Camera
Atomos announces Ninja Phone for connecting camera to iPhone for monitoring and recording
Atomos has announced the Ninja Phone, a monitor and recorder that connects cameras with HDMI out ports to the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max. The unit acts as a ‘co-processor’ to encode a camera’s HDMI signal to 10-bit ProRes or H.265 and send the encoded video to the phone. There is also support for USB-C mic input.
A Ninja Phone iPhone app was also announced to control the unit. Through the app, users can control settings and file transfer between the Ninja Phone and their iPhone. The app will also allow for vertical video capture, live streaming and remote file uploading to cloud services. An encoded ProRes file can also be saved locally to the phone as a .mov file, allowing users to build some redundancy into their workflow by having the source camera and iPhone both save the same file.
There are some limits, however. Source camera output taps out at 1080/60p, meaning you can’t send a 4K signal from a camera to the Ninja Phone.
No plans were shared for bringing the device to Andriod phones or other USB-C iPhones.
Atomos’ announcement today spent considerable time gushing about the iPhone 15 Pro/Max display stats (2,000,000:1 contrast ratio and support for Dolby Vision, HDR10, and HLG). Atomos has said the device leans on Apple’s A17 chip to decode the video feed and display video with no latency, so it’s unclear how dependent the Phone Ninja is on Apple’s tech or if there are technical limits for if/when the Phone Ninja may come to other devices.
The Atomos Ninja Phone is expected to ship in June 2024 at an MSRP of $399. The unit will also require a $59 phone case, which Atomos says is needed to “ensure that the locking cable system can be deployed.”
Now your phone can be a Ninja too!
Melbourne, Australia, April 12, 2024 — Atomos announces Ninja Phone, a whisper quiet, 10-bit video co-processor for smart phones and tablets that lets you record from professional HDMI cameras.
The first release of Ninja Phone, demonstrated at NAB 2024 at the Atomos booth (C4931) is designed for iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max and their amazing OLED display. It’s a powerful combination that uses Atomos’ world-beating knowledge of Apple ProRes encoding and Apple’s cutting-edge silicon and screen technology to create the world’s most beautiful, portable, and connected professional monitor-recorder.
Atomos has a proud history of working closely with all leading Japanese camera manufacturers and as you would expect from an Atomos product, the Ninja Phone lets you connect any professional camera with an HDMI output to Apple’s magnificent OLED screen in HDR.
The Ninja Phone encodes the camera’s HDMI signal to ProRes or H.265, both formats at superb 10-bit quality for perfect HDR. The encoded video is sent via Ninja Phone’s USB-C output to the iPhone 15 Pro or Pro Max’s USB-C port. The iPhone’s super-advanced A17 system-on-a-chip decodes the pristine camera sensor image to display on the high-resolution iPhone screen.
The display is a massive improvement over typical built-in screens that come with most cameras, boasting a 2,000,000:1 contrast ratio and supporting Dolby Vision, HDR10, and HLG. It can display 11 stops of dynamic range with a peak brightness of 1600 nits, perfect for HDR and outdoor viewing.
The Ninja Phone iPhone app, downloadable from the App Store, controls and coordinates the operation of both the Ninja Phone and the iPhone, making them feel like a single, responsive device. For social media creators who need to shoot in 9:16 portrait mode, the Ninja Phone app adjusts to horizontal or vertical video modes. The Ninja Phone app will run on iOS and iPadOS, and will be downloadable at the time of shipping.
The camera’s output appears on the iPhone screen with zero latency thanks to Atomos’ super-efficient ProRes pipeline – encoding on the Ninja Phone and decoding via Apple’s state of the art iPhone.
We’ve added professional video and cinematic smarts to the world’s most advanced phone, says Atomos CEO and Co-Founder Jeromy Young. Ninja Phone is for the thousands of content creators who capture, store, and share video from their iPhone 15 Pro but aspire to work with professional cameras, lenses, and microphones. At the same time, the Ninja Phone is a perfect tool for longer-form professionals who want to adopt a cloud workflow without a complex and expensive technology footprint.
The ProRes-encoded video can be stored on the phone as a .mov file and/or simultaneously transcoded by the iPhone to 10-bit H.265 for workflows like camera to cloud, or live streaming via the iPhone’s built-in 5G and Wi-Fi 6E connectivity.
The Ninja Phone accommodates external iPhone accessories by integrating a separate USB-C hub to allow necessary professional add-ons like wireless USB-C microphones, for perfectly synchronizing video and audio. Third-party accessories are supported via the Ninja Phone with more added over time.
Powered by standard NP series batteries, a battery eliminator, or a USB-C 5V/3A input, the Ninja Phone charges the iPhone while in use with any of these power sources, ensuring long phone operation can match professional shoots.
Atomos has developed a unique and rugged locking ecosystem to maintain a secure grip on connected HDMI and USB-C cables. With Atomos locking cables, it is the most robust capture cable system available today, although it is fully compatible with standard, non-locking cables.
The iPhone 15 Pro’s enhanced connectivity opens a door for Ninja Phone users to make full use of Atomos’ Cloud Services (ACS). These include super-efficient Camera to Cloud workflows, remote live production, and cloud editing. With ACS, content creators can publish video to social media within minutes, and filmmakers can send their footage to their postproduction team via the cloud for the fastest possible production workflow.
I’m so proud that Atomos is once again teaming up with Apple to unlock video creativity through ProRes, and this time it’s on Apple’s most advanced device ever, the iPhone 15 Pro. I’m especially pleased that this product has no fan and is whisper quiet. Atomos has always had an amazing relationship with Japanese camera manufacturers too, and now the Ninja Phone connects these incredible cameras directly to an iPhone’s storage, monitor and its extraordinary wireless and cell networking,” added Young.
Thanks to the iPhone 15 Pro, this is the first time Ninja users will have access to an OLED monitor screen, which, at 446 PPI, is by far the highest resolution, most capable HDR monitor that’s ever been available to them,” added Young. It’s the perfect partner for many of the new, smaller format mirrorless cameras coming out of Japan, for example Fujifilm’s X100 and G series, Canon’s R5 Series, Sony Alpha Series, Nikon Z series cameras and Panasonics GH and S series.
Remarkably, the Ninja Phone weighs in at just 95gms, and a sprightly 335gms when coupled to an iPhone 15 Pro.
The Ninja Phone will cost USD/EUR 399, excluding local sales taxes, and is expected to begin shipping in June 2024. Customers will also need to choose the case for iPhone 15 Pro or iPhone 15 Pro Max, not just to protect the phone in normal use, but to ensure that the locking cable system can be deployed. The cases will be available separately at USD/EUR 59 each, also excluding local sales taxes.
In summary, the Ninja Phone is an essential addition to any filmmaker’s toolkit. It combines road-tested Atomos ProRes expertise with an out-of-this-world screen, proven professional monitoring features, and built-in mobile connectivity for collaborative, remote editing.
Camera
Pentax K-1 and K-1 II firmware updates include astrophotography features (depending on where you live)
Yesterday, Ricoh quietly released firmware 2.50 for its Pentax K-1 and K-1 II DSLRs. However, the features you can expect to gain from this update may depend on your geography.
Ricoh’s English-language firmware pages for the K-1 and K-1 II state that firmware 2.50 delivers “Improved stability for general performance.”
However, astute Pentax users noted that Ricoh’s Japanese-language firmware pages (translation) indicate that the update also includes a limited feature called “Astronomical Photo Assist,” a collection of three new features designed for astrophotography: Star AF, remote control focus fine adjustment, and astronomical image processing.
Star AF is intended to automate focusing on stars when using autofocus lenses. Rather than manually focusing on a bright star and changing your composition, it promises to let you compose your shot and let the camera focus.
Remote control fine adjustment allows users to adjust focus without touching the lens and requires Pentax’s optional O-RC1 remote. Astronomical image processing will enable users to make in-camera adjustments to astrophotography images, including shading correction, fogging correction, background darkness, star brightness, celestial clarity, and fringe correction.
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| Astronomical image processing on the K-1 and K-1 II will enable users to make in-camera adjustments to astrophotography images, including shading correction, fogging correction, background darkness, star brightness, celestial clarity, and fringe correction. |
According to Ricoh, Astronomical Photo Assist is a premium feature that must be purchased and costs ￥11,000 for an activation key (about $70 at current exchange rates).
Although these astrophotography features appear to be Japan-only for now, a Ricoh representative tells us, “Ricoh Imaging Americas confirmed that the premium firmware features for the PENTAX K-1 and PENTAX K-1 Mark II will eventually be available to US customers.”
Firmware update 2.50 for both the K-1 and K-1 II is available for download from Ricoh’s website.
As part of our twenty fifth anniversary, we’re looking back at some of the most significant cameras launched and reviewed during that period. Today’s pick was launched seven years ago today* and yet we’re only quite recently stepping out of its shadow.
The Nikon D850 is likely to be remembered as the high watermark of DSLR technology. We may yet still see impressive developments from Ricoh in the future (we’d love to see a significantly upgraded Pentax K-1 III), but the D850 was perhaps the green flash as the sun set on the DSLR as the dominant technology in the market.
Click here to read our Nikon D850 review
Why do we think it was such a big deal? Because it got just about everything right. Its 45MP sensor brought dual conversion gain to high pixel count sensors, meaning excellent dynamic range at base ISO and lower noise at high ISOs. Its autofocus system was one of the best we’ve ever seen on a DSLR: easy to use and highly dependable, with a good level of coverage. And then there was a body and user interface honed by years of iterative refinement, that made it easy to get the most out of the camera.
None of this is meant as a slight towards the other late-period DSLRs but the likes of Canon’s EOS 5DS and 5DSR didn’t present quite such a complete package of AF tracking, daylight DR and low-light quality as the Nikon did. With its ability to shoot at up to 9fps (if you used the optional battery grip), the D850 started to chip away at the idea that high megapixel cameras were specialized landscape and studio tools that would struggle with movement or less-than-perfect lighting. And that’s without even considering its 4K video capabilities.
In the seven years since the D850 was launched, mirrorless cameras have eclipsed most areas in which DSLRs once held the advantage. For example, the Z8 can shoot faster, autofocus more with more accuracy and precision, across a wider area of the frame and do so while shooting at much faster rates.
But, even though it outshines the D850 in most regards, the Z8 is still based around what we believe is a (significant) evolution of the same sensor, and its reputation still looms large enough for Nikon to explicitly market the Z8 as its “true successor.”
Nikon D850 sample gallery
*Actually seven years ago yesterday: we had to delay this article for a day to focus on the publishing the Z6III studio scene: the latest cameras taking precedence over our anniversary content.
| Photo: Richard Butler |
We’ve just received a production Nikon Z6III and took it into our studio immediately to get a sense for how the sensor really performs.
Dynamic range tests have already been conducted, but these only give a limited insight into the image quality as a whole. As expected, our Exposure Latitude test – which mimics the effect of reducing exposure to capture a bright sunrise or sunset, then making use of the deep shadows – shows a difference if you use the very deepest shadows, just as the numerical DR tests imply.
Likewise, our ISO Invariance test shows there’s more of a benefit to be had from applying more amplification by raising the ISO setting to overcome the read noise, than there was in the Z6 II. This means there’s a bigger improvement when you move up to the higher gain step of the dual conversion gain sensor but, as with the Z6 II, little more to be gained beyond that.
These are pushing at the extreme of the sensor’s performance though. For most everyday photography, you don’t use the deepest shadows of the Raw files, so differences in read noise between sensors don’t play much of a role. In most of the tones of an image, sensor size plays a huge role, along with any (pretty rare) differences in light capturing efficiency.
As expected, the standard exposures look identical to those of the Z6 II. There are similar (or better) levels of detail at low ISO, in both JPEG and Raw. At higher ISO, the Z6III still looks essentially the same as the Z6II. Its fractionally higher level of read noise finally comes back to have an impact at very, very high ISO settings.
Overall, then, there is a read noise price to be paid for the camera’s faster sensor, in a way that slightly blunts the ultimate flexibility of the Raw files at low ISO and that results in fractionally more noise at ultra-high ISOs. But we suspect most people will more than happily pay this small price in return for a big boost in performance.
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