The Cineflex Aerial Camera System

The Cineflex Aerial Camera System is a dedicated HD Digital Helicopter Mount that features the following:
• 5 Axis - gyro stabilized Platform
• Sony HDC - 1500 Camera
• Fujinon HA42 x 9.7 lens with servo driven 2x extender
• Sony HDW-S280 Recorder.

In my opinion this system is truly an amazing advancement in Helicopter Mount Systems, with the only downfall being the fact that its designed for a specific camera and is not a film system. But at the same time this is one of the main reasons why it works so well.

The lens and camera pickup/chip is housed in the Mount, the recorder is kept inside the cockpit of the helicopter. This results in a much smaller mount with far less wind resistance and less weight which provides some of the steadiest aerial images I have ever seen. Another advantage of having the recording system in the cockpit is that you can reload without having to ever land - providing you are airborne for that long; each HD tape can record about 45min of footage.

So purely from a cost point of view the system makes a lot of sense... (Less flying time due to less reloads, HD instead of Film, and due to a more stable system less takes due to technical problems).

With the added stability comes the added bonus of being able to use really long lenses and really get into the action from a far vantage point and then zoom out to extreme wides. With the help of an experienced pilot truly dynamic shots can be designed with ease.

Besides the obvious gripe that you can't shoot film or the camera of your choice there is one other gripe that I have and that is flare issues. Because the unit is a closed system additional flags etc cannot be added to the lens and if you consider that most aerial work is attempted when the sun is low in the sky and vistas look beautiful this is also camera flare time of the day. In my opinion there is about 100 to 140 degrees of sky that are NG as a shooting direction due to flare and this is something the technicians at Cineflex will need to work on for their next model.

But in all other respects the Cineflex is a great system to work with, its quick, simple, reliable and very stable - if you are shooting for TV there definitely is no better system, but for Feature Film use is may need some improvements or carefully selected lighting conditions.

For more information go to: CINEFLEX LINK (In South Africa)
or: CINEFLEX LINK