We took the Pixboom Spark pre-production unit into the wild and then onto the bench: butterflies in India with Gunther Machu, followed by a studio deep-dive to check what this new Super 35 BSI global-shutter camera can really do. Here is what worked already, what still needs polish, and where this could slot into real productions. Let’s dive into our Pixboom Spark review! The Spark is a new high-speed camera from Chinese startup Pixboom. We first met the team at IBC (video interview here) after their preview at Cine Gear, and they loaned us an early beta for a week. Gunther took that unit to Goa to film butterflies and damselflies, then we sat down in the CineD studio for a thorough post-mortem and to review a short cut of his footage. Sensor, frame rates and resolution Spark uses a Super 35, backside-illuminated, global-shutter CMOS with an open-gate resolution of 4608 × 3072. In open gate it tops out around 670 fps. As you reduce the vertical readout while keeping full width, frame rates rise: 2160p is roughly 937 fps, 1080p reaches about 1820 fps, and around 768p clears 2400 fps. The global shutter eliminates rolling-shutter skew and allows unusually clean handheld shots at very high speeds, since motion is slowed so much that minor shakes vanish. Gunther Machu filming butterflies in Goa, India, with a beta version of the Pixboom Spark high-speed camera recently. Image credit: CineD Field test in India: butterflies in slow motion Gunther’s brief was simple,...
Published By: CineD - Today