I met with Seth Emmons from CW Sonderoptic (Leica’s affiliate company for cinema lenses) about their exciting, new large format Leica Thalia lenses. The Thalia’s are a line of high-end spherical cine primes with extra-large 60mm diameter image circles. This is more than enough to cover ARRI’s ALEXA 65 and virtually any other digital format in use today. This includes RED’s 8K VistaVision, full format stills (36mm x 24mm) and, of course, all 3- and 4-perf Super 35 digital sensors as well.

I spoke with Ryan Schorman from Wooden Camera about some of their new products. First up is Wooden’s Universal Follow Focus, a flexible and modular double-sided studio unit inspired by time-tested designs from OConnor and ARRI.

I’m here with Steven Manios from Cartoni to discuss their product offerings at this years NAB. Following last years release of the Lambda 25, Cartoni has improved on the system by adding a third axis of motion, a roll axis. This allows for a more refined level of control that operators have been begging for.

I met with Alan and Brian of Freefly Systems to discuss their new MoVI Pro as well as other recent product announcements. The new MoVI Pro features a number of improvements over the original MoVI family, including hot swappable batteries and an integrated stand to allow for all day shooting with minimal downtime.

Today I met with Jean-Marc Bouchut to get the rundown on Angenieux’s new offerings showing at NAB 2017. Included is the compact and lightweight Optimo Style 48-130, available this fall, with a 44mm diameter image circle, T3 constant maximum aperture, and 3’1” close focus.

In this video, I speak with newly-minted Panasonic Cinema Product Manager Mitch Gross about upcoming updates to the VariCam LT and other Panasonic products. In June 2017, Panasonic will release a free firmware update for the VariCam LT enabling RAW output of 2K at up to 240 fps.

Today we’re here with Greg Smokler of Teradek to talk about their latest LUT box, the COLR Duo. The Duo is an upgraded version of the previous COLR, now sporting two, independent 3G-SDI outputs each capable of displaying their own 33x33x33 sided cube LUTs.

NAB is almost here and we’re all gearing up to head out to Vegas. To help kick off the show, we have once again gathered Andy, Jeff, and Megan in our Chicago Learning Point to discuss industry trends and what they’re excited about at NAB 2017. Some key themes they touched on include HDR, VR / 360º video, live streaming, large sensor cameras, optics, lighting, and connected devices.

On Saturday, October 8, AbelCine held its first Fall Tech Expo. Taking place in our Chicago location on the Cinespace Studios lot, the expo featured a number of manufacturers displaying new gear for attendees to get their hands on.