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digital Aaton Minima planned
  • RRRRRRRR

    http://nofilmschool.com/2013/05/aaton-new-owners-documentary-style-digital-camera/

    Aaton almost went bankrupt with manufacturing problems on the Delta sensor stalling delivery but now seem to have new owners.

    Advanced field sound recorder, Cantar X, (seems close to completion) and a digital Aaton Minima (s16?) in the pipelines.

    The digital minima seems to feature an optical viewfinder as well as a mechanical shutter. Personally I think it will be interesting where they will put it in terms of pricing in the current market. I seriously doubt it will be able to compete with bmpcc in terms of pricing; more likely it will be an improvement over the Ikonoskop cameras and hopefully priced competetively. Most likely it will look similar to a-minima.

  • 9 Replies sorted by
  • WalkerWalker

    Author Joe Marine doesn't seem to know much about Aaton:

    I have to imagine that they ...take design cues from their original film camera, the A-Minima

    @RRRR Thanks for the link-but this is one of those instances where we'd do better to look deeper than the website where we first encounter news. Like, at the very least, Cinescopophilia (the Author's source) or Aaton themselves. Hey, why don't we start acting like journalists and email Aaton ourselves? Or (heaven forbid) go knock on their door or phone them up!

    I personally adore the A-Minima 16mm. You can still afford to make a good feature on one using super-16 Kodak Vision III stock.

  • RRRRRRRR

    I heard about the difficulties of Aaton a while back but declined posting about it just because it was too sad. Hence, I´m very happy for any positive developments.

    Using film stock for projects is highly dependant on where you live in terms of what budget you need for it. In my part of the world, it´s a huge detour, so it really requires a "dream project". I really like Aaton as a company and I wish to have the opportunity to shoot on the minima some day; perhaps even more preferably - shoot on Delta.

  • WalkerWalker

  • WalkerWalker

    @RRRR

    Have you managed to find out more about the D-Minima project?

  • RRRRRRRR

    @Walker Not yet, I´ll keep my eyes peeled for it though. I´ve been thinking about getting in touch with Aaton (maybe going to france to be able to try stuff out), but I want to wait a bit and see how things develop.

    Did you shoot the linked vid?

  • WalkerWalker

    Not mine, I'm afraid

  • robmneilsonrobmneilson

    I REALLY hope that happens. I loved the A-Minima, and I won't miss having to load its mags in the digital version.

  • robertGLrobertGL

    I wish they would make digital mags for their XTR/LTRs instead

  • RRRRRRRR

    I e-mailed Aaton and got a reply from JP himself:

    We are now waiting for an administrative decision (due by June 18th), among the possible future owners. In the coming year the new Aaton should be able to introduce the next generation Cantar audio recorder, and the D-Minima, a 'reflex, digital Super16, documentary camera'.

    I also tried to fish for the nature of the problems with the Dalsa sensor (that indeed had been devastating to the company) - to get an idea about the possibilities to solve the issues with the delta in a further mail but did not get a reply on that.

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