Spheron launches world's first professional HDR video camera

Revolutionary new camera is capable of capturing HDR files on set at 30 frames per second, in full HD resolution

HDRI pioneer SpheronVR has launched the world‘s first professional camera capable of recording live footage as a series of HDR files.

One of the few truly innovative products on show at Siggraph 2009, the SpheroCam HDRV is capable of outputting footage as a series of EXR files, capturing a range of 20 f-stops.

The files can be captured at 30 frames per second, at full 1,920×1,080 HD resolution.

The camera is capable of recording five hours of continuous footage, amounting to a massive 24 Terabytes of data. The data is stored in a dedicated unit attached to the camera.

SpheronVR has already sold the first model to the UK‘s University of Warwick, where it will be used in reserach on HDR compression algorithms. No commercial pricing for the system has been announced.

Being able to capture a continuous series of HDR files on set rather than a single reference image should open up completely new possibilities for VFX work.

It will be interesting to see which of SpheronVR‘s customers, which include leading UK studios The Mill and Glassworks, makes use of the new system first.