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DCP BlogrollRob Hummel on Dalsa’s Plans
Apr 22, 2008 6:33 PM
Dalsa Evolution
Despite the wide respect for the image clarity made possible by the digital imaging sensor technology created by Dalsa, as most industry watchers know by now, the company has struggled in recent years to launch its Origin 4K camera into the motion-picture business. The essential problem was that the camera itself was considered too big and unwieldy for many practical production requirements, including handheld or Steadicam work, and the systems’ enormous, raw data files caused recording and storage obstacles in designing workflows.
When Hollywood veteran Rob Hummel (formerly running units of companies such as DreamWorks, Sony, Walt Disney Company, Warner Bros., and Technicolor) took over in late 2006 as president of Dalsa Digital Cinema, his major goal was to take the company past those practical obstacles and get Dalsa cameras onto real sets shooting real movies and TV shows. In recent months, that has happened with two interesting cases: the Origin was recently used by cinematographer Kris Krosskove to shoot the LeVar Burton-directed feature film Reach for Me, and an array of eight Origin systems were also used to create a single, enormously high-resolution backplate for a skydiving sequence in the upcoming James Bond feature film Quantum of Solace.
The long-term solution to the limitations of the Origin, however, from Dalsa’s point of view, is the development of its upcoming smaller, lighter camera—the Dalsa Evolution, which has been designed to address many of the issues that have thus far made Dalsa’s imaging technology impractical for so many shooters.
Still, the Origin remains workable for specific applications, and it was feasible on both Reach for Me and for the Quantum of Solace shots because those uses did not require handheld or Steadicam work, while data capture issues were overcome using Codex Digital high-resolution, hard-drive recording systems.
Reach for Me, says Hummel, “was an opportunity for us to learn a lot. Kris Krosskrove really helped us understand what was needed for a next generation camera.”
“There was no need to do Steadicam or handheld work on this film,” Kosskrove says, “so it was a good tool to have on this shoot. We would shoot everything in the RAW format and store that data on Codex drive. We had to be tethered to the drive, which was one of my biggest pet peeves.”
Krosskrove, who used a complete set of the Dalsa-brand prime lenses between the 17mm and the 180mm, says he expects the next generation of Dalsa camera to become more production friendly, which will be a major leap to go with “an imager and lenses [that] are already great.”
Regarding the timeline for Evolution’s release into the marketplace, Hummel freely admits he was overly optimistic at NAB 2007 when he announced a time frame for real production units of that camera to debut. Those dates have come and gone, but Hummel insists that following a complete reorganization of the company in the last year, he feels confident that a few prototypes will be available by May, with beta units to follow in June.
“And by ‘beta,’ we mean ‘not pretty,’ ” he says. “They will be fully functional.” He now promises “full production units by July.”
In any case, Hummel says that attendees of Cinegear in June will be able to see a real, working Evolution unit that is less than half the size of the Origin—23lbs. instead of 34lbs. (sans lens), has a more operator-friendly center of gravity (at the sensor plane), and whose 4K imager will emit significantly less heat—which has been an ongoing issue with all 35mm frame-sized chipsets.
This year, on the heels of the new body, Hummel says Dalsa also plans to unveil a hot-swappable, 4lbs. flash drive that attaches to the camera like a film magazine, and an option to internally downconvert the 4K signal and send it to an HD-SDI output for television productions that deliver in HD but want to take advantage of the Dalsa’s enormous over-sampling capabilities at the photographic stage.
“I still see motion-picture negative as the gold standard,” Hummel says, adding that there will soon be opportunities to see screenings around the country of Reach for Me presented with Sony’s 4K digital projector. “But this camera gives you the look of a good 35mm frame scanned at 4K, and has a remarkably low noise floor. The problem has always been the design of the Origin itself, and now with the Evolution we have addressed those concerns.”
