4K televisions are finally becoming mainstream. You can generally find pretty good deals on them if you look hard enough or wait for specific sales to hit. But, 4K has been out for years and is just becoming mainstream. Most phones now can shoot in 4K, cameras are finally catching up and becoming affordable. So we’re good with that, right? No need to go any higher, 4K is already super a high-resolution, right? Wrong. While 4K is very high-resolution (4 times that of 1080p), 8K is what’s next.
There are already a few 8K cameras on the market, none consumer focused, but I’m OK with that. Panavision, a company you might have heard of, recently announced its 8K camera, but what does that mean for consumers who will never purchase (or even use) said camera? Read below to find out.
If you’ve never heard of Panavision, that’s totally understandable. It’s a cinematic camera company that produces extremely high-end cameras to be used on major motion pictures. Recently, movies such as Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Maze Runner: The Death Cure, The Greatest Showman, Pitch Perfect 3, and more were shot on Panavision cameras. These cameras have been used for years and years by movie making professionals, but Panavision has recently had a lot of competition enter the game, forcing the company to step up its offerings.
Currently, RED leads the camera sensors arena. With its Monstro 8K sensor, RED cameras are considered to be among the best available in recent years. Because of this, movies like Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 2, Transformers The Last Knight, The Fate of the Furious, Deadpool, and others have jumped ship from the long-lasting Panavision to REDs latest offerings. Thankfully, these two movie-producing forces decided to join together and come up with something amazing.
Enter the Panavision Millennium DXL2. That’s a mouthful of a name, but it’s a monster of a camera. Sporting REDs Monstro 8K sensor, this new camera from Panavision is a game changer. Panavision took more than just REDs sensor out of its playbook, though. The DXL2 is very modular and can easily be shifted from a shoulder rig to a mounted camera with little effort.
You might have gotten this far and are wondering, “What does all of this mean for me?” Well, here’s how it breaks down. 8K is fantastic, amazing, and beautiful, and we can’t even view it yet. Most of the movies you’ll watch are rendered out at 1080p or 4K UHD, even when they are shot in 8K. Personally, I shoot my videos in 4K and render out at 1080p. There’s a lot of science behind this, but the easy explanation is when you squish approximately 8,000 pixels into around 4,000 pixels, the image becomes MUCH sharper.
Using the RED Monstro 8K sensor, the Panavision DXL2 is a fantastic low-light camera, shoots RAW 8K, and really captures the emotion of a scene without sacrificing much. This partnership could really change the game when it comes to movie production. You will likely never use a Panavision DXL2, or even see one in real life, but thanks to its technology, movies will become sharper, crisper, and more lifelike with every passing second.
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I’m super excited for this camera, even though I’ll likely never get one to use. Panavision doesn’t even sell its cameras, instead, it rents them. Generally, we’re expecting around $750-$1,000 per day in order to rent the body of the DXL2, and that is without lenses and accessories. But, with that, movie studios will be able to produce more lifelike films for years to come. Next stop, 16K?
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