PTZ s GEAR.
of design choices – an engineering compromise that pushes specific aspects of performance to the margins, with certain caveats. Advances in sensor technology have brought more performance into what we might call the moderate, widely applicable parts of the market, and technologies built for general use – like NDI – have made that performance available to ever more people.
AW-UE150 has a 20:1 zoom. Sony’s FE 24-105mm is a 4:1 zoom lens that sells for about £1000; it won’t go nearly as far as the lens on the Panasonic. There are more capable full-frame zooms, though the FR7 could theoretically accommodate more or less anything given its extremely shallow E-mount. Some fairly strict weight limits apply for the pan-and-tilt mechanism – and, of course, that high-performance autofocus relies on compatible, servo-actuated lenses. So, the famous FR7 is not so much a new high-end, as a new set
sheer prettiness of the FR7’s pictures, in the context of other, more modestly specified PTZs. Such a big piece of silicon drinks deeply from incoming photons and crafts them into a result that has been compared to the best system cameras. Experienced hands will watch all of this enthusiasm with a raised eyebrow and the expectation of a caveat. Of course, nothing comes for free. The issue isn’t financial; the FR7 is fairly affordable, not even £10,000. What that big chip costs us is optical convenience. The Panasonic
NEW KID ON THE BLOCK Sony’s ILME- FR7 offers 15+ stops of dynamic range and 4K high-frame-rate 120fps
Contacts BIRDDOG birddog.tv
CANON canon.co.uk
DATAVIDEO datavideo.com
MARSHALL marshall-usa.com
PANASONIC panasonic.com/uk
SONY sony.co.uk
53. NOVEMBER 2022
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