NAB 2013: Atomos Ninja-2 Price Drop & DSLR Support

HDVideoPro by Clint Milby

After discovering Atomos back in January of 2013 at the San Francisco Supermeet, I was intrigued by the Ninja-2 especially when I realized a pending firmware update for the 5D Mark III would make it compatible with the Ninja-2.

This portable field recorder and touch-screen monitor, records footage at 10-bit 4:2:2 straight from the camera’s sensor. It can record to Apple ProRes or Avid DNxHD editing codecs onto 2.5” computer HDD or SSD drives.

This means good bye to cards forever. Beyond this, it’s full of all the features you would expect from a professional monitor including, peaking, false color and zebra. You can also play back your recording straight out of the Ninja 2 and set in and out points and other meta data as well.

The Ninja-2 features “continuous power”, where recording will continue, unimpeded, when the compact flash card is full. It does so with no signal interruption whatsoever, providing a healthy recording backup.

The Ninja-2 has a compact package, fantastic image quality and recording capabilities. However, as I shoot with the 5D Mark III, it was rather dishearening that this little lifesaver wasn’t compatible as the Mark III does not have a clean signal coming from the HDMI. However, as of April 30, 2013, that barrier is a problem of the past, and now the 5D Mark III is totally compatible with the Ninja-2. read more...