LIVE CAPTURE GE AR .
equipment, consider the company’s FT-One-LS, with separable head and body. It’s another camera requiring a PL mount lens with Super 35 coverage, and shoots up to 500fps in 4K or 1200fps in HD. Both the For-A cameras will transfer their internal recordings, in Raw, to custom flash cartridges, making them plausible for non-broadcast work. Technology, it seems, moves in both directions. These are not examples of gear migrating from single-camera drama to broadcast, although that’s likely to become increasingly common in the field of core camera equipment. As resolution pushes past 4K, it becomes more difficult to make sensors of adequate performance small enough to accommodate B4 lenses. Witness the 8K Sony UHC-8300, a dedicated broadcast design launched at IBC a few years ago, with its 1.25-type sensors. Where we once rigged F65s for 4K broadcast work, perhaps we’ll rig the Venice 2 for 8K. “The fastest base units can follow more or less any sportsperson, with the freestyle option capable of 30mph on electric power”
CAMERA-CARRYING ROBOTS When Motion Impossible began showing the Agito robot dolly system, it was perhaps most often built into a configuration suitable for single-camera dramas. Certainly, though, the potential for the mechanism to do similar work to a Steadicam operator at a sports event was always clear – without all the sweating and gradually slowing down towards the end of the game. The fastest base units can follow more or less any sportsperson at a track or field event, with the freestyle option capable of 30mph speeds under purely electric power. The system has been used on a variety of broadcast sports work, including Major League Soccer in the US. It’s difficult to summarise Agito, as it’s a modular arrangement which can be built up
in a huge variety of ways, including both track or free-wheeling arrangements. It’s often paired with one of Shotover’s gimbals, atop a variety of shock-absorbing platforms, risers or even a small jib. The key ability is the combination of stabilising hardware and off- road suspension system, which is enough to make the dolly usable on quite rough terrain – avoiding the need to lay enough track to cover a football field. If there’s an incumbent in the world of camera-carrying industrial robotics, it’s Mark Roberts Motion Control. The company has been pre-eminent in electromechanical camera systems, almost since its founding in the sixties. It currently offers not only the upscale motion control cranes for which the enterprise is famous, but also
IN FULL SWING The latest innovations can keep pace with even the most elite athletes, and tech like the Polymotion Stage system (below) adds new elements to TV
47. FEBRUARY 2022
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