REACTION426

At Lemac over the past couple months, I’ve had quite a few phone conversations with Mark, and have been working with his camera crew in-house as they gear up for production for his follow-up film, twenty years later, and this time they’re shooting in stereoscopic 3D on two Silicon Imaging SI-2K cameras, and for tight close-ups, shooting on two Iconix 2K POV cameras.

(for the uninitiated, the “2k” in SI-2K represents 2048x1152 resolution - currently televisions that you can buy in a local electronics store mostly top out at 1920x1080.  The DCI spec, or the resolution most digital cinemas will be projecting initially is 2048x1080 - but they do have a 4k version for the future - 4096x2160 - a resolution the RED One captures without problem)

I personally don’t like the SI-2K...I mean, the SI-2K Mini by itself attached via GigE to a Macbook Pro running XP via Parallels, maybe...but the body they’ve designed for this camera is complete rubbish.  Embedded Windows XP running on some cheap Intel mobo with an HDMI port that maxes out at, like, 640x480 for monitoring???  Bogus in my book.  SiliconDVR (the software interface) leaves too much to be desired.  

However, the head block is pretty small and offers a nice means of 3D rigging (the Iconix is even easier, obviously because of its size).  It also offers an interchangeable optical assembly which supports PL or F- or C-mount lenses.  At this point in time it looks like the Cane Toads guys are thinking of sticking with C-mount (since they can share lenses between the SI and the Iconix), but they have two sets of Zeiss MK2 16mm superspeeds on hold just in case.