Do you remember the brand freefly? Its a brand who make Drones and Gimbals. Out of nowhere they now are making cameras too. They just release their first camera called the WAVE. Its a mirrorless camera formfactor, but with a clear engineer design to it.
This Wave definitely have some very unique features. It got a 4:3 super 35mm sensor with a non active Sony E Mount, do don’t expect any auto focus from this camera. However having an E-mount does make it possible to put a speedbooster on it to get a FF fov from the S35 sensor. And with it native iso at iso250 it would need some boosting.
But You have to see this more as a high frame rate slow motion camera like a Phantom camera, but in a much much smaller package. Doing a full sensor 4k read out it can record up to 300fps and cropping the height of the sensor plus filming in 2K it can expand the frame rate to the fastest of 9259fps at a 16:1 aspect ration. For more FPS and ratios click here.
All this is recorded to an internal SSD of either 1tb or 2tb, it seems to be a build in storage media. Eventhough the FAQ say its can be replaced or upgraded, but you probably need to open up the camera to do so.
The files it records are compressed Bayer RAW with a compression ratio of 5:1 or 6:1. Currently the files cannot be directly used with any NLE editors and require to be converted first with their WaveViewer software to view the Wave files and to grade the footage. After you can export them as Cineform, H2.64 , jpeg or png files.
Battery seems to be also internal and can be used with external power connected to the DC port. It can use voltage from 12 to 26 volts, so you can easily hook this up with a V-mount battery. However running on only the internal battery it can record up to one hour.
The camera itself does not have any screens on it and really require to use an external monitor with its HDMI. Also this camera does not do any audio recordings as its not design to be a cinema camera, but more as a high speed camera or a crash cam with a price tag of 9995usd, making it ofcourse be much more affordable than a Phantom.
What are your thought about this camera? Would you buy it?
For more info check out the Freefly Wave website
