By site editor Dan Chung:
Jihua from Kinefinity was kind enough to drop by yesterday and update me about the latest on the KineRAW camera development. For those who haven’t been following this camera there are previous Dslrnewsshooter reports here, here and here.
As of today the KineRAW S35 camera will be available to pre-order from Kinefinity for a price of 39,800 Chinese Yuan (approx. $6300 US). For that you will get just get a body with no frills and HDMI only output. Importantly this means no lens mount, SDI output or wi-fi control – these are additional costs. You can also order one of three kits – each with a different spec. These add in a Movcam baseplate, SSDs, hard case and other accessories.
Pre-orders are expected to be fulfilled within 45 days. The initial 20 pre-orders are being given extended warranties and some extra accessories to tempt early adopters.
The SDI option will cost an additional amount (Jihua mentioned around the $400 US mark) and is designed purely for monitoring, not recording. It outputs at 1080/50 or 60P in 3G SDI format or 720P in HDSDI. Strangely this is not what the camera sensor samples or records, it is purely for monitoring. Of course you can use HDMI for monitoring and some users may be happy with just that.
The camera itself has not changed much since I last saw it a month ago. The prototypes now have shiny new etched logo and functioning SDI outputs. New enhancements are mainly under the hood and the most important is the addition of new gamma curves and the development of matching LUTs for both the camera and grading software.
I was also shown the latest prototype lens mounts for Canon EF and Nikon lenses. I was told these will be around the $200 US mark but do not have any electronic connections and are purely mechanical. They appear much sturdier than previous prototypes I had seen. The Nikon mount is not suitable for G lenses without an aperture ring as there is no control mechanism. Canon users will have to use either older adapted lenses with aperture rings (Leica, Contax etc.) or plump for new EOS mounted Cine lenses like those from Canon and Zeiss. Users of electronic EOS lenses or the Zeiss ZE range are out of luck for now. A PL mount is also available.
I asked Jihua again about worldwide dealers and he had no new information. It appears that right now if you order the only warranty provided will be a return to base (in China). Hopefully that will change but there are no promises at this point.
Watch the Kinefinity website for all the updated info (offline at time of writing but should be up soon). If you are in China this week the KineRAW S35 will be on show on the Kinefinity and Movcam booths at the BIRTV show in Beijing from today. Dslrnewsshooter will be at the show to report.
