Camera Ad. Aces.
Sebrina Lobianco
On a typical production there might be half a dozen different digital cameras as well as a film camera in use, all recording to different devices and media using different data formats. During post-production, especially on major motion pictures, multiple facilities may be engaged for editing, visual effects, mastering and other work. Digital image files arrive at these facilities in any of a dozen (or more!) formats and color encoding schemes, often without essential metadata. At the end of the process, studio deliverables could range from large-screen film prints to mobile device encodings.
ACES 1.2 solves numerous integration challenges by enabling consistent, high-quality color management from production to distribution. It provides digital image encoding and other specifications that preserve the latitude and color range of the original imagery, allowing the highest-quality images possible from the cameras and processes used. Equally important, ACES 1.2 establishes a common standard so deliverables can be efficiently and predictably created and preserved. ACES 1.2 enables filmmakers to manage the look of a production today and into the future.
The ace L has the same firmware features as the ace U, but is additionally equipped with higher resolution 9 and 12 MP Sony Pregius CMOS sensors with optical formats above 1" for brilliant image quality. In order to integrate these larger sensors, the camera body is slightly larger than the other ace models at 40 mm x 30 mm.
Then discover our ace 2 camera series! Choose between the ace 2 R Basic models for standard vision requirements or the ace 2 R Pro models with unique features such as Compression Beyond, Pixel Beyond, and PGI for maximum performance. If you want to make the invisible visible, then rely on the visSWIR cameras of the ace 2 X family.
In the fall of 2015, Pitkin County Open Space and Trails partnered with Aspen Center for Environmental Studies, the Pitkin County Healthy Rivers and Streams Board, Pitkin County Information Technology and Holy Cross Energy to install a wildlife camera on a pole adjacent to the active Osprey nest. The camera streams live footage each spring and summer, capturing the real-time activities of the returning pair of nesting Ospreys.
How far theses cameras are going is actually insane! Who would have thought 5 years ago we would have phones having external recording capabilities, log profile & industry color space all in a portable light weight mobile device.
The integration of disparate imaging sources (various digital cameras, scanned film, and VFX) into a final digital master which does not limit color bit-depth and color fidelity, as well as dynamic range, has been an almost insurmountable challenge.
ACES image interchange support includes unambiguous transforms between linear and log encoding that enable the introduction of scene (i.e., input) referred color management independent of any prior dependence on rendering to any output device referred color space/gamut and dynamic range. This enables color grading to be rendered within ACES wide gamut color space and then gamut-mapped and dynamic range-mapped to any number of display device specific color spaces.
In digital video, the source material is prepared for a specific display device, thereby limiting the ability to remaster the material in the future for new display devices. The archiving of such inherently compromised material is akin to only archiving the print from a film-based production. RAW digital camera files represent a higher level of fidelity, but as they are only a single element of the final movie, they do not have all the necessary components to serve as the digital equivalent of the cut negative in the archive.
Decades of innovation in digital workflows had led to innumerable cameras, codecs, displays, hardware and software. But with very little standardization. This rapid technological advancement brought tremendous benefits to the industry. But the Academy realized the lack of commonality might result in the irreparable loss of thousands of digital films.
While it is true that many software developers have built color management systems from the ground up for their own applications, and camera manufacturers pride themselves on the color science baked into their hardware, none of these solutions can close the compatibility gap that AMPAS predicts. These proprietary solutions have no hope of ever becoming adopted by everyone industry-wide.
One of the most important things to understand about ACES is that its processing pipeline utilizes capture-referred data. In other words, the color science (and sometimes secret sauce) that each camera system uses and bakes into the signal.
The final step in the ACES processing pipeline is the ODT. This takes the high dynamic range data from the RRT and transforms it for different devices and color spaces. Like P3 or Rec 709, 2020, etc. Like IDTs and RRTs, ODTs are written with CTL.
While researching this camera I found this video of someone disassembling one. I was surprised by how much was really inside. I used to just take the batteries and throw them away when I worked in a developing lab.
An ACES Input Transform (or Input Device Transform [IDT]) processes original camera data in the form of non-color-rendered RGB image values from a captured scene lit by an assumed illumination source (the scene adopted white) and converts them to ACES RGB relative exposure values in a scene linear color space.
Installing a heat sink is only necessary if your application causes the camera to exceed its maximum operating temperature specified in the "Environmental Requirements" section of your camera model topic. It is suitable for all ace 2 camera models.
For more information about your camera, installation, and providing heat dissipation, read the topic about your Basler ace 2 camera model as well as the hardware installation topic for GigE cameras or USB 3.0 cameras and the Providing Heat Dissipation topic.
In simple terms, Display Referred means the images being manipulated are immediately transformed into the colour space of the display being used to perform the image manipulations - Rec709, for example - which means restricting the image colour and dynamic range available during the creative manipulation process. This is how colour grading workflows have been performed for years, with the colourist grading the images to look correct on their calibrated display, so forcing the images into the display's colour space, regardless of the colour space of the capturing camera's image output.
Digital Cinematography cameras took this to the next stage, and output an image that was not processed into a given colour space, but output in a format designed to deliver the maximum capture range of the camera - colour and dynamic range. This Capture Referred, or Camera Referred image could be processed into Display Referred by the application of a simple 3D LUT, often provided by the camera manufacturer, or simply graded by a colourist while reviewing the image on a calibrated display, so again forcing the image into a Display Referred space.
Scene Referred simply means the image data is maintained in a format that as closely as possible represents the original scene, without effective restriction on colour or dynamic range. This is not necessarily the same as the raw image data as exported from the camera (after any necessary debayering, etc), but attempts to 'correct' the image to better match the scene the camera was originally pointing at, which may include white point correction, gamut correction, etc. These processes are often referred to as 'Scene Reconstruction' processes.
The process used to get images into Scene Referred space is to effectively undo the Capture Referred, or Camera Referred image, and reverse engineer it back into Scene Referred space. The theory being any camera pointed at the same scene would generate the same image in Scene Referred space, within the limitations of the capturing camera's imaging capabilities.
It is important to realise that we have been working with High Dynamic Range (HDR) and Wide Gamut (or even Ultra Wide Gamut - UWG) images for a long time, as most Digital Cinematography cameras capture this way, as did Film Negative before it
If using multiple cameras, the Viewing LUT can be a defined working colour space, such as P3 Log, with the same output display colour space. In this way, any grading work will map the input images into the LUT's input colour space.
Obviously, if IDT's exist for the cameras used, they can simply be added to the workflow, but without any additional ACES CTLs, making the Grading Space ACES, but without the use of any other ACES components - such as the RRT/ODT, as the Viewing LUT replaces their use.
The above alternative workflows maintain the image in either the camera Log space, or a defined wide gamut/high dynamic range space, such as the camera's native colour space, or a defined colour space such as P3 Log, as defined by the input of the Viewing LUT. The output of the Viewing LUT just matches the workspace to the display's colour space, be that Rec709 or P3, etc.
Silverstack XT comes with an ACES pipeline for recorded footage of digital film cameras. It allows playback and QC of camera clips in the software as well as on HD-SDI, and offers features for exchanging color information with other ACES compatible products.
Discover how DIT Francesco Sauta experienced the influence of ACES on his handling of on-set color and the challenges of combining different camera types to create a young, at times "improvised" and yet professional look.
The Ace Pro's image sensor is the same size as DJI's Osmo Action 4 camera and larger than GoPro's Hero 12 Black, which is a 1/1.9-inch image sensor. In general, a larger sensor is one way to get better image quality. Although the DJI Action 4 has the same size sensor, its video resolution tops out at 4K, and the Hero 12 Black stops at 5.3K, while the Ace Pro goes up to 8K (7,680x3,272 pixels) at 24 frames per second. But, like the Insta360's other cameras, the Ace Pro's extreme resolution is used for much more than just straight video capture.
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