You gotta hand it to Sony. When they develop a revolutionary camera capable of changing the entire cinema camera market overnight, they sure know how to launch it hard.

Just as the Sony BURANO is making its rounds at trade shows across the world—and set to release here soon —Sony is going to make sure any interested DPs or video professionals are ready to use it right away.

And it’s honestly a good idea, as many new cinema cameras can take a bit of getting used to, especially if you’re not coming over from a different manufacturer altogether.

So, for those who are perhaps interested in getting started with the Sony BURANO on day one, here’s everything you need to know about Sony’s new cinema camera, directly from their highly-capable team of video pros.


Getting Started with the Sony BURANO

Since first announced, we’ve been fascinated by Sony’s newest addition to their CineAlta family with its full-frame 8.6K video capabilities and compact, cinema-friendly design. However, as with most cinema cameras, there’s usually a bit of a learning curve when first getting started.

Luckily, Sony has already dropped a couple of tutorials for getting set up, including this one below on how to handle all of the “Camera Configuration” options for setting up different shooting styles for either crew shooting or solo shooting, plus other basic camera operations.

You can further follow along with the following chapters and timecodes here:

  • 0:30 Introduction
  • 0:55 Versatile shooting style overview
  • 2:47 Configuring for a crewed shoot
  • 4:30 Configuring for a solo operation
  • 6:12 Operating the LCD Screen / Intuitive menu control
  • 8:53 Direct Menu
  • 10:35 Mounting the LCD

Sony Scan Modes and Codecs

From there, Sony continues its tutorial journey with another video breaking down all of the different scan modes and codecs one might need to know and understand to get started. Here are the different chapters and timecodes to accompany the video below.

  • 0:30 Introduction
  • 0:55 Scan Modes and Codecs Overview
  • 1:40 Scan Modes
  • 2:07 FF 8.6K Scan
  • 2:25 FF Crop 6K Scan
  • 3:35 Super 35 5.8K Scan
  • 4:45 S35 Crop 4K HFR 120fps
  • 5:37 Future firmware update and Anamorphic lens de-squeeze
  • 6:53 Codecs
  • 7:12 X-OCN LT
  • 8:15 XAVC H
  • 9:28 XAVC-I

Getting Ready for the BURANO

After that, Sony plans to introduce further tutorials and coursework designed to help any interested shooters get started with the BURANO for all of their videography needs. And honestly, while the basics may be helpful to go over, the real fun would be just getting your hands on the camera and taking it through the paces itself.

With a launch still slated for some time here in the spring of 2024, we expect to see a full-on media blitz of hands-on reviews, further tutorials, and just very cool projects being shared from what will undoubtedly be one of the most important cameras of 2024.