Panavision Millennium DXL

[David Shawl SOC]

I spent some time with the new Panavision Millennium DXL today and it’s very Steadicam friendly!

The camera just drops directly into my top stage with its built-in dovetail. A big surprise was that you could also slide the camera on its dovetail to help center the camera build. When you switch to handheld, you just push the dovetail forward out of the way and add the shoulder cushion. For studio mode, the dovetail slides right into a bridge plate. Switching between modes is ridiculously fast.

The Primo 70 motorized lenses make the build so clean and no chance of slipping gears! There are brushless motors inside these lenses and they can be disabled for manual pulls by hand or if using on another camera that would need external motors. The plan is to have different modules that can be swapped out of the camera for compatibility with various FIZ hand units out there.

The camera is 12 volts and pulls around 60 watts @ 8K 24p. I’m hearing that when using the motorized lenses and other functions the camera may pull as much as 10 amps at times. Though I didn’t have a sled camera power cable yet, I’ve attached the pin outs for those who want to make them. The battery plate on the back had a lovely surprise! It’s mounted to a vertical dovetail, so you can lower or raise the battery height and lock it in place.

The camera body is about 10 pounds. At one point I flew with the Clip on matte box + Body + 70mm-185mm zoom + AB Cine90 Battery and the camera weighed in around 24 pounds. Looking forward to seeing this camera more often in 2017!