Z CAM E2 | USER REVI EW
SPECI F I CAT IONS SENSOR: 4/3” WDR CMOS SENSOR – 17.3X13MM VIDEO: 4096X2160 @ 59.94 /50/29.97/25/24/23.98 FPS FRAME RATES: 120 FPS FOR 4096X2160, 120 FPS FOR 3840X2160, 240 FPS FOR 1920X1080. MAX BIT RATE: 230MBPS FOR 4096X2160/230 MBPS FOR 3840X2160/230 MBPS STORAGE: CFAST 2.0 MOUNT: MICRO FOUR THIRDS I/O: HDMI 2.0/USB 3.0 TYPE C /10-PIN LEMO PORT/DB-9 CONNECTOR, SUPPORTS RS-232/LANC COLOUR BIT DEPTH: 10 BIT (H.265)/8 BIT (H.264) WEIGHT: 757g (WITHOUT LENS)
“IT’S AN INTERESTING LITTLE CAMERA AND THE FACT THAT IT CAN RECORD 4K AT 120FPS IS AMAZING, AND AT 10 BIT AS WELL”
like the battery voltage, how much is left on the memory cards... in fact do anything, just as if I’m standing next to the camera. They could be driving at 150mph and I could still be able to tweak or change any settings I need to. “So you then could extend that network to three cars and have all six camera set-ups on a screen in front of you. You can then change any camera in any presenter’s car at any time.” The fact that Z Cam is using all professional media in the camera is also a bonus for Jon. “The read speeds on these cards are massive
shelf Ethernet hub, you can do all that through their software from anywhere as long as you have an Ethernet link. “For me it means that I can write software to send it commands via Ethernet. For example I could change the white-balance, shutter speed or activate start and stop recording. Even seeing what is remaining on the media – you can do all that quite easily remotely. There’s also an RS232 serial data comms on it and it’s got LANC as well. They’ve literally put everything they can think of on the camera. “It’s kind of ideal and what
ordered six of them, Z Cam was really helpful in fulfilling our order.” As he has previously with cameras like the Panasonic GH5s, Jon fed back some ideas that Z Cam might want to incorporate into future updates. “It’s an interesting little camera and the fact that it can record 4K at 120fps is amazing at the price, and at 10 bit as well. I think as a result of being a small camera company, it has the freedom of allowing others to build their own interfaces into the products – the protocols are all open source and anyone has access to them through their website. Getting that information out of bigger and more established companies means going through a lot of hoops and signing plenty of NDAs. I/OS “The camera has a lot of inputs and outputs; it’s got the Wi-Fi which is quite common on cameras now but I wouldn’t use it because of its unreliability. But it has Ethernet which allows you full remote control and even monitoring of the image. You could get six cameras and plug them all in to an off-the-
BELOW Because Z Cam is a small company, all its protocols are open source and can be accessed through the website.
and are also the same cards that are used on the main
I want out of a camera. I’m hoping to use it for in-car shoots; so where you might have three cameras, one for piece to camera, one over the shoulder and one POV. You can have them all rigged in to the vehicle and all going back to a controller brain and then from the tracking vehicle if I need to I can interrogate the cameras remotely. You can find out what they’re doing, what their status is,
cameras,” he says. FORM FACTOR
The E2 is about the size of half a Canon 5D camera and sits nicely in the palm of your hand. “It’s smaller than a Panasonic GH5 but deeper. On the body there are a few threaded mounts but you don’t want to use those on a camera like that because it will get
JANUARY 20 1 9 | DEF I N I T ION 53
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