Phantom Flex User Manual

MANUAL

MANUAL

www.abelcine.com

First Edition: 09.20.10

New York Chicago Los Angeles

Preliminary Edition

Flex Manual

Contents

Contents

1 Introduction to Phantom Flex 1

2 From Muybridge to Phantom 3

3 CameraTheory of Operation 7

4 Camera Set Up + Quick Start 13

5 Power & Connectors 19

6 Optics 21

7 On-Camera Controls 25

8 CineMag 53

9 Phantom Software 61

10 CineStation 81

www.abelcine.com

Writthen and produced by the Technical Dept at AbelCineTech Inc.

Jamie Alac, Mitch Gross, Liz McGill, Jesse Rosen, Moe Shore

With Special Thanks to Rick Robinson of Vision Research

09.23.10

11 Post Flow & File Formats 83

12 Maintenance & Troubleshooting 85

13 FAQ 87

specifications

Up to 2,570 fps at 1920x1080 in Standard mode

•

1000 ISO (measured using ISO 12232 SaT method)

•

HQ Mode provides ultimate in image stability under changing

•

shooting conditions

2 x 4:2:2 HD-SDI video ports, can be configured as dual-link 4:4:4 video

•

2560x1440 scaled to 1920x1080 HD-SDI output

•

Genlock for synchronizing video playback – essential for 3D video

•

workflows

Internal mechanical shutter for hands-free and remote Black Balance

•

Global, electronic shutter to 1µs (shutter angles in HQ mode

•

dependent upon frame rate)

Phantom CineMag compatible, CineMag interface

•

has field-replaceable pin array

12VDC, 1.5A auxiliary power outputs for powering external devices.

•

External trigger signal through dedicated port and aux power connectors

•

Advanced on-camera controls for camera modes, settings, playback,

•

edit & save

12-bit pixel depth

•

SDI Ready frame synchronization to external signal, allows multiple

•

cameras to be synchronized

Phantom Flex Manual

Introduction to

Assistant Side

1

Camera Capabilities

Phantom Flex

The Phantom Flex offers unprecedented flexibility in all areas of high-speed
image capture. The Flex is over two stops more sensitive than previous
generation cameras at 1,000 ISO, making it the most sensitive high-speed
camera in the production market. In terms of resolution, the camera goes
beyond HD to support 4-megapixel imaging (2560x1600). Frame rates are
increased to over 2500fps at 1920x1080 or more than 5,000fps at 1280x720.

Phantom Flex Manual

A new proprietary image enhancement technology results in electronic image
stability unprecedented in digital high-speed cameras: stable blacks, low noise,
higher dynamic range, and repeatable shots over the full range of supported

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1

resolutions,frame rates and temperatures without the need for pre-shot black
references.

From Muybridge

Other New Features

Lens Format

Multiple Workflows

Another significant new feature of the Phantom Flex is automatic scaling
of the video output.The full resolution of the sensor is scaled to standard
HD-SDI output (1920x1080 or 1280x720).This oversampling technique results
in higher quality video.

A Global Shutter, which ensures no artifacts on fast moving objects

•

or strobes/flashes.

An internal capping shutter, which makes for a more convenient

•

black balance procedure.

New connectors, improved buttons and streamlined

•

user interface all make for a friendlier experience.

One way the Flex earns its name is by accommodating various format lenses.
35mm PL lens coverage is standard.The HDx2 optical adapter, available from
Abel Cine Tech allows B4 mount lenses to be used. Super16 optics will
work with (1080p) or without (720p) an adapter. Also available are Panavision,
Nikon F and powered Canon EF mounts.

The Phantom Flex supports multiple workflows: a raw digital workflow, a
video workflow, or combination of both for maximum control and flexibility.

All of these features and more will be covered in the following pages,
but first we take a quick look back at the history of high-speed photography
and the evolution of Phantom camera technology.

2

to Phantom

More than 120 years ago, a galloping horse was the subject of one of the
most well known early applications of high-speed imaging. In the 1870’s
Eadweard Muybridge sought a way to see whether a horse’s hooves were
ever all off the ground at the same moment in time. He used 12 cameras
each triggered by a length of string stretched across the horse’s path.

The Muybridge images clearly captured what hadn’t been possible to see
before. What surprised people around the world was that the feet were
off the ground when under the belly of the horse instead of legs stretched
forward and backward – so traditional in painting. Thus began the era of high
speed photography, with its power to reveal what had never been seen.

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3

Phantom Flex Manual

Fifty years later high-speed photography was used by business and industry
to analyze events too fast to see with the naked eye. Eastman Kodak
developed a high-speed 16mm camera in the early 1930s that ran up to
1,000 frames per second. Some of the industrial uses included “cause of the
breaking of threads when sewing leather goods.” By the 1960’s several
companies were producing high-speed film cameras in 16mm, 35mm
and even 70mm formats, including the predecessor of Vision Research.

Vision Research, the manufacturer of Phantom high speed digital cameras,
was founded in 1950 by a young, idealistic, engineer who quit his job at
Fairchild Camera to form a brand new company named Photographic Analysis
Company. The company’s sales motto was "Research Through Photography".
High speed photography was used as an engineering tool for industrial,
scientific and military applications, and the film cameras were widely
accepted.

In 1992 the company decided to form a separate entity that was to design
and fabricate high-speed electronic imagers that did not rely on photographic
film for imaging.That "spin off" became known as Vision Research® Inc. and
their family of electronic imagers is currently marketed under the "Phantom®"
trade mark.

Digital imagers combined with solid state memory solve many of the
inherent limitations of film when it comes to size, weight, cost and perhaps
most especially the flexibility of triggering the camera before, during or after
an event. Eventually the quality of digital caught up with film and the rest,
as they say, is history.

In 2007, Vision Research named Abel CineTech the exclusive North American
reseller of Phantom products and introduced a high-speed, high quality
camera for cinema and television – the Phantom HD. Since then, Vision
Research and Abel CineTech have established the HD Gold as the standard
for high speed imaging in the motion picture and television industries.
The ability to reveal what had never been seen before could extend beyond
the industrial, scientific and military realm into story telling and human
emotion. The Phantom Flex brings that capability to a new plateau.

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54

Phantom Flex Manual

Camera Theory

Operaotor Side

3

What the Flex Does

in a Nutshell

& Operation

The key to the Flex’s capabilities as a high-speed camera is the ability to move
vast amounts of video information from the camera’s sensor to some form
of storage extremely quickly. The Flex can read over 5 billion pixels (over
6 gigabytes of data) per second. (In comparison, a typical 1080P HD camera
reads only 62 million pixels per second.) At this rate a 1-terabyte hard drive
could be filled in under 3 minutes. There doesn’t yet exist any permanent,
portable storage that can record at these speeds.The one form of storage able
to keep up with this torrent of data is RAM.

When shooting at the highest frame rates, images go straight to RAM.
RAM acts as a circular buffer – new frames push out older frames. This limits
the length of a shot (it can only be as long as what fits in RAM), but allows
great flexibility in capturing fast events.The camera can be left continuously
recording without consuming any permanent storage. At the critical moment
the camera can be triggered before, during or even after, the event, stopping
recording and allowing the shot to be played back or saved to permanent
storage.

The primary factor determining the maximum frame rate of the camera
is memory bandwidth. There is a fixed number of pixels that can be pushed
from the sensor to RAM per second. One way of increasing the maximum
frame rate is to reduce the resolution of the recorded images. The same
number of pixels per second will give more frames of lower resolution.
The Flex can be cropped both horizontally and vertically, either of which
will both increase the maximum frame rate as well as the number of frames
that will fit in memory.

Phantom Flex Manual

One other factor that affects the maximum frame rate is a new camera mode

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76

introduced with the Flex called HQ mode. HQ mode captures some extra
information in between frames, which increase the signal to noise ratio
of the camera as well as eliminates the need for black balancing the camera.
The trade off is that the maximum frame rate and shot length are reduced to
about half of what they would otherwise be.

From the temporary storage of RAM, there are a few paths to permanent
storage.These include HD-SDI out, data out over Ethernet and saving to
a CineMag. The simplest is to record the HD SDI output of the camera with
a tape or data recorder. This results in a deliverable that doesn’t require any
specialized equipment or software to use for editing or color correcting.
The quality of the video image is excellent, especially when shooting using
the full resolution of the sensor, but there are a few downsides to this
workflow. It is necessary to wait for each take to play back before shooting
the next take — this can take several minutes. While the quality is very good,
still better quality and higher resolution can be obtained by converting
Uncompressed RAW images in post, which is also the only way to retain
all of the metadata such as the shooting time, frame rate and shutter info.

Getting the Shot

Of course eventually footage needs to be saved from a CineMag to
permanent storage. Using a CineStation with a 10G Ethernet connection
to a workstation with fast storage, it is possible to download an entire 512GB
CineMag in under an hour. Another alternative is to use the CineMag /
CineStation to output HD SDI to a tape or data recorder.

One of the great challenges of shooting high-speed film was timing.
The camera needed to start and come up to speed before the action
happened, but not so long or else the film would run out. This was tenable
for studio shooting, but made many documentary subjects impossible
to shoot. Imagine trying to predict when lightning is about to strike,
or a whale about to breach!

One of the most liberating aspects of shooting digital high-speed with
a Phantom is the circular buffer. Now the camera can be recording constantly,
waiting for the action — you just need to hit the trigger at the right time.

Phantom Flex Manual

There are a few ways of recording the RAW sensor output with the Flex.
Clips can be downloaded over Ethernet after every shot.This results in high
quality images but is slow. Downloading the entire contents of RAM can take
20 minutes. A faster way to save clips is to trim and save them to a CineMag.

The CineMag is one of the great advantages to shooting with a Phantom
— there is no faster storage device. Clips that would take several minutes
to output over Ethernet or to play out over SDI can be saved to a CineMag
in a few seconds.

Another flexibility that using a CineMag affords is the ability to record directly
to it without the limitations of what fits in RAM. It is possible to record
Uncompressed RAW 1080P footage at 24 fps to a 512GB CineMag
continuously for over two hours, or at 360 fps for more than eight minutes.

What happens when you trigger the camera depends on how the trigger
point is set.You can trigger the end of the shot, in which case the frames
already in memory preceding the trigger will be kept.This is common for
very fast subjects.

You can also move the trigger to an earlier point in the shot.Triggering the
middle of a shot might be useful if you want to preserve the maximum
number of frames both before and after an event.

Moving the trigger to the beginning of a shot might be useful when recording
an event of indeterminate length where it is most important to record the
beginning of the action.

Triggering the camera is a skill, and you should practice to get a feel for how
to best capture different events. Get comfortable with a single trigger point –

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98

don’t think about starting and stopping recording. It is not unusual to leave
the camera recording for a great deal of time – especially in a documentary
situation – before triggering the event.

Household or office fluorescent lights will flicker at the line frequency, but
many fluorescents made for film or video use (such as most Kino-Flo’s) have
high-speed ballasts that allow use for high-speed shooting.

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Phantom Flex Manual

Lighting

For some, usually lower frame-rate shots, it is desirable to record
continuously for a time. With a CineMag this is possible. Direct recording
to a CineMag is the perfect solution for moderate frame-rate shooting
without any extra effort dedicated to trigger points or manually trimming
and saving shots. When recording to a CineMag directly, one starts and
stops the capture similarly to a traditional camera.

Lighting for high-speed cinematography can be a challenge. The two major
issues have been the intensity of light needed and flicker. With the high
sensitivity of the Phantom Flex the light needed is much less of an issue;
but many lighting sources that work perfectly for low frame-rate shooting
will cause flicker problems when used for high-speed work. In fact, you will
find that very many light sources that appear continuous to our eyes actually
flicker at a rate that we (and most cameras) don’t perceive. Any lighting unit
that flickers at the line frequency will generally be acceptable for use when
filmed at double the line frequency (120 or 100 fps, in North America and
Europe respectively.) Above these speeds special care needs to be taken
to avoid flicker

Small tungsten incandescent lights will flicker at double the line frequency
(i.e. at 120Hz in North America and 100Hz in Europe) as the tungsten filament
heats up cools during the different phases of the AC cycle.This affects both
practical lights as well as smaller, professional tungsten fixtures. Due to
their larger filaments, tungsten lamps of 2K watts or higher generally are
acceptable in 60Hz-land, and 5K watts or higher in the 50Hz world. If available,
tungsten lights in the 5K or 10K range are the ‘safest’ illumination for high­speed work. Note that lights with multiple smaller lamps (such as nine-lights)
will generally flicker – what matters is the size of the individual lamps.

HMI’s, even those with electronic ballasts, may flicker. Due to the differences
in individual ballasts and lamps that affect the refresh rate and evenness of
illumination of a fixture, it will generally be necessary to test individual lamps
and ballasts to be sure.

Most un-dimmed LED lights designed for production use will not flick er, but
dimming will usually introduce flicker.

Most DC-powered lights will not flicker. There are several DC-powered xenon
lights manufactured by Luminys that will not flicker.

If you wish to use an unfamiliar light, it is best to test it before committing
to its use.

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Phantom Flex Manual

A

Camera Set Up

4

Phantom Flex Manual

D

B

H

C

F

G

Building the Camera

Connecting a Computer

Monitoring

Viewfinder

A

Mount the viewfinder on the bracket at the front of the camera’s handle.
Connnect the viewfinder cable to the viewfinder socket on the right side
of the camera.

Powering the Camera

B

Connect a 24v power source the either of the inputs on the back of the camera.
There is no power switch the camera will turn on when power is connected.

Powering 12v accessories – Two 12v accessory outputs are provided

C

on the side of the camera. Each provides up to 1.5A (approx 18 watts).

Remote trigger

D

Any closed contact switch can be used as a trigger thru this BNC connector.
Momentary closed contact switch can be used for trigger in loop mode;
a continuous closed contact switch is required for recording in run/stop mode.

To be controlled by a computer, the Phantom Flex needs to be on the same

E

Ethernet network as the computer. All Phantoms are preset with permanent
IP addresses on the same subnet. A computer needs to be on the same
subnet to communicate with the camera.To ensure this, set the computer’s
address to 100.100.100.1 with a subnet mask of 255.255.0.0.

There are 2 HDSDI outputs on the rear of the camera. In 4:2:2 mode, output 1

F

is always a clean feed, with no characters.The characters can be enabled
or disabled on output 2 by enabling the SDI OSD (On Screen Display) in the
PVP software. (See chapter 6). When the camera is set to output 4:4:4,
outputs 1 and 2 become the A and B links of a single dual-link output.

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1312

The viewfinder output provides component video and 12V power to a
viewfinder, but can alternately feed a monitor via a component breakout
cable.The OSD can be enabled with the Analog OSD control in the PVP
software.The viewfinder output and SDI outputs always output the same
video format. This affects the video output only.

Quick Guide to Shooting

This is a brief overview of getting up and running with the camera,
covering the basic operations that need to be performed to get us­able shots. Due to the number of different ways that the camera can
be used, you should read the rest of this manual and practice using

NOTE

the camera before using the Flex in a commercial environment.

14

Phantom Flex Manual

Genlock

Syncing Multiple Cameras

The camera will genlock to an external tri-level sync signal connected to the

G

genlock connector on the rear of the camera. The sync signal must be exactly
the same format as the output video format of the camera.

Two cameras can be synchronized by connecting the F-SYNC signals to each

H

other, and running time code out of one camera to time code in of the other.
In the Phantom software one camera must be set to external sync.
This will ensure that both cameras are capturing images at exactly the same
time and will be recording with identical time code.

Adding the serial number of a camera in the "Master camera serial"
field will ease camera control with the Phantom software by causing
some settings to automatically be transferred from the master cam­era to the slave.

NOTE

To synchronize the triggers of the two cameras, a BNCT-connector can be
used to bridge the trigger inputs of the two cameras to a single external
trigger.

When time-code is being properly fed from one camera to another, there

will be an “S” after the time-code display on the OSD of the slave camera.

On a camera set to external sync, if there is no proper sync signal feeding
the camera, there will be a frozen image output. Proper F-SYNC can be
verified by the presence of a moving image on the video output.

Power Up the Camera

Setting a Video Format

Attaching a CineMag

Choosing HQ or SQ mode

Quick Start

Choosing R/S or Loop mode

Setting the Resolution

The camera will power up as soon as a 24V power source is connected to one
of the 2 power inputs on the back of the camera. The camera should fully
power up in under 30 seconds.

If you don’t see an image on the viewfinder, you probably need to change the
video format. See Phantom Software Chapter.

If you will be recording to a CineMag, mount it now.
For more information on CineMags, see The CineMag Chapter.

For continuous shooting at lower frame rates, you may want to enable HQ
mode to reduce the need for black balance. Press the “Settings” knob on
the operator side of the camera to enter the menu, turn the knob to select
the HQ Mode setting on page 1. Push in the knob to edit the value, twist until
you have selected the value you wish, then push the knob again to lock in
the value.

For recording directly to the CineMag, change the “Capture” setting in
page one of the menu to “R/S”. For the highest possible frame rates, use the
camera’s RAM buffer by changing this setting to “Loop”.

Set your desired resolution by changing the horizontal and vertical values
of the RES setting. If the resolution you choose is higher than the resolution
of the output format, the image will be scaled to fit the video format.
Keep in mind that the lower the resolution selected the higher the achievable
frame-rate.

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15

Triggering / Ending Recording

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Phantom Flex Manual

Recording Parameters

Frame Rate and Shutter

Trigger point

Performing Black Balance

Performing White Balance

Beginning Recording

On page 1 of the camera menu:

Change SPEED and SHUTTER to your desired values.

If in LOOP mode, set the trigger point visually by changing the position of
the “T” on the line of the “TP” setting. Moving the “T” to the right moves
the trigger point closer to the end of the shot.

When all other settings are where you want them, black balance the camera
by either choosing “BLACK REFERENCE” in page 2 of the menu,
or holding the “bref” button of the camera for a few seconds. The internal
capping shutter of the camera will close while the camera performs a black
balance.

Highlight the “AUTO WHITE BAL” setting on page 2 of the menu. Hold in the
Menu button and rotate clockwise until the red box appears in the center
of frame. Keep holding the Menu button & point the red box towards a white
area of the image.

The color of the Phantom logo in the upper left corner of the viewfinder
image indicates the current mode of the camera. If you haven’t recorded
an image since the camera was powered up, the logo will be blue. Press the
Trigger button to begin recording – the logo will turn red, indicating that frames
are being written to RAM (or to the CineMag if the camera is in R/S mode.)

If the logo is green, there is already a clip in RAM. In this case, pressing and
holding the trigger button for a few seconds will erase this clip and begin
recording.

Pressing the trigger button (or an external trigger plugged into the trigger
connector on the rear of the camera) will stop recording. If the trigger position
is at the end of the clip, recording will stop instantly – otherwise recording will
continue until the portion of the clip after the trigger point is completed.

Playing Back a Clip

Trimming and Saving a Clip

to the CineMag

Downloading a Clip

to a Computer

Beginning the Next Clip

Press the “Playback” button to bring up the SELECT page on the on-screen
display. Use the “Menu” knob to pick the clip you want to play – if the camera
is in Loop mode, the clip will be called “RAM 1.” If the camera is in “R/S” mode,
turn the knob to the right to get to the last clip in the CineMag – “MAG n”
where n is the clip number.To begin playing, press the “B-REF” button.
Pressing the B-REF button again will pause playback. Pressing the “TOOLS”
button will cause the clip to play in reverse. Turning the MENU knob will step
through the clip frame-by-frame.

If the camera is in LOOP mode, you can mark an in and out point in the clip,
then save it to the CineMag. Navigate to the frame you wish to mark as the
in point, then press and hold the MENU knob – you will see the word “Edit”
appear on the bottom left corner of the screen. While holding, turn the knob
to the right, until the words “Set In” appear, then release. To mark an out point,
press and turn the “MENU” knob to the right again until the words “Set Out”
appear, then release. Save the clip by pressing and turning the knob to the left
until the “Save” appears, then release. It will take a few seconds to save the
clip to the CineMag. For more information on operating the camera using the
on-board controls, please see On Camera Control Buttons Chapter.

To save a clip from the camera to a hard drive, run the PCC software and
navigate to the “Play” tab. To choose the clip to download, select it from the
“Cine” pull-down menu. A clip in the camera’s RAM will be numbered 1, while
the clips in the CineMag have numbers preceded by the letter ‘F.’ The most
recently recorded clips will be at the end of the list. Save the clip by clicking
the “Save Cine…” button. In the Save dialog box that appears, ensure that
the format “Cine Raw” is selected in the “Save asType” selector. Navigate
to the folder where you wish to save the clip and click the “Save” button.
For more information on operating the camera with PCC, please see Phantom
Software Chapter.

To prepare for recording the next clip, press theTRIGGER button for a few
seconds to return to the live view. Press and hold the TRIGGER button again
to erase the clip in RAM and begin recording the next shot.

Phantom Flex Manual

17

Rear View

Power & Connectors

5

Power In:

Connectors: 2 x Fischer 3-pin Male
Spec: 20-36V DC, 6.2A Max, 5A typical

2 power inputs are provided to enable hot swapping between power
sources

Power Out:

Connectors: 2 x Fischer 4-pin Female
Spec: 12V accessory power, 1.5A Max

Power Draw:

Min: 80W in standby mode with no CineMag
Max: 150W with CineMag, recording at high frame rate
Typical: 110W

Power draw increases with frame rate and while actively recording

Phantom Flex Manual

1918

Phantom Flex Manual

Front

6

A wide choice of lens formats

helps define the Phantom Flex.

Optics

FLEX

35mm PL

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Phantom Flex Manual

35mm PL

The standard 35mm PL mount

can be used full frame at full resolution

(2560x1600) or an extraction

can be taken out of the full frame.

When used at full resolution

the new automatic scaling function

will output 1920x1080P.

Any resolution below 2560x1600

can be extracted including
standard 1920x1080 or 1280x720.
When a 1080P extraction is used,

the equivalent focal length

of the lens will slightly ‘longer’

(see chart on right).

FOCAL LENGTH

equiv AOV (/1.28)

11mm14mm18

39mm50mm65

58mm75mm96

77.5mm100mm129

mm

mm

mm

mm

35mm FULL APERTURE

31.1mm Diameter

FULL FRAME 1.78

2560 X 1440

25.6 X 14.4MM

equiv FL (x1.28)

1920x1080

19.2x10.8mm

22mm Diagonal

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Phantom Flex Manual

2/3” B4

The Abel HDx2 adapter converts

B4 mount lenses to PL mount.

The 11mm diagonal coverage

of the B4 lens is ‘blown up’

by a factor of “x2” to 22mm.

The angle of view is the same as

it would have been if the lens were

placed directly on a 2/3” B4 camera

but the depth of field will be

shallower and closer to a

PL/35mm depth of field.

FLEX

Abel HDx2
Optical Adapter
optimized for
Flex imager
1920x1080

22mm Diameter

Standard 2/3” B4
11mm Diameter

2/3” B4

1920x1080

19.2x10.8mm

22mm Diagonal

Super 16

The Flex can accommodate

Super 16 PL mount lenses.

FLEX

1280x720

12.8x7.2mm

14.7mm Diagonal

Super 16

Super16

14.5mm Diameter

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Phantom Flex Manual