Notes on the Ikonoskop dll
The long awaited, and often accused of vaporware, digital cinema camera has finally made and appearance. The Ikonoskop DLL camera is a bit of a departure from the current status quo of camera design. This little light and streamlined beast shoots RAW 1080p in full glorious DNG raw straight to solid state memory. That’s right…. full uncompressed raw image stills at 24 frames per second.
Of course to deal with this monstrous amount of data they have created their own solid state memory cartridges. Which upon speaking with them at NAB will run in the same realm as the panasonic p2 cards.
First let’s talk about what I love about the camera:
- I love the form factor with it being light, comfortable to hold, and just a very natural fit from eyepiece to lending.
- I like that it comes with a fast prime and the lensing doesn’t coddle you.
- It has a dip flip switch at the top that flicks left and right. Flick one way and you get a great exposure meter, flip the other way and you get 1 to 1 pixel zoom for focus.
- Long reported battery life. - small but doesn’t feel like a toy
Worries: (This is an alpha model so could change)
- Viewfinder resolution and look leaves a lot to be desired.
- Cabling is done via breakout
- What on earth will we do with so much data for narrative and doc work. Post convert to some JPG2000 codec? One light it then to prorez? It could inundate us in no time at all.
- It is based on the 400 speed Kodak sensor. Are they a year or two late on this? All the new cinema cameras are 800 standard and we’ll quickly all be expected to deliver footage shot on faster chip. I’m sorry you only get an 800 joker… we can’t afford the 4k HMI rental.
If this camera had been out 6 months ago it would be sitting in my bag right now. However, with a late summer / fall release in the works it is going to have a tough time at it’s 7000-10000 USD price range.