5 MINUTES WITH | J I HUA ZHENG
Name: Jihua Zheng Age: 40 Location: Beijing Job title: Chief Executive of Kinefinity Years in the job: Six BIOGRAPHY Background: University degree majoring in electronics and design of integrated circuits. Then I got a Masters degree and spent six years in Integrated Circuit design engineering Previous employment: QHYCCD astral cameras as project leader of the cinema camera team
Kinefinity is prospering and already has its own large format camera in the wings; CEO Jihua Zheng explains WORDS & PICTURES ADAM DUCKWORTH CHINESE CHARACTERS MAKING IT MODULAR
PERSON IN THE KNOW: JIHUA ZHENG
F rom a start-up with zero experience in the cinema camera manufacturing industry, it’s taken just six years for Chinese brand Kinefinity to make an impact. As a young company staffed by the latest breed of tech and marketing-savvy engineers and managers, this go-ahead firm is turning heads with its new range of three modular cameras that shoot in Raw and ProRes. The Terra 4K has a sensor that’s just slightly larger than Micro Four Thirds, the Mavo 6K is a Super35 camera and the forthcoming 6K Mavo LF has a full-frame chip. And all are at prices that are a fraction of their Japanese and American rivals. We caught up with the chief exec Jihua Zheng at Kinefinity’s UK distributors ProAv to learn about the company and his plans for the future.
How did the the whole Kinefinity project start? In about 2009 I had some close friends who are cinematographers
who talked about how much the new digital technology was bringing to filmmaking. Arri had launched the Alexa and the RED had been launched as a digital 4K camera shooting Raw. Then the Canon 5D Mark II came out – it was a very exciting time. The Arri and RED were very expensive, and the 5D Mark II could not provide ProRes or Raw. So there was a big chance for a Chinese company to fill that gap.
What was the progression from that point?
The co-founders of Kinefinity, myself included, were working on astral and industrial cameras for QHYCCD so we had some experience as camera makers. QHYCCD started a cinema camera
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