. However, for anamorphic recording as well as for recording in 35mm/full format, you also need to buy or rent additional licenses. This will be available on a weekly or monthly basis. If you want to permanently activate the functions, you have to add another 10.000 Euro for Anamorph and FullFrame recording. For this purpose, only the anamorphic functions will be available at startup. FullFrame recording should not be possible until summer 2018.
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