toolkit | Kit check
Goddess mode
For our Vista test we used Nisi’s Athena full-frame primes in PL mount, and they prove a particularly good match for Kinefinity’s diminutive newcomer. The Athena range goes from 14mm to 135mm, with 18, 25, 35, 40, 50 and 85mm options filling the gaps. The 25, 35, 40, 50 and 85mm are all T1.9, while the 14mm is T2.4, and the 18mm and 135mm are T2.2. All cover a 46mm imaging circle for a full-frame sensor. We used the 14, 25, 35, 50 and 85mm set, which costs £5519/$5999. Most of the range is consistent physically. The original 14-85mm lenses weigh around 870g/1.9lb apiece and share an 80mm front diameter, while focus and iris gears remain in the same positions. Swap focal lengths on a rig or gimbal and there’s much less rebalancing. Focus rotation is 300° for precise manual pulls. They all have a 77mm front filter thread, and we screwed on a variable ND filter to the 14mm without much vignetting. Optically, the Athenas give a clean, neutral and consistent appearance rather than an exaggerated vintage character. They are very sharp at the centre and have good colour matching, although the wider lenses can become softer towards the edges when used wide open, and the 35mm can show some chromatic aberration. On the Vista, though, the combination makes plenty of sense. The camera’s native PL option means there’s no bulky adapter between body and lens, while the fast apertures, proper geared controls and full-frame coverage make the little Kinefinity feel every inch a genuine cinema camera.
92fps, while the wider 4096x1600 2.4:1 mode goes to 120fps. Go into Micro Four Thirds and Super 16 crops, and speeds eventually reach 200fps. That’s an impressive menu for such a small camera, and the variety of sensor areas is particularly useful when matching different lenses or looking for extra reach. There are also oversampled 4K modes, including full-frame 4K up to 50p, with ProRes 422 HQ at 50p. Recording is practical rather than headline-grabbing. There’s no internal Raw though. Instead, you get 10-bit ProRes 422 HQ, 422 and 422 LT, alongside three flavours of H.265: Max, High and Normal. Some may see the absence of Raw or ProRes 4444 as a limitation. But ProRes 422 HQ is an established production format that’s easy to edit and doesn’t require the storage of Raw. A cinema camera is about considered shooting and, ideally, controlled
lighting to keep the dynamic range within its capability. It’s not meant to be a run-and-gun docu-cam where the extra flexibility of Raw gives an edge in quality and control. KineLog3 is the route to maximum grading flexibility. There’s also a Rec 709 workflow when speed matters more than extensive grading, plus built-in and custom LUT support. You need to up your game from a mirrorless-style machine. Load the LUT from the data file in the camera, understand the audio is stored separately and you’re en route to cinematic nirvana. Hasta la Vista Of course, specifications don’t matter if the images don’t deliver, but the Vista will have you coming back for more. The footage has a pleasingly cinematic quality, with good colour separation and plenty of room to work with KineLog3 files. Skin tones are natural and there’s a richness to the image that immediately distances it from the over-sharpened appearance that can afflict some small hybrid cameras. You can also grade it to your heart’s content. Dynamic range is decent, although highlight handling isn’t in Arri territory. Protecting highlight information can come at the expense of mids and shadows, so careful exposure still matters. That’s hardly a criticism at this price. What matters more is that the Vista produces images that feel like they belong in a much more expensive cinema-camera conversation. The second base ISO of 5120 is another genuinely useful feature, rather than simply a spec-sheet flex. We switched to it as nighttime fell on our shoot in Oxford and it gives the camera considerably more
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November/December 2026
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