NAB 2011 – Phantom has an indie product in the cooker

by Sebastian WöberApril 15^th, 2011

By: Sebastian Wöber

We’ve seen companies Megaspeed and Fastec target the indipendent filmmakers market with their new and rental-affordable highspeed cameras. But I got some very interesting hints on future products from renown highspeed camera company Vision Research (Phantom) today.

Vision Research (Phantom) really sets the standards in professional highspeed filmmaking. If you shoot highspeed for a tv commercial or movie you wanna make sure you get a Phantom. They’re very expensive cameras and you can usually only rent a package with a technician (but that depends on your rental house). One of the big advantages of the Megaspeed and Fastec portable highspeed cameras over a phantom is that you don’t necessarily need a technician but can simply take these cameras out on your own.

I met Phiroze Dalal at the Phantom booth today. We talked about highspeed cameras for indie filmmakers (=affordable, non technician) and I kept asking about Phantoms future and the indie market. Phiroze said that they wouldn’t announce their products prior to release. He then checked with another important Vision Research rep and came back to tell me that: “This will be a very exciting year for you, (…) we have something in the cooker”. He didn’t want to say that on camera nor did he give me a timeframe for the “egg”. I said I’d be back at IBC in September, which is another large tradeshow like NAB, and asked if we could expect to see something at this time. They really didn’t want to go into that stuff. He said the next months would be cruical and that he can’t say any more than that, but added that when they see a market (and obviously in hdslr there IS a market now) they wanna be part of it.

Very promising hints, I think we’ll see the highspeed battles evolve in the coming months. If you’re interested in that topic as much as I am you’ll get any new info I have right here at cinema5D. Cheers.

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