Understanding the Phantom Flex 4k - Part 1

Phantom Flex 4k with Canon 400mm F2.8 shooting birds out of my window

Staying in High rise apartments has its advantages. I setup the flex4k and waited ....

Understanding The Basics of Phantom Flex 4k

• The Flex 4k is capable of doing several frame rates, from 10fps to thousands of frames. With the latest firmware update, you can record sound as well when you shoot at 25fps. But this is just scratch sound track for reference only. The Flex4k currently has a maximum internal memory of 128GB. 

• It also has lens mount options for PL, NIKON N CANON, Sorry you can't use Sony lenses, due to the shorter flange depth.

• It is very good for Low light situations, it has one of the cleanest blacks among the high speed cameras in the market.

• Have a look at the video we did for the Starlight Alchemy below.

Here's an example of a lowlight shoot for Starlight Alchemy some time ago. This was shot in natural daylight.

This was shot at 1,000fps in natural light in the evening running into the night. Notice how the image holds in the dark areas. And remember this is compressed image you are seeing here. Even then it still looks decent.

Phantom Flex 4k Base ISO

• The camera has a Base ISO of 250 but we usually set it to 640 to 800, this gives you the cleanest images.

• It has a 12 to 13 stop exposure range so you don’t need to fill in the shadows or overlight it too much.

• Its always been a myth you need a lot of lights for high speed work, its half true. it all depends on your subject matter and what you are trying to achieve. More light isn't a bad thing for high speed work but its a bad thing for some producers pockets:0)

Phantom Flex 4k Recording Format

• The native Phantom recording format is called CINE.

• It can be set to record .Cine format & Prores* (* The camera reverts back to full sensor size, and max recording is limited to 938fps)

• The camera is light, you can use it for hand held, jib and aerial drone shots.

• There isn’t any rendering required. Slowmo play back is straight from camera. 

• You can scrub the clip from 25fps to 250fps or even 1frame per second.

• From Camera RAM, the cine files are stored in the Cinemag. They come in 1tb (Discontinued), 2tb or 8TB versions. They are also hot swappable and expensive$$$$$.

• The 2TB cinemag cost about $18,000 each, hopefully they have dropped their prices now!

• The transfer rate for 1TB Cinemag is approximately 1080MB/s & 2TB cinemag transfer rate is approximately 1350MB/s

• This allows for quick transfer from camera memory to the cinemags. its takes less than 20secs. to save the clip. This important for quick on set turn around.

       

• Unlike the earlier models, the camera doesn’t need to be tethered to a computer to operate the basic features.

• All your important settings like, ISO, shutter angle, Frame rate, White balance, Resolution can be set on the LCD Panel of the camera. It totally Frees the filmmaker to make creative moves.

• If you like to attach an external vidoeo recorders like Odessey you can, through the various 50i 4:2:2 outputs. 

• Like mentioned earlier, you can record sync sound. 

!Protip: But please if your project requires sound for more than 30% please hire a normal camera, it will be more cost effective !!

• The Flex4k covers Super 35mm Lenses, some of the older lenses can cause vignetting, so please check them before using.

• You can use anamorphic lenses as well and there is a internal desqueeze setting on the camera.

• Try to use the fastest lenses possible. The more light you have the faster you can shoot.

Phantom Flex 4k Sensor Size

• Here’s a frame size diagram of the flex 4k n flex 2k.

• Flex 4k has a maximum frame size of 4096x2304

• for flex 2k, the maximum frame size of 2560x1600