Atomos Ninja Phone & Sun Dragon LED Light Discussed with CEO Jeremy Young

by Jose PradaApril 21^st, 2024

Continuing with our coverage at NAB 2024, we had the chance to visit the Atomos booth and interview former and now-returned CEO Jeremy Young, who told us about their new products like the Ninja Phone and about breaking into the lighting market with the new Sun Dragon strip LED light.

Atomos has been working for over a year on a product that puts the company into the lighting market. The reason behind that decision is to complete an ecosystem where Atomos offers recorders, monitors, etc., but does not have control over the light. Developing their lights will help automate elements when working in the Atomos ecosystem. They also showed us the new Ninja Phone, an interesting device that connects cameras and iPhones. Let’s take a look at them!

Sun Dragon

The Sun Dragon is a waterproof 5-meter flexible LED strip light that can be shaped differently and controlled by Ninja or a DMX system. It features an RGBAW design of 5 different colored diodes –red, green, blue, amber, and white- that can be controlled pixel by pixel, ensuring high color accuracy on the final image. The light offers 2000 lumens over 5 meters, a CRI of 99%, and a TCLI score of 98%, and you can shape the light to have full HDR end-to-end. 

With a weight of 1 kg, the fixture comes in a carrying case that turns into a panel when rolled up into a spiral. The flexible nature of the fixture makes it a versatile light to place anywhere and has better control over the scene’s dynamic range. The Sun Dragon is the first step in a more extensive roadmap where Atomos plans to release more lighting fixtures. 

Ninja Phone

The Ninja Phone (here is our original report) is a module that attaches to the iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max and gives the user a low-latency monitor by connecting a camera via HDMI. The product comes in two parts: a video co-processor and the Atomos iPhone case. The Ninja Phone records in 10-bit ProRes from any HDMI camera, and it can stream via 5G or Wi-Fi 6E to social media platforms. It can dual record in ProRes and H.265 proxies, or 10-bit H.265 only for a quicker workflow. We can control our camera from the phone via a USB-C connector. The downside is that currently, the maximum resolution is 1080p.

Connecting the Ninja Phone to an iPhone 15 Pro or Pro Max gives the user all the features from Apple’s screens (HDR OLED, 1600nit, 2,000,000:1 contrast ratio and 460ppi).

The case is robust, reinforced with silicon on the sides, and features a locking system for the connections. It allows us to add different accessories, which makes it, in Jeremy’s words, “The beginning of an ecosystem”. An ecosystem that, in the future, could grow with the iPad and Android versions (in h265 only, since ProRes is not available on Android smartphones). Also, if the size of future iPhones changes, Atomos plans to release new cases fitting the latest models. 

Price and availability 

Both Atomos products are scheduled to ship in June 2024. The Sun Dragon retails for $999, while the Ninja Phone module costs $399 for the co-processor and $59 for the iPhone case. 

For more information and for pre-order, please visit Atomos’ Sun Dragon and Ninja Phone websites. 

What do you think of these new products by Atomos? Would you be interested in using them? Let us know in the comments below!