The idea came from a simple place: camera operators at festivals and shows, dealing with inclement weather, had to continue to wipe down the front lens element on their camera setups.
Enter the Prodigy from Bright Tangerine, which uses a torrential thrust of air, continuously blown across a glass element in front of the lens via a very powerful blower, at 300 miles per hour, keeping the image clean, crisp, and clear.
The blower itself incorporates a 1µ air filter (apparently the same filter that's used in some jet fighter engines) to ensure that no dust, dirt, or other miscellaneous particles find their way across the front element. That's good, because if that were to happen, I would imagine that there would be some serious scratching and maybe even some breakage (think about a tiny little piece of rock skidding across the front element of your favorite lens at 300 mph. Suddenly a jet-fighter spec air filter makes a great deal of sense).
Could there be some "blowback" from such a powerful blower?
Such as getting other parts of any given camera setup wet or otherwise compromised by weather or debris? Bright Tangerine does appear to have built in a capture system along the top and sides, as well as a shield at the bottom, in an effort to curtail this issue.
There is a bit of a bottleneck with the power delivery for the blower, in that it requires 24V of power to run, which means that this matte box alone will need a sharkfin with two batteries to power it.
Highlights:
- Produces 64dB of noise at full power (quieter than most blowers of the same size and power)
- No vibration
- Standalone matte box, but can be adapted to ARRI backs
- 2 or 3 filter trays
- 90-minute battery life at full power
- $3000
- Estimated delivery by the end of the year
Bright Tangerine also announced their new lightweight rod systems for camera setups, both in the 19mm and 15mm variants. The new rods incorporate a new titanium blend that then gets machined into the rods, creating a product that's only 25% of the weight of a standard 19mm rod.
No Film School's complete coverage of CineGear 2019 is brought to you by:
Blackmagic Design, and Fyrfly.
Source: Bright Tangerine
