Kinefinity has started recently shipping the first orders of their much awaited KineMINI 4K camera, the successor to their KineRAW S35/KineRAW Mini cameras. For those unfamiliar with the cameras from Kinefinity, check our post on the specs of the KineMINI 4K and the 6K KineMAX here.
The KineMINI 4K was also a part of a series of tests, in which the camera was tested against the ARRI Alexa, Red Epic/Dragon, Blackmagic Production Camera, the Canon 5D Mark III and others.
Recently, Kinefinity announced a new colour science, as well as a new proprietary compressed raw recording compression – Kineraw, which uses a 3:1 compression ratio compared to CinemaDNG. Shooters can now fit around 20 minutes of Kineraw compressed raw footage onto a 120GB SSD drive with the new compression.
You can see some ISO tests and grading tests on footage from the KineMINI 4K here. The KineMINI 4K offers flexibility when it comes to offloading and editing footage thanks to their Kinestation transcoding software, which they provide with their cameras.
Here’s a quick tutorial by Rob Bannister on how to transcode the .krw (compressed raw – Kineraw) files from the KineMINI 4K into a more manageable Cineform Raw for editing.
kinetut from Rob Bannister on Vimeo.
KINEMINI 4K Features and Specs:
- Super35 CMOS 4K Sensor
- 12 stops DR in 4K / 13 stops DR in 2K
- OLPF for 4K (Optical Low-Pass filter) to help with aliasing, moire
- 100fps at 1080p/96fps at 2K (requires Hi-Speed option purchase)
- UHD and 4K DCI (3840 x 2160p and 4096 x 2160p at 24/25/30fps)
- Shoots both Compressed CinemaDNG raw or Cineform raw (Cineform raw requires transcoding in post from CinemaDNG via KineStation – provided)
- Lens mount – New locking style – EF mount or Steel KineMount
- Records on 2.5″ SSD x 1
- Adds SDI output x 1, and 2 x HDMI out
- S16mm crop mode
- 800 ISO native
- Sports mode – reduces rolling shutter (2K/1080p only)
- Price around $4,000 to $5,000+ depending on options.
Here’s a quick grade test with some KineMINI 4K footage by Jonathan Nicol from Other Finger Films:
Kinemini 4K Grading Test from Jonathan Nicol on Vimeo.
Here’s Jonathan’s comments from his first few days with the KineMINI 4K:
Here are 4 quick shots I took this morning and graded. These were shot with a Samyang 16mm and a Canon L 24-70 f4
I processed the shots in DaVinci and actually found that processing them using the colour space REC.709 and the Gamma settings of 2.6, which has yielded the closest results to what I’m seeing on the back of the camera.
Still not completely convinced by the KineRAW codec, it’s ok in 4K and 2K, the colour science is still lovely, but everything else, especially the High Speed modes is so full of compression artefacts it’s a nightmare, I had to shoot very soft for the ad.
This was exported from DaVinci as Prores 444, then converted to h.264 in Premiere.
No sharpening was added.
Over here at 4K Shooters we think the Kinefinity cameras have a great potential as professional filmmaking tools as they offer an impressive feature set at an a reasonable and affordable price. Just like with any other camera it has its quirks, and we hope Kinefinity addresses some of the image artefact issues when using High-Speed mode. As more and more footage comes about and new tutorials popup, we’d be sure to share with you all.
What do you think so far of the KineMINI 4K? Would you consider buying or renting one for a project? Have you shot with one? If so, what do you think? We’d love for to share your experience in the comments below.
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