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If they are planning to sell the camera for $500, with the FPGA/SoC costing about $100 alone, that can't work out.

No, the $100,000 they raised is purely for research and development. Backing the project puts you in line to later buy the AXIOM Beta model at cost, which will be around another couple thousand dollars.

I don't know the people behind this project, but because of my side interest in filmmaking I've been keeping tabs on it. For what it's worth, it's been going on for years, and this is the first time they've asked for money.

Hi,

I'm not on the Apertus team however I've seen many a discussion on the IRC channel and so I can answer that. Yes indeed powered lens mounts are on the list of features. It's just that they expected after the initial release of Axiom Beta, the one which crowdfunding is being collected.

To this I would however like to add that old manual lenses are arguably rather well suited for shooting movies. I think it is an established fact of life that nearly all cinematic production is done with manual focus (google "focus puller", "first assistant camera"). Now the modern electronic lenses even if they have a manual focusing ring are not well suited for the task. The problems are:

1. the connection between the manual focusing ring and the lens part is electronic rather than mechanical - pulling focus is a lot less convenient, there is no mechanical feedback
2. focus control is not always proportionate - with a fully mechanical lens if you rotate forward 1/4 of a turn and then back 1/4 of a turn then you will arrive at the old focusing point; not so with fly-by-wire lenses - the distance your focusing point travels depends on how fast you're rotating the manual focusing ring and returning predictable to an earlier focus setting is not possible; this in particular renders useless "follow focus" devices with hard stops and pencil marks
3. it is often better if the aperture can be set in a step-less fashion

Old manual lenses certainly fix the first two issues, not sure about the last one. So I can conclude that while having a powered mount is very much desirable on Axiom cameras (and so it will come just a bit later) it is also true that the old lenses are in fact more suitable to the task of shooting movies and so the decision to deliver a fully manual Nikon-F mount first is justified

Yes I do have a nice powered lens for GH3. I also have some modern lenses my Nikon. However because of the above limitations I have already decided that should I dare to invest into actually buying an Axiom (presently I'm just a crowdfunding campaign backer) then I'll have to splash out for some old Nikkor-s as well. BTW I've been thinking of buying old glass on occasion anyway. I find it rather charming and the heavy metallic lens barrels inspire confidence in me

The digital camera market for video is very competitive and so there are some great feature-rich cameras available for shooting cinematic video. Most notable is the Blackmagic Design Pocket Cinema (was on sale for $500 recently), the Panasonic GH2 ($400 used), GH3 ($600 used), and GH4 ($1700 new).

Hi Joey, you definitely have a point here. However if I may I would like to point that Axiom cameras are conceived specifically as cinematic e.g. having a feature set particularly geared towards shooting movies and may end less suitable in "run and gun" situations.

Re the cameras you listed, probably each of them is likely to be exceeded in one respect or another by Axiom Beta and Axiom Gamma variants with CMV12000 sensor.

• Firstly all the above nice and very useful cams are FourThirds format e.g. width of their sensor is about half the width of of 35mm film frame used in still photography. This is commonly referred as a "crop factor 2". Particularly GH4 the only 4K camera in the set is a bit smaller still at a crop factor of 2.3
• CMV12000 is of APS-C at 22.8mm x 16.9mm which yields a crop factor of 1.53 - and this is a pretty big. Bigger sensor means that we can achieve a more shallow depth of focus blurring the irrelevant background behind the backs of our actors. This is indeed very useful in motion picture shooting.
• Next the whole philosophy of Axiom is to allow us using RAW footage. The very first release of Beta will have the ability to stream RAW footage at full resolution and 30fps via 2 HDMI connectors. This will necessitate usage of two external video recorders which is not exactly convenient but at least capturing RAW footage is going to be possible. It also goes without saying that one of the first the first things for the development team to look into after the initial release will be an SSD RAID solution attachable to the camera. With this RAID it should be come possible to store RAW footage both more conveniently and at higher frame rates. And again the ability to shoot RAW is of paramount importance when we talking about creating movies.
• Of the cameras you listed only BMPCC (which seems to be selling for GRP 660 currently in the UK) is able to store RAW footage. However BMPCC is only Full HD and not 4K.

You're right however to state that cameras do exist with a comparable feature set: Black Magic Production Cinema Camera, AJA CION, top cameras from Red and Arri. Some of them are priced similarly to future Axiom Cameras some are way above it. I do hope however that the open nature of Axiom the full freedom to hack will unleash creativity in cinematic community and we will end up with a product both more flexible and closer aligned to the needs of movie makers - indie and mainstream alike.

The digital camera market for video is very competitive and so there are some great feature-rich cameras available for shooting cinematic video. Most notable is the Blackmagic Design Pocket Cinema (was on sale for $500 recently), the Panasonic GH2 ($400 used), GH3 ($600 used), and GH4 ($1700 new).

Hi Joey, you definitely have a point here. However if I may I would like to point that Axiom cameras are conceived specifically as cinematic e.g. having a feature set particularly geared towards shooting movies and may end less suitable in "run and gun" situations.

Re the cameras you listed, probably each of them is likely to be exceeded in one respect or another by Axiom Beta and Axiom Gamma variants with CMV12000 sensor.

• Firstly all the above nice and very useful cams are FourThirds format e.g. width of their sensor is about half the width of of 35mm film frame used in still photography. This is commonly referred as a "crop factor 2". Particularly GH4 the only 4K camera in the set is a bit smaller still at a crop factor of 2.3
• CMV12000 is of APS-C at 22.8mm x 16.9mm which yields a crop factor of 1.53 - and this is a pretty big. Bigger sensor means that we can achieve a more shallow depth of focus blurring the irrelevant background behind the backs of our actors. This is indeed very useful in motion picture shooting.
• Next the whole philosophy of Axiom is to allow us using RAW footage. The very first release of Beta will have the ability to stream RAW footage at full resolution and 30fps via 2 HDMI connectors. This will necessitate usage of two external video recorders which is not exactly convenient but at least capturing RAW footage is going to be possible. It also goes without saying that one of the first the first things for the development team to look into after the initial release will be an SSD RAID solution attachable to the camera. With this RAID it should be come possible to store RAW footage both more conveniently and at higher frame rates. And again the ability to shoot RAW is of paramount importance when we talking about creating movies.
• Of the cameras you listed only BMPCC (which seems to be selling for GRP 660 currently in the UK) is able to store RAW footage. However BMPCC is only Full HD and not 4K.

You're right however to state that cameras do exist with a comparable feature set: Black Magic Production Cinema Camera, AJA CION, top cameras from Red and Arri. Some of them are priced similarly to future Axiom Cameras some are way above it. I do hope however that the open nature of Axiom the full freedom to hack will unleash creativity in cinematic community and we will end up with a product both more flexible and closer aligned to the needs of movie makers - indie and mainstream alike.

The digital camera market for video is very competitive and so there are some great feature-rich cameras available for shooting cinematic video. Most notable is the Blackmagic Design Pocket Cinema (was on sale for $500 recently), the Panasonic GH2 ($400 used), GH3 ($600 used), and GH4 ($1700 new).

Hi Joey, you definitely have a point here. However if I may I would like to point that Axiom cameras are conceived specifically as cinematic e.g. having a feature set particularly geared towards shooting movies and may end less suitable in "run and gun" situations.

Re the cameras you listed, probably each of them is likely to be exceeded in one respect or another by Axiom Beta and Axiom Gamma variants with CMV12000 sensor.

• Firstly all the above nice and very useful cams are FourThirds format e.g. width of their sensor is about half the width of of 35mm film frame used in still photography. This is commonly referred as a "crop factor 2". Particularly GH4 the only 4K camera in the set is a bit smaller still at a crop factor of 2.3
• CMV12000 is of APS-C at 22.8mm x 16.9mm which yields a crop factor of 1.53 - and this is a pretty big. Bigger sensor means that we can achieve a more shallow depth of focus blurring the irrelevant background behind the backs of our actors. This is indeed very useful in motion picture shooting.
• Next the whole philosophy of Axiom is to allow us using RAW footage. The very first release of Beta will have the ability to stream RAW footage at full resolution and 30fps via 2 HDMI connectors. This will necessitate usage of two external video recorders which is not exactly convenient but at least capturing RAW footage is going to be possible. It also goes without saying that one of the first the first things for the development team to look into after the initial release will be an SSD RAID solution attachable to the camera. With this RAID it should be come possible to store RAW footage both more conveniently and at higher frame rates. And again the ability to shoot RAW is of paramount importance when we talking about creating movies.
• Of the cameras you listed only BMPCC (which seems to be selling for GRP 660 currently in the UK) is able to store RAW footage. However BMPCC is only Full HD and not 4K.

You're right however to state that cameras do exist with a comparable feature set: Black Magic Production Cinema Camera, AJA CION, top cameras from Red and Arri. Some of them are priced similarly to future Axiom Cameras some are way above it. I do hope however that the open nature of Axiom the full freedom to hack will unleash creativity in cinematic community and we will end up with a product both more flexible and closer aligned to the needs of movie makers - indie and mainstream alike.