The folks at AJA are feeling a little bit of Blackmagic-style with their new product offering, a camera called CION. The CION comes from a hardware company, so with a brand new camera for $8,995, AJA joins a pretty exclusive crowd. The CION looks to be quite a camera all on it's own, shooting directly to Apple's ProRes and can do raw 4K at 120fps. The capabilities are just the beginning since it can shoot at 4K, 3840×2160, 2K and HD with 12-bit 4:4:4 color sampling to boot. Those are some pretty mean numbers to put up and should lead to exceptional image quality.
Though the interface is said to be uncomplicated, you can get really personal with the CION with custom menus via a network cable. Externally, you'll stay close to the camera with the shoulder mount and steel rosettes for alternate mounting options. The CION is a multi-year developed product and should combine very well with many of AJA's hardware, and has cheese plates on top and bottom to help add third party products.
Some specs to know, the CMOS sensor is APS-C size with a global shutter (which should leave no problems associated with a rolling shutter), and can get 12-stops of dynamic range. The CION records to AJA Pak SSDs, transfers via Thunderbolt USB 3.0, and shoots through a PL mount. Among the connections are four 3G-HD-SDI outputs, HDMI, two XLR mic inputs, and a power connector for third party battery plates. Lastly there's an optical low pass filter and IR cut filter to reduce moiré. To get you even more excited, the $9,000 camera is scheduled to come in this summer.
