Well, not technically 48 hours, more like four, but it was over two days so… sorta kinda. Anyway, to the meat of why you’re reading this: AJA invited us to meet CION’s creator(s) and get our hands on the camera, which started shipping last December. The first day was at the American Cinematographers Clubhouse in Hollywood, where among drinks and some very well-known cinematographers, AJA president Nick Rashby took the microphone, not to bore us with a “manual style” slideshow presentation, but rather to introduce us to American Cinematographer editor Jon Witmer and product designer Jon Thorn. The two talked about the features and capabilities of CION.
In all honesty, I’ve known the name Jon Thorn for quite some time, but never met him until now. At first glance, he looks like an extra from Dazed and Confused, but when he talks, he’s far from it. Thorn was raised in rural Indiana, and when I say rural, I mean rural – just nothing for endless miles. Like many of the cinematographers we interview, Thorn found an enjoyment with the moving picture at an early age and ended up going to film school, then finding work as an assistant, then going back to film school before landing at AJA, where he and the rest of the product management team designed the CION.
While Thorn was telling us the story of why AJA conjured CION, you could tell how relaxed he was – even in this room of very opinionated, intelligent creatives. That was typical of the vibe from AJA as a whole over the two days. Everyone from the ground up just knew what they were talking about. They created this camera and they wanted to show us. It didn’t feel like the “wacky waving inflatable arm flailing tube man” on Family Guy by any stretch. “CION was something people were asking us to make,” says Thorn. “They wanted a camera with more connectivity options – something that could record to a postproduction-friendly codec… we had such great success with the Ki Pro, that was the back of the camera, so why not make the front of it?” The idea for CION was to build a camera that had a Super 35 mm sensor with the body shape and familiarity of a Super 16 mm.
The CION sensor is a 4K APS-C sized (22.5mm x 11.9mm) CMOS sensor with an electronic GLOBAL shutter with 12 stops of dynamic range. CMOS sensors with global shutters have been around for some time; Sony starting using a global shutter in its PMW-F55 CineAlta 4K camera. So when that was announced, I figured from then on we’d start seeing more cameras going CMOS with global, and CION has. In short, a global shutter captures all of the information from every photosite on a chip at once. A rolling shutter is always active, reading pixels from top to bottom, which can create a jello effect. There’s debate out there that rolling can appear more filmic, but I’ve become more of a fan of global lately simply because of its ability to eliminate some of those undesirables with rolling shutters. Thorn did mention that AJA didn’t build their sensor from the ground up, but elected to find a third-party sensor that suited the personality they wanted in a camera.
CION records 4K (4096×216), UltraHD (3840×2160), 2K (2048×1080), and HD (1920×1080) with a ton of frame rate options – 23.98fps up to 120fps (each format offers different fps). Thorn pointed out that 2K and HD are scaled from the full 4K sensor, which records oversampled images and helps retain lens focal length. The other thing Thorn stressed was in building CION, AJA didn’t want to make anything proprietary. The idea is to allow the user to accessorize CION however he or she wants. Out of the box, the camera doesn’t even come with a viewfinder, which may seem odd for some, but it gives you options from the start. If you want to mount a Zacuto or F&V viewfinder, you can. Or toss out the idea of a viewfinder altogether and mount a monitor – or both, if you want. There are a ton of mounting options on this camera both front and back. The chassis is made from a molded magnesium and with the removable handle mounted, it weighs 7.4lbs – less than a gallon of milk. Or as Thorn puts it, “The camera isn’t soul crushing” – it’s light, and you’re not going to shrink from 6’2″ to 6′ if you have it on your shoulder all day.
CION comes standard with a PL mount, but like we mentioned, AJA want to give users options. You can easily replace the PL with an EF, B4, FD, F-Mount, G-Mount or Arri Bayonet. CION is configured with the majority of its outputs/inputs on the right side of the camera. There’s four main 3G-SDI outputs, two 3G-SDI monitor outputs, one front-mounted BNC, one rear-mounted BNC, two HDMI outputs, and another rear-mounted HDMI. There’s also LANC, two balanced analog XLR inputs, and network capabilities through LAN. For the sound guys out there, AJA has recommended they re-jam timecode every hour to prevent drift.
The native codec on the camera is Apple ProRes to help with easy transfer into postproduction. Depending on the selected format, you can shoot uncompressed or use ProRes 4444, ProRes 422 (HQ) ProRes 422, ProRes 422 (LT), or ProRes (Proxy). I didn’t get to ask Thorn if they plan on offering DNxHD as a codec, but later down the line, it could become an option. If it’s something you’re in dire need of – you could mount a Sound Devices PIX240i or Atomos Shogun as reference. The one area of propriety is that CION records media to an AJA Pak. It’s SSD-based and mounts directly in camera with 512GB or 256GB options. When they used an AJA Pak Dock via Thunderbolt to transfer the files into a non-linear editor (NLE), 1.2GBs took a few seconds.
When Witmer opened the talk up to questions, that’s when things got interesting and we talked about everything from gamma to exposure index (EI). CION can capture images at 4K 12-bit 444 and uses a simplistic menu structure to give an operator quick access to adjust everything from white balance to color temperature and EI. Thorn said the camera’s sweet spot is at EI 250. The gamma options do vary with each EI, but at 250, you can select between Normal, Normal Expanded, Video and Expanded 1 – even the standard REC.709. The image personality captured with CION is to ease the postproduction time. “What you see in camera is pretty close to what you’ll get in post,” says Thorn.
The second day with CION was a hands-on demo day at the Mack Sennett Studios, also in Los Angeles. Rashby and Thorn started off with an overview of the camera in one room before inviting us next door to let us ask, play, and test. The first thing I wanted to do was put the camera on my shoulder. I’ve seen the thing on a tripod since last April, and have only been able to scroll through the menu tree and look at the image. I wanted to pick the damn thing up for once. I’m a slender guy, and thankfully the shoulder harness on the camera is very form fitting. The material is made from a suede similar to what you’d find on a Porta-Brace bag – it’s soft. Operating the CION was comfortable and easy. I liked it a lot actually, and Thorn was right, its ergonomics did have a Super 16 mm feel to it. Attached to this particular CION was a Zeiss CP.2 glass, and there was a nice balance from front to back. Tilting and panning the rig didn’t require any foot adjustment to compensate for weight.
The shooting setup they had was very controlled: two models in chairs, with bookcases and tables for backgrounds and red as the driving color of the scene. It was very well-lit environment, so of course, everything I shot made me feel like a mini-Roger Deakins. But what I liked about CION was the confidence in mobility. It didn’t feel weighted down or clunky. None of the accessories were hitting my head, and when I moved it to and from my shoulder, it didn’t feel like I was holding a bag of sand. It just felt normal.
AJA also had a non-linear editing station setup where you could see how conveniently the ProRes clips were able to import straight from the AJA Pak Dock. They also had footage with the various gamma and white balance selections, so you could see how the image transfers in post. What’s also pretty cool to note is CION has web browser remote control through the LAN port. There’s no proprietary software needed and after setting up an IP address, you can adjust the camera parameters via a laptop. If you have a multicam setup and integrate an Ethernet switch, you can send the settings to all your cameras at once – convenient. There was another table that showcased the variety of third-party products you could use with CION, and there are tons of them. They also had a steadicam operator walking around – basically, all the makings for a demo day.
But no camera is or can be perfect. There are just too many of us with different wants and desires. During the ASC day, Curtis Clark was adamant about AJA submitting their image encoding to the Academy Color Encoding System (ACES) because of his own involvement with the program. Another cinematographer wanted more selectivity adjustments with color temperature. I wanted CION to come with a free set of Cooke S4/i Prime lenses. But the great thing about it all was Thorn was listening, and ingesting the ideas from everyone. Very similar to how the company decided to move forward with CION – to listen to what the people want. So in the future I’m sure we’ll be seeing updates to accommodate more of us.
Below, you can watch several different videos AJA has put out about CION and clips from a film that was shot on CION before it’s December release.
Meet CION
CION’s Look
Rapunzel Jackson Trailer
Rapunzel Jackson Prototype Clips