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The New York Times Magazine is the first to publish footage shot with the new Phantom Flex. The NYT used the camera to document the world’s top women tennis players in super slow motion for an article called “Women Who Hit Very Hard”. Watch the video here.

A video feature called “The Beauty of the Power Game” accompanies the article and was shot with the Flex – the fastest frame rate, highest quality and most light sensitive high-definition camera on the market. Players like Serena Williams, Kim Clijsters and Jelena Jankovic are shown in their finest form at over 1,000 frames per second. Watch the video here.

“The goal was to balance the grace and femininity of these athletes with their sheer power, and the Flex allowed us to do just that,” said Producer Sandrine Lima of Reel Sessions. “The amazing slow mo ability of the Flex allowed us to accomplish the vision Dewey Nicks [the Director] and the Times had.”

Read more about the New York Times tennis shoot on the NY Times Well blog, and on the SPD blog. A gallery of still images is also available on the NYT website.

Vision Research, the manufacturer of the Flex, will begin shipping cameras to customers next week. The camera has had some key improvements made to its form factor since being introduced at NAB this past April. Above are our first images of the Phantom Flex as it will be released to customers.

The overall length has been shortened, the controls have been moved to the front side of the camera and the weight has been reduced. These improvements, combined with the numerous technical breakthroughs in the Flex’s image-making capabilities, put this Phantom on a new plateau.

When faced with the challenge of creating a compelling video to launch Cadillac’s new luxury coupe, Executive Producer Hal Long knew he needed to have all his bases covered. In order to emphasize the performance and comfort of Cadillac’s CTS-V Coupe, he and DP Mark Raker made use of a wide-range of equipment, all rented from Abel’s LA office.

For some dramatic shots of the car idling on a tarmac then peeling out onto the track, the production shot with the Phantom HD. However, for interior shots, Panasonic’s HPX3700 VariCam was the camera of choice. “While we needed an ultra high-speed camera for exteriors, the VariCam 3700 integrated beautifully into our specialized workflow…shooting with the HPX3700 at full-raster 1920×1080 resolution in AVC-Intra 100, we achieved images that fully convey the passenger luxury inside the car,” explained Long. In addition, the production deployed the HPX170 to get even more detail in smaller interior spaces.

Rounding out their workflow were Panasonic’s HMR10 compact field recorder/player, the HPG20 P2 HD recorder for real-time back-up, and the HCK10 POVCam for use on car-mounts. Says Long of the ultra-compact camera, “Considering its minute size and weight – a little more than ½ a pound – the POVCam is a big performer. We shot in the highest-quality PH mode, using a long lens, and recorded 1080/30p to the HMR10. The car mounts were all about singling out detail, and we got a really nice looking defocused background with the HCK10.”

To watch the full video which premiered at the 2010 Detroit Auto Show, click here.

For their latest commercial, Google turned to the Phantom v640 to prove just how fast their web browser, Google Chrome, runs. Shooting at 2700 fps long-time Abel clients Will Rexer, along with Phantom tech Steve Romano, captured a variety of unique situations, including the firing of a potato gun and lightning striking a toy boat.

Check out the full video here and a great making-of video here.

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A couple of weeks ago, we posted a blog introducing Vision Research’s new camera, Phantom Flex. At NAB this year, our friend James Mathers, President of the Digital Cinema Society – a nonprofit educational cooperative – interviewed Vision Research’s VP of Marketing, Rick Robinson to get an up-close look at Flex, as well as the new Phantom Remote Control Unit. To see more great videos from NAB 2010, please visit the Digital Cinema Society’s official site at www.DigitalCinemaSociety.org

Those of us who have been around awhile are marveling at the rate of development our industry is experiencing at the Digital Cinema level right now. It may be that future bloggers (can we call them “Floggers”?) will look back at this time in the history of Digital Cinema and declare it a unique era of technical fertility and creative vision. Of all the innovation, of all the hype, of all the tipping points, no camera represents this phase of development better than the one announced today by Vision Research – Phantom Flex. Read the press release here.

As its name explicitly states, Phantom Flex is the most flexible digital cinema camera in existence. Its specs read like a comic book super-hero. Its frame rate can capture a speeding bullet, its black balance is more stable than a locomotive, and its resolution is capable of supporting more formats in a single bound than anything that has come before it.

…continue reading Introducing Phantom Flex from Vision Research

Some of the newer Phantom cameras, such as the v640, feature an internal mechanical shutter used to shade the camera’s sensor during a Current Session Reference (CSR). A CSR calibrates all pixels that will be used for a given set of camera parameters and sets them to pure black – an important step in making sure the image is as accurate as possible. With the internal mechanical shutter, a camera operator can do a CSR without manually capping lens.

Recently, Vision Research announced that they are bringing this useful feature to its existing line of V-Series cameras with an External Mechanical Shutter. For use with the v5.2, v7.3, v9.1 and v10, the V-series lens shutter replaces the F-mount on the camera so you can keep using your existing lenses. The shutter is meant to be used in conjunction with the new VRI Signal Breakout Device that provides access to every available signal on the cable. Simply exchange your existing capture cable with the Breakout Signal Device, then connect the shutter control cable to the shutter. Now you can do a CSR in situations when it was previously impossible, such as when the camera is unattended. Vision Research has a nice five-minute video explaining the benefit of this setup on their site.

Find more information on the Vision Research website, and download the complete data sheet here.

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Over the past three years, there have been numerous high profile projects shot with Phantom HD digital high-speed cameras. Hollywood features like Sherlock Holmes and Zombieland, wildlife documentaries from National Geographic and Discovery, sporting events from the NFL, NASCAR and the Olympics, as well as high end commercials for Acura and Xbox 360 – these are just a few examples. But if ever there was an important individual to shoot with the Phantom HD Gold, it would be none other than President Barack Obama

NFL’s Play60 teamed up with President Obama’s United We Serve initiative for this Thanksgiving campaign to encourage physical activity and combat childhood obesity. The President, along with NFL players DeMarcus Ware, Drew Brees and Troy Polamalu, were all stars in this PSA, which was filmed on the lawns of the White House in early November 2009. I served as the Phantom specialist on this project.

…continue reading NFL and Obama Encourage Kids to Play60