Help & Documentation

Offline-first guidance for safe gear lists.

Tools & Utilities

Camera simulators and production planning aids

A collection of visual tools designed to help cinematographers and filmmakers plan shots, calculate depth of field, push lenses closer with close-up diopters, and prepare frame leaders — all found under Additional Tools in the sidebar, with the calculations running in the browser.

Frame Line & Leader Composer

Design custom frame line overlays and frame leaders for on-set monitoring and post-production reference.

  • Open it from Additional Tools → Frame Lines. Pick the Camera Model (searchable, favourites and recently used on top), its Sensor Mode and the Recording Codec (ARRIRAW or Apple ProRes)
  • Create Arri or Sony XML frame lines, or universal PNG frame leaders — XML is offered for ARRI and Sony cameras only; any other camera switches the page to Frame Leader
  • Three frame lines, A, B and C — tick a line to turn it on. Each takes a preset aspect ratio (2.39:1 Scope down to 1.00:1, plus 9:16 and 4:5 vertical) or Custom... with your own ratio; unlock the ratio to type Width (px) and Height (px) instead
  • Per line: Color, Style (Full Box, Top / Bottom, Left / Right, Corner, Cross, Tick Width, Tick Height), Line Width 1–10 px, Scaling, Shading, Center Mark, Align Center to, Format Name and pixel offsets. Style, Line Width and Center Mark are ARRI only
  • Lens Squeeze (Anamorphic): 1.00x (Spherical), 1.25x, 1.30x, 1.33x, 1.50x, 1.65x, 1.80x or 2.00x
  • Frame Leader mode adds Leader Options under the preview: Siemens Stars, Format Arrows, Sensor Active Image Area, Print Aspect Ratios, a custom logo, and Title, Director, DoP, Text 1, Text 2, a Custom Note and the Date printed on the leader (pick the shoot day, or clear it to leave the date off)
  • Save As: Arri Frame Line XML, Sony Frame Line XML, Frame Guide PNG (the lines alone on a transparent background), and in Frame Leader mode Frame Leader PNG, Frame Lines SVG and Print-Ready PNG
  • Copy Setup URL copies a link that restores the whole setup, leader options included (an uploaded logo stays on your device); with Cloud Sync on, the setup also follows you to your other devices
  • Pick a lens from the Lens Illumination Overlay list and its image circle is drawn over the preview, and its anamorphic squeeze is filled in automatically when the catalogue knows it — over 350 lenses do, including the whole Atlas Orion (2x), Atlas Mercury (1.5x) and P+S Technik Evolution 2X lines. The field stays editable, and choosing a lens with no recorded factor leaves whatever you typed alone.
Example: Creating Frame Lines for a 2.39:1 Anamorphic Shoot

Setting up frame lines for an Arri Alexa with Hawk V-Lite anamorphic lenses:

  1. Open Additional Tools → Frame Lines and pick the ALEXA camera and its sensor mode
  2. Select 'Frame Lines (XML)' mode
  3. Frame line A, aspect ratio: 2.39:1 (Scope)
  4. Set Lens Squeeze (Anamorphic): 2.00x (to match Hawk V-Lite glass)
  5. Style: Full Box, white, 2 px line width
  6. Save As → Arri Frame Line XML, copy it to the camera's USB or CFast media and add it from the camera's frame line menu

→ Accurate frame lines showing exactly what your final deliverable will look like directly in the viewfinder.

Tips
  • Use the preview to verify frame lines match your camera display before exporting
  • Set Lens Squeeze to match your anamorphic glass, then tick Desqueeze Preview to see the frame unsqueezed
  • Export a Frame Guide PNG and load it into your monitor's frame line slot
  • Toggle between 'Frame Lines (XML)' and 'Frame Leader' modes at the top of the screen
  • 'Fit to A' on lines B and C copies line A's ratio, scaling and offsets
  • 'How to import to Arri camera' under the export buttons lists the folder to create on the USB or CFast media; the Sony button opens the SD-card steps before the download
  • Check the squeeze before exporting: frame lines built at 1.0x on an anamorphic setup look right in the app and wrong on the monitor.
Common Pitfalls
  • Forgetting to account for anamorphic squeeze when setting up frame lines — un-squeezed and squeezed ratios look very different
  • Using very thin line styles that are invisible on a bright monitor — test with actual set conditions
  • Not including production metadata in frame leaders — they're most useful when they include project name, date, and shot info

Depth of Field Simulator

Visualize depth of field for any camera/lens combination with a live scene preview.

  • Open it from Additional Tools → DoF Simulator. Pick the Camera Body (searchable, favourites and recently used on top) and its Sensor Mode, or type Sensor Width (mm) and Sensor Height (mm) yourself
  • Lens Settings: type Focal Length and Aperture (Manual), or switch to Database, filter by Brand and pick a lens — its focal length and widest T-stop are filled in
  • Set Focus Distance and Subject Distance; Scene Settings picks the subject and background shown in the preview
  • Calculated Optics shows Near Limit, Far Limit, DoF Total (split into DoF Front and DoF Rear), Hyperfocal and Field of View, plus Magnification and Eff. Aperture at close focus
  • Optical Modifiers: a 1.4x or 2.0x Extender or a 0.71x Speedbooster; Advanced CoC Settings sets the circle of confusion (Auto / Standard d/1500, High Res / 4K, Critically Sharp or your own value)
  • Presets: '+ Save Current' stores the setup by name, the Presets bar loads or deletes it, and presets import and export as JSON. With Cloud Sync on they reach your other devices
  • Export PDF Summary saves the camera, lens, distances and calculated optics as a PDF
  • Near and far limits are the distances where the blur reaches the circle of confusion, so they agree with the blur in the preview. Macro light loss changes the exposure reading, not the depth of field
  • Live viewfinder preview of the subject and background, blurred as the lens would blur them, with a depth scale underneath
  • One-tap 'Set to Subject' and 'Set to Hyperfocal' buttons move the focus distance
  • Metric or imperial — the switch here changes the account-wide units (Settings › General › Units), so every tool follows. Distances then read in feet, and the depth scale is marked in feet. A shared link opens in the reader's own units.
  • Compare the current lens (A) with a second focal length and aperture (B) at the same focus distance and on the same body
Example: Planning an Interview Setup

Calculating DoF for a sit-down interview:

  1. Camera Body: Sony FX6, Sensor Mode: Full Frame (35.7 × 18.8 mm), circle of confusion on Auto
  2. Lens: 50mm at T2
  3. Subject Distance 2.5 m, then 'Set to Subject'
  4. Result: Near Limit about 2.37 m, Far Limit about 2.64 m, DoF Total about 26 cm
  5. Insight: Plenty of room for the subject to lean forward without going soft
  6. 'Compare with another lens' at 85mm, T2 → about 9 cm — much tighter, needs a good focus puller

→ Informed lens choice based on the shoot's practical constraints.

Tips
  • Tap 'Set to Subject' to snap the focus distance to the subject distance in one click
  • Use the slider or type exact values for precise control
  • Switch between metric and imperial depending on your crew's preference
  • The side-by-side comparison is perfect for client discussions about lens choices
  • Open it with 'Compare with another lens' under the depth visualiser. Lens A always follows the simulator above, so you only set lens B — and both sides use the same optics as the main readout, teleconverter and macro exposure loss included.
  • Reopening the simulator brings back your last setup on this device — camera, lens, distances, extender and custom circle of confusion. A shared link with its own setup opens that one instead.
Common Pitfalls
  • Selecting the wrong sensor format — a Full Frame vs. Super 35 sensor drastically changes DoF results
  • Forgetting that DoF is a zone, not a single plane — the simulator shows the range, not a hard edge
  • Not accounting for close-up distances where DoF becomes razor-thin even at f/4
  • Pairing a long lens with a teleconverter and then focusing very close — a 300 mm lens behind a 2.0x extender is a 600 mm lens, and no lens focuses nearer than its own focal length. The simulator warns instead of showing magnification, light loss and depth of field, which stop being meaningful there

Lens Coverage Calculator

Check whether a lens image circle fully covers your chosen sensor format. Open it from Additional Tools → Lens Coverage.

  • Pick the Camera and its Sensor Mode from the device catalogue — both lists are searchable, with your favourites and recently used devices on top
  • Pick the Lens: its image circle comes from the catalogue, so only lenses with a published image circle are listed
  • A to-scale drawing shows the Recording Mode, the whole Camera Sensor (dashed, when the mode records less than all of it) and the Lens Image Circle, each labelled in millimetres
  • The info panel lists the Sensor Dimensions with the diagonal, and the lens's Image Circle. Corners of the recording area outside the circle mean vignetting — the tool draws the comparison and leaves the call to you
  • The camera, sensor mode and lens are kept in the page address, so a copied link opens the same comparison
  • Useful for adapting vintage or cinema lenses to modern sensors
Example: Checking Vintage Lens Compatibility

Verifying if Zeiss Super Speed lenses cover the RED Komodo sensor:

  1. Camera: RED Komodo 6k, Sensor Mode: Super 35 6K — 27.03 × 14.26 mm, diagonal Ø 30.56 mm
  2. Lens: ZEISS Super Speed MKII/III 18mm T1.3 — Image Circle Ø 32.5 mm
  3. The drawing shows the whole recording area inside the circle, corners included — the 18mm covers
  4. Swap to the Arri/ZEISS Super Speed mk.3 S16 16mm T1.3 — Image Circle Ø 15 mm, far smaller than the sensor: that lens would vignette heavily
  5. Decision: take the MKII/III set and leave the S16 glass for a Super 16 body

→ Confident lens choices without risking vignetting on the shoot.

Tips
  • Check coverage when mounting PL lenses on larger-format cameras (e.g., PL glass on an Arri Alexa LF)
  • Verify vintage glass covers your sensor before a shoot day — discovering vignetting on set is costly
  • Some lenses cover larger formats when stopped down — test at your intended T-stop
Common Pitfalls
  • Assuming specs from the manufacturer account for all sensor modes — Arri Open Gate is larger than default sensor mode
  • Not testing with your actual lens — image circle specs can vary between individual copies, especially vintage glass
  • Forgetting that adapters add flange distance and can shift the effective image circle

Diopter Focus Calculator

Work out how close a lens can focus — and how much magnification you gain — once you screw close-up diopters onto the front. A close-up diopter is a magnifying filter that lets a lens focus nearer than its native minimum, in exchange for its far focus.

  • Open it from Additional Tools → Diopter Calculator. 'Use catalog' picks a lens from your catalog (focal length, MFD, and mount auto-fill); 'Manual' lets you type the focal length and Lens MFD by hand
  • Build a stack of up to four diopters — preset strengths from +0.25 to +4, or any custom value in diopters (1/m)
  • Set each diopter's distance from the sensor, or use 'Suggest distances' to estimate positions from the lens mount and length
  • Estimated distances follow the lens geometry — change the lens length, focal length, mount or catalog lens and every 'Est.' diopter re-positions itself, and every result recalculates with it
  • Read the new close-focus distance, the new far-focus limit, and the reproduction ratio (magnification) at the closest point
  • A focus-range strip visualises the band the lens can now hold focus within
  • Metric or imperial — every value is shown in both. The switch changes the account-wide units (Settings › General › Units), so every tool follows.
  • The whole setup lives in the page URL, so you can bookmark a configuration or send it to a colleague
Example: A tabletop insert with a 50 mm prime

Getting tight on a product without swapping to a dedicated macro lens:

  1. Lens: 50 mm prime, native MFD 0.45 m — too far for a watch-face insert
  2. Add a +2 diopter, positioned just in front of the lens
  3. New close focus: about 0.20 m (20 cm) from the diopter — close enough to fill the frame
  4. Magnification climbs from 1:8 (lens alone) to roughly 1:5
  5. New far focus: 0.50 m — a narrow 0.20–0.50 m band, so camera placement is now critical
  6. Decision: lock the camera on a slider and move the subject, rather than racking the lens

→ A usable macro-style insert from a standard prime, with the focus limits known before the camera is built.

Tips
  • Strength rule of thumb: a lens at infinity focuses at 1 ÷ diopter metres — a +1 reaches 1 m, a +2 reaches 0.5 m, a +4 reaches 0.25 m
  • Stacking diopters is not additive — the combined power depends on where each element sits, which is why the tool asks for each one's distance to the sensor
  • Lens geometry fills the lens length from the catalogue when your lens publishes one. If it shows Est. there is no published figure and it is guessed from the focal length — measure yours, rear mount flange to the front of the barrel, because every suggested diopter distance is built on this number
  • Type a distance into a diopter yourself and it is treated as measured: the 'Est.' tag drops and later lens-geometry changes leave it alone. Click 'Suggest distances' to hand the whole stack back to the estimator
  • Mount the strongest diopter closest to the lens (rear-most in the stack) — the standard convention for the cleanest result
  • Every distance the tool reports is measured from the sensor (focal-plane mark) — the same origin as the lens barrel engraving and the one you pull a tape from. The working distance to the front of the diopter is given underneath each figure
  • The focus-range chart and the cards above it share one origin, the sensor (focal-plane mark), so they always quote the same pair of numbers. The line under the chart restates them as a working distance to the front of the glass, and the difference is exactly how far the diopter sits in front of the sensor
  • Share the URL with your 1st AC so the focus plan is set before the camera is built
  • There is a guided tour for this page — the question-mark button beside the title starts it, or find it under Help → Guided Tours.
Common Pitfalls
  • Expecting to keep infinity focus — once a diopter is on, the lens can no longer reach far subjects, and the 'New far focus' card shows the new ceiling
  • Treating the suggested distances as exact — they are estimates from mount and lens length; filter trays, step rings, and matte-box clearance shift the real positions, so measure with a ruler when it matters
  • Forgetting that a stronger stack buys magnification but a narrower focus band — there is less room to rack focus
  • Choosing a stack so strong the configuration can't focus at all — the tool flags this instead of showing numbers

Lens Shimming Guide

Turn a focus-chart check into a shim recommendation. When a lens is sharpest at a mark that disagrees with the measured distance, the flange focal distance (FFD) is off — this tool computes how far off in microns and which shims to add or remove.

  • Open it from Additional Tools → Shimming Guide. Enter the focal length, the measured chart-to-sensor distance, and the distance the focus scale shows at sharpest focus
  • Tap ∞ when the image only peaks at the infinity stop — a classic sign the flange is too long
  • Read the flange error in microns, the add/remove direction, and a combination from standard shim-kit thicknesses (0.01–0.20 mm)
  • Pick your mount (PL, LPL, Canon EF, Sony E, B4, …) to see the nominal flange focal distance next to your measured effective one
  • Errors inside ±0.02 mm are flagged as within cine-body tolerance so you don’t chase measurement noise
  • 'Result units' toggles metric (µm/mm) and imperial (thou) readouts for this tool only — it does not change your account-wide units
  • The whole measurement lives in the page URL — bookmark it or send it to the rental house
Example: 50 mm prime reads 2.10 m at a measured 2.00 m

A rented PL prime lands sharpest at the wrong mark during prep:

  1. Chart set exactly 2.00 m from the sensor-plane mark, lens wide open
  2. Sharpest focus by eye lands at the 2.10 m engraving — the scale reads far
  3. The tool reports the flange about 66 µm too long and suggests removing 0.05 mm + 0.02 mm from the shim stack
  4. After removing the shims, the re-check lands within a few microns of the 2.00 m mark
  5. The effective FFD card confirms the mount is back at PL nominal 52.00 mm

→ The lens scale is trustworthy again — focus pulls off the barrel marks land, and wide lenses reach infinity.

Tips
  • Shoot wide open: shallow depth of field makes the sharpest point unambiguous
  • Use the longest focal length available (zooms: the long end) — sensitivity scales with f², so the same flange error moves the scale much further
  • Place the chart 10–30× the focal length away and measure from the sensor-plane mark ⌀, not from the lens front
  • Scale reads far → flange too long → remove shims. Scale reads near or focuses past infinity → flange too short → add shims
  • Shim, then re-run the same check — one or two iterations usually land inside tolerance
  • There is a guided tour for this page — the question-mark button beside the title starts it, or find it under Help → Guided Tours.
Common Pitfalls
  • Measuring from the lens front instead of the sensor-plane mark ⌀ — focus scales are calibrated from the image plane
  • Testing stopped down — deep depth of field hides the true sharpest point and the reading becomes a guess
  • Blaming the body when the lens scale itself is mis-calibrated — verify with a second lens before pulling the mount apart
  • Chasing errors under 0.01 mm — that is calibration-grade territory where measurement noise dominates
  • Expecting shims on a B4/ENG zoom — those adjust back focus with a dedicated ring, not mount shims

Camera Simulators

Interactive reference tools that simulate camera menu systems and controls. Open them from Additional Tools → Camera Simulators.

  • Links to the manufacturers' own web simulators, grouped by maker: Arri (ALEXA 35, ALEXA Mini LF, ALEXA LF, AMIRA, ALEXA Mini, ALEXA SXT W, ALEXA SXT Plus, ALEXA XT Plus, ALEXA Studio, ALEXA Classic), Sony (VENICE 2 8K, VENICE 2 6K, VENICE, BURANO) and Canon (EOS C100, EOS C100 Mark II, EOS C200, EOS C300, EOS C300 Mark II, EOS C500)
  • Practice navigating camera menus before a shoot
  • Each card opens the simulator in a new tab on the manufacturer's site, so it needs an internet connection
Example: Prepping for an Unfamiliar Camera

Using the simulator to learn a new camera menu before a shoot:

  1. Client is providing an Arri Alexa 35 — you usually shoot Sony
  2. Open Additional Tools → Camera Simulators and pick ALEXA 35 under Arri
  3. Navigate to Recording settings → set Codec to ARRIRAW
  4. Find the Sensor Mode menu → set to Open Gate
  5. Practice the LUT assignment workflow
  6. Arrive on set confident in the menu system

→ Reduced setup time and no fumbling through unfamiliar menus on set.

Tips
  • Run through the menu system the night before to reduce setup time on set
  • Use simulators to train camera assistants on unfamiliar bodies
  • Bookmark the simulator for the camera you're using most frequently
Common Pitfalls
  • Relying solely on the simulator — actual camera firmware may differ or have been updated since the simulator was built
  • Not checking which firmware version the simulator reflects — settings can change between firmware updates

Cinema Apps

A short, curated list of third-party apps worth having on a shoot. Open it from Additional Tools → Cinema Apps. The twelve apps are grouped as Gear research, Framing & previs, Scouting & weather, Capture and On set. Every entry says in one line what it is for and links straight to its App Store page, or, for a web app, to the site itself.

  • CineD Camera Database — a web database of recording modes and recording times per camera; models tagged LAB also carry CineD’s own measured dynamic range and rolling shutter. Tagged “Web app · best on desktop”.
  • CineD Lens Database — a web database of cine and photo lens specs, spherical and anamorphic, primes and zooms. Tagged “Web app · best on desktop”.
  • CineD — the CineD app for news, reviews and lab tests on your phone.
  • Cadrage — a director’s viewfinder: pick a camera and lens and frame the shot as that combination would see it.
  • Shot Designer — overhead shot diagrams with camera, lighting and moves, plus a linked shot list.
  • ShotDeck — a searchable library of stills from finished films, filtered by shot size, lens, lighting and colour, for building a look book.
  • Helios — where the sun and moon will be at any time and place, for picking the right window to shoot a scene.
  • ShadeMap — a web app that simulates mountain, building and tree shadows for any date and time, including how many hours of sun a spot gets. It is tagged “Web app · best on desktop”: it runs in the browser and is easiest to read on a large screen.
  • Windy.com — layered wind, rain, gust and cloud maps animated hour by hour, for judging whether a location will be shootable.
  • Blackmagic Camera — manual exposure, focus and audio on an iPhone, recording into a DaVinci Resolve workflow.
  • Green Screener — measures how evenly a green screen is lit and maps the hot and dark patches.
  • Prop Screen — turns an iPhone into a prop phone: staged calls, video calls and message threads an actor plays on cue, locked full-screen playback, and a green screen with tracking markers.
Tips
  • These are other companies’ apps. They are not part of your subscription and we are not affiliated with them.
  • App Store links are most useful from an iPhone or iPad. ShadeMap and the two CineD databases open in the browser and are easiest to read on a desktop screen.

Film Length Calculator

Converts between film stock length and running time. Open it from Additional Tools → Film Length. Pick a gauge, set the framerate, then enter either the stock you have or the time you want to shoot — the calculator fills in the other side.

  • Formats from Standard 8 mm and Super 8 through 16 mm, Super 16, 35 mm in 2-, 3- and 4-perf, 65 mm 5-perf and 70 mm IMAX 15-perf.
  • Enter length in feet or metres; both are shown.
  • Results give running time, total frames, and how many rolls of each stocked size you need.
  • Any framerate works — the common ones are offered as suggestions.
Tips
  • Roll counts always round up: a part-used roll is still a roll you had to load.
  • Frames per foot is fixed by the gauge and pull-down, so changing the framerate changes the running time but never the number of frames on the roll.
  • Your last format, frame rate, direction and inputs are remembered on this device.

Data Calculator

Pick a camera, sensor mode, codec and frame rate to see how long a card records, the data rate, and how many cards a shoot day needs.

  • Record time per card as HH:MM:SS, from the camera's published data rate for the selected codec.
  • Recording resolution: a sensor mode that can record more than one resolution (a Sony FX3 full-frame mode records 4K or HD) gets its own choice. The camera's data rate depends on it — XAVC S-I at 25 fps is 250 Mbit/s in 4K and about 93 Mbit/s in HD — so pick the resolution set in the camera menu. The largest one is preselected, except for a mode named HD or 2K, which starts on its HD or 2K resolution.
  • Data rate in MB/s and GB per hour, and the cards a target duration needs — spares reported separately from the bare requirement, because 'how many do I need' and 'how many do I rent' are different questions.
  • Billed at SENSOR frame rate, so off-speed work is charged at the capture rate, not the project rate.
  • Usable rather than marketed capacity, per interface — and the gap is bigger than filesystem overhead. ARRI publishes 960 GB usable on a 1 TB Codex drive (0.96). Sony's own record times imply about 0.85 on a CFexpress Type A card and 0.94 on Type B, so a 160 GB Type A card is quoted at roughly 36 minutes of XAVC-I 4K 50p, matching Sony's table rather than the 41 minutes a nominal figure would promise. The breakdown names the source, and the usable-% field overrides all of it.
  • A full breakdown so the figure can be checked against a spec sheet instead of taken on trust. It follows the codec: RAW and mezzanine codecs show bits per pixel × pixels per frame, while broadcast and delivery codecs such as Sony XAVC show the published rate for the recording format instead — for those the sensor mode sets the field of view, not the data rate.
  • Sony XAVC is covered end to end — XAVC S, XAVC HS, XAVC S-I, XAVC-I, XAVC-L and the BURANO’s XAVC H — from Sony’s own per-mode tables. Menu-driven codecs show the span of the Record Setting options at that resolution and frame rate.
  • Selectable audio channels, bit depth and sample rate, added as a flat bitrate.
  • A confidence badge on any rate that is not fully verified, and a range instead of a single number for content-dependent codecs such as X-OCN, Blackmagic RAW constant-quality and ProRes RAW.
  • The whole configuration lives in the address bar, so 'Copy shareable link' reproduces it exactly. 'Card order PDF' puts the configuration and its results on a page for a producer or a rental desk.
  • Favourites: name the current configuration and save it — it reopens with one tap from the same page, on any device you are signed in on. A favourite stores exactly the shareable link, so applying one and opening a shared URL are the same operation; re-saving an existing name updates that favourite.
  • Editing a favourite: the pencil beside it opens the row for editing. Rename it and press Save name, or press Update to current to point that favourite at the configuration on screen — both keep the favourite's place in the list, unlike saving again, which adds a new one at the front. A name typed but not yet saved is carried into Update to current, so it is not lost; Cancel discards it. The ✕ deletes the favourite.
  • A total-storage card: the drive space the covered hours consume, in GB/TB. A shoot-days input splits it into a per-day figure, and a backup-copies input (working drive, shuttle, LTO) shows the multiplied total SEPARATELY from the single-copy one — nothing is folded in silently.
  • A Custom mode beside the camera picker: any raster (or a standard preset from HD to 8K DCI) with any codec from the rate table and an uncapped frame rate — for bodies the catalog doesn't carry, 360 rigs, and post/delivery formats like ProRes masters or DNxHR proxies. The result says plainly that it is not validated against a body.
  • Off-speed planning: an optional project (playback) rate beside the sensor rate, and the duration can declare itself as record time or screen time — two hours of 24 fps screen shot at 96 fps is 30 minutes of recording, and the result shows the conversion. The data rate itself always bills at the sensor rate.
  • Custom storage: a 'Custom capacity…' entry in the media picker takes any value in GB or TB — shuttle, RAID, LTO, or a card the catalog doesn't carry. The usable-capacity percentage is a visible override (blank keeps the per-interface default), and an optional 'cards on hand' count shows the total runtime the set you own buys.
  • 360 / VR rigs are handled explicitly: a body that records several lenses at once declares how many streams it writes and across how many cards, so the data rate covers the whole rig while the record time still describes one card. Card counts are whole SWAPS on those rigs — every slot fills in parallel, so eight cards on an eight-slot body is one swap, and “cards on hand” reports the runtime the sets you own actually buy rather than multiplying by the card count. Cards that cannot complete a set are reported as unusable rather than counted.
  • Enter the duration to cover in days, hours, minutes or seconds — or switch the unit to Timecode and type the hh:mm:ss:ff you read off the slate. The value is stored in seconds, so precision does not depend on the unit you picked, and the line under the field restates it either way. Timecode is read at the frame rate named beside the field; at 29.97 the real rate is used, not 30, which is worth about 3.6 s over a one-hour span.
  • Blackmagic RAW is listed per level and per body, as Blackmagic's own tech specs state it: the Pocket, PYXIS 6K, Cinema Camera 6K and URSA Broadcast G2 offer 3:1, 5:1, 8:1, 12:1 and Q0, Q1, Q3, Q5; the URSA Mini Pro 4.6K models only Q0 and Q5 of the constant-quality levels; the URSA Mini Pro 12K adds 18:1 but has no 3:1; the URSA Cine and PYXIS 12K also offer 4:1, 6:1 and 18:1.
Example: An eight-hour ALEXA 35 day in ARRIRAW

ALEXA 35, 4.6K 3:2 Open Gate, ARRIRAW at 24 fps on a 1 TB Codex Compact Drive gives about 28.7 minutes per drive — matching ARRI's own calculator. An eight-hour day at that format needs 17 drives, or 18 with a spare.

Tips
  • The same calculation powers Project Requirements → Storage & Media and the Auto Gear card-count rule, so the three surfaces cannot disagree about what a camera records.
  • Set a media plan on a camera package and Auto Gear will size the card order from the calculated record time instead of a quantity typed by hand.
  • Reopening the calculator brings back your last configuration on this device; a link with its own configuration opens that one instead.
Common Pitfalls
  • Where no published data rate exists for a camera and codec, the tool says so rather than showing a guess. That is deliberate — the figure decides how many cards get rented, and a plausible wrong number is worse than none.
  • A range means the codec is content-dependent, not that the tool is unsure of its arithmetic. Plan against the shorter record time.
  • The frame-rate list is capped per SENSOR MODE, not per camera: a body that reaches 120 fps in a crop mode usually cannot in open gate.
  • A sensor mode's resolution is what the sensor READS, which on an oversampling body is not what it writes: a Sony FX3's Full Frame mode reads 4240×2832 and records UHD. The tool bills the recorded raster and shows the readout separately, labelled as field of view.
  • On a 360 rig the sensor mode is the geometry of ONE lens, not the stitched 11K/12K figure. The card count is therefore a full SET per swap — eight cards for an eight-lens Titan — and the page says so beneath the result.
  • A frame rate a manufacturer does not publish for a format reports nothing rather than borrowing the neighbouring one. Sony lists XAVC HS 4K at 24p, 50/60p and 100/120p and at no 25p or 30p, so that combination is genuinely unavailable on the camera, not missing from the tool.

Power Calculator

Calculate cinema camera power draw, battery runtime, and visualize connection diagrams — no project required.

  • Select camera body and accessories from a comprehensive database
  • Automatic power draw calculation based on selected components
  • Battery runtime estimation for the catalogue's batteries (V-Mount, Gold Mount, B-Mount, Sony BP-U and more), or a gimbal as the only power source (Gimbal Only), with the Tilta Advanced Ring Grip's modules and battery
  • Visual connection diagram showing power flow between components — download it as SVG or JPEG, or copy the SVG
  • Current at the mount's high and low voltage, checked against the pin and D-Tap output limits, plus compatibility warnings and a Copy summary button
  • Reset all clears the rig, with Undo in the toast; Convert to Project opens a new project pre-filled with the package
  • Works standalone — no project needed to calculate
  • Battery count for a ten-hour day, sized in energy: a hot-swap buffer is charged once, so every spare battery counts only its own capacity
  • Free-tier users get 5 Power Calculator uses, lifetime — upgrade to Pro for unlimited access
  • Saved setups: name the rig on screen, then bring it back with one tap — rename it, re-point it at a new configuration, or delete it. Setups follow your account across devices.
Example: Planning Power for a Documentary Shoot

Calculating battery requirements for a full day of handheld documentary work:

  1. Camera: Sony FX6 — 19W average draw
  2. Add: SmallHD 702 Touch monitor — 18W
  3. Add: Teradek Bolt 4K TX — 14W
  4. Total system draw: 51W
  5. Battery: V-Mount 150Wh → runtime: ~2h 56min
  6. Decision: bring 4 batteries for an 8-hour day with buffer

→ Precise battery count planned — no surprise power-outs mid-take.

Tips
  • Add all accessories that draw power (monitor, wireless TX, lens motors) for accurate totals
  • Compare battery runtime with different battery capacities before buying
  • The connection diagram is useful for briefing camera assistants on the power setup
  • Use the calculator to verify that your power supply can handle peak load
  • If the package has a hot-swap plate with an internal buffer, the buffer covers part of the day once — the spares you pack still have to cover the rest on their own.
  • Save a setup per camera body you own, then switch between them to compare total draw and battery count without rebuilding the rig.
  • “Update to current” re-points an existing setup at what is on screen — use it when a rig changes, so the saved name keeps meaning the same thing.
  • A saved setup stores the same configuration the shareable link carries, so loading one and opening a shared link land on exactly the same rig.
Common Pitfalls
  • Forgetting to include accessories — a wireless video TX can draw 15-20W alone
  • Using nominal battery capacity instead of real-world capacity (batteries degrade over time)
  • Not accounting for cold weather — battery performance drops significantly in low temperatures
  • Reading the runtime figure as “batteries needed = day ÷ runtime” when a hot-swap buffer is fitted — that division assumes each spare brings another buffer, and comes out short
  • Saving a setup under a name you already used — the older one is replaced, not kept alongside. Rename first if you want both.
  • Expecting a saved setup to include a project's gear list — it stores the calculator's rig only (camera, monitor, FIZ, battery, plate), not project data.

Filter Finder

Compare filter lines from every brand on one set of nine rated axes, see which sizes each one is made in with a link to that exact size, and find the closest substitute for a line you cannot get.

  • Search by name, brand, effect class or published grade — “tokina black” narrows to the Tokina lines with “Black” in the name, and alternative names work too (“white pro-mist” finds Pro-Mist, “cross screen” finds Star, “cpl” finds the polariser).
  • Filter by brand, by effect class, by “available in this size”, or by “at least this much” on any of the nine axes. On a wider screen the filter band starts folded behind a Filters button beside the result count, so the results start higher up the page; it opens by itself when a filter is already active, and the button shows how many are. Below tablet width the whole filter band folds into a Filters sheet, with the number of active filters shown on the button.
  • Switch between Tiles and List. In List the columns can be dragged into a new order, ticked off to hide, resized by dragging a header edge, and sorted by any axis — the arrangement is saved per user and follows you across devices.
  • Select a line to open its panel above the results: what it does, what strengths and sizes you can get, and the five closest matches. Each size chip links straight to the maker's page for that exact size where one exists. Mounts that are not a standard screw-in thread sit under System: NiSi Swift inserts, Tiffen's magnetic rear filters for ARRI Signature lenses, and Tiffen's coarse- and medium-pitch threads (86C, 86M, 95C, 105C), which are kept apart from Ø86, Ø95 and Ø105.
  • Picking a line takes you straight to its panel at the top of the page, however far down the catalogue you clicked. A short hop glides, a long one snaps, and if your system asks for reduced motion neither animates.
  • ND, IRND, full-spectrum ND and polarisers are rated on three axes only — colour shift, density accuracy and resolution — and marked “not applicable” on every diffusion axis.
  • Ties deliberately break toward a DIFFERENT manufacturer — the useful answer to “the rental house is out of Black Pro-Mist” is a line from someone else.
  • A line your own gear resolves to is marked “In your gear”, and a facet narrows the catalogue to just those. Filters you own are matched from your gear list by name and maker; a name two makers share is left unmarked rather than guessed.
  • Star a line — on its tile, or beside its name in the list — and it moves to the top of the results, in the order your sort puts it. A star narrows nothing: a search or a filter still hides a starred line it does not match. Your stars reopen with you on any device you are signed in on.
  • Open a line and write in Your notes to keep your own test results or reminders with it. The note saves as you type, shows on the line’s tile, and marks its row in the list; clear the box to delete it. Only you see your notes, and they follow you to any device you are signed in on.
  • Compare is in three places, and they are the same control: the toolbar beside the Tiles/List switch, the panel of whichever line you have selected, and the shortlist tray — so the side-by-side table opens from wherever you happen to be reading. It stays greyed out with the reason on it until a second line is picked, and the table itself carries a Hide comparison button.
  • Every axis filters in BOTH directions from one control: “≥ Moderate” for the lines that do a lot of something, “≤ None” for the ones that do none of it. The second is the useful one for resolution softening and colour shift, which are what you are trying to avoid rather than looking for.
  • “Sold in this strength” lists every published strength in the catalogue — 1/8, 0.9, 3 mm, “2-8 stops” — so you can ask which lines exist in the grade you actually order. A line whose maker publishes no ladder is hidden while a strength is picked, rather than assumed to fit.
  • Variable NDs are carried as their own class, rated on the same three axes as a fixed ND. No variable line is rated above “Low” for density accuracy — the ring is set by eye, and even a maker with preset stops publishes no calibrated density — and the cross-polarisation “X” that appears near maximum density is recorded in each line’s evidence, including the one maker who states it cannot be eliminated.
  • Rota pols are here too, from ARRI and Schneider, plus unbranded “Rota-Pola” and “Polarizer” rows for a list that names no maker. They are rated exactly as any other circular polariser: the rotation is a mount, and it changes what you can do on set rather than what the glass does to the image.
  • Graduated NDs are carried with both edges — hard for a long lens, soft for a wide one — and rated identically, because the edge decides where the density stops rather than what it does to colour. Orientation is not a property at all: the same piece of glass is horizontal or vertical depending on how it goes into the tray.
  • An IR cut is listed apart from an IRND on purpose. An IRND cuts infrared and light together; an IR cut only cuts infrared and stacks on whatever ND you already have, which is the filter you reach for when blacks go red under a long lens.
  • Clear filters, optical flats and UV are in the catalogue too, rated “None” on every axis that applies to them rather than left unrated (density accuracy is “not applicable”, as they have no density) — that is the claim these make, and it turns them into the baseline every diffusion line is read against. Two of them compared side by side report “not comparable” rather than a confident 100%: they differ in what light they block, which these nine axes do not measure.
  • Export PDF sits in the comparison table’s own header as well as the shortlist tray, and a single selected filter exports on its own as a one-page sheet — its ratings, strengths, sizes and the maker wording they were read from — without needing a second line to compare it against.
  • It is reachable from a project too: in Project Requirements → Mattebox & Filter, each filter row can be matched to a catalogue line and shows its ratings, strengths and sizes inline, without leaving the form.
  • Saved views: name what you are looking at (search, facets, selection, shortlist) with Save view, and reopen it with one tap on any device you are signed in on. A saved view stores exactly the shareable link, so Copy link is how you hand one to someone else.
Example: Finding a substitute for Black Pro-Mist 1/4

You need Black Pro-Mist 1/4 and the rental house is out. Open the Filter Finder, select Black Pro-Mist and read the closest matches — candidates from other manufacturers rank first, each with the manufacturer wording behind its ratings so you can judge the swap yourself. On a phone, tap the tile and its detail opens straight above the grid.

Tips
  • Pick two to four lines to compare, then read them side by side — a tinted cell is the strongest rating in its row, which is not the same as the best one. The comparison exports as a PDF you can hand to a rental desk.
  • Every rating carries a number from 1 to 5 beside its word, and the bars all start at the same point so a column can be read straight down. “None” is 1 — the bottom rung of the same five-word ladder, not a zero — while “not applicable” has no number and no bar at all.
  • Axis columns sort by strength, not alphabetically — ascending is None → Minimal → Low → Moderate → Strong.
  • Glow and halation are two axes, not one. Halation is the ring around a point light; glow is the veil across the whole frame. Ultra Contrast flattens hard with no halation at all, and Double Fog veils more heavily than plain Fog while flaring less — on a single axis those two read alike.
  • “Not applicable” is not the same as “None”. None means the axis was assessed and found absent; not applicable means the filter has no such property at all — an ND does not have a halation rating of zero, it has no halation rating.
  • A line marked “announced” has been shown by its maker but is not shipping yet. It stays visible and labelled on purpose, so nobody plans a shoot around it.
  • “Blacks” in the detail panel restates the shadow-lift rating the other way round, the way a filter chart usually puts it — it is the same rating, not a second one.
  • Tilta's Illusion range and Vaxis's Mirage glass are carried in the 95 mm circular size the Tilta Mirage matte box uses, alongside 4x5.65 where the maker sells it. 95 mm is filed as round drop-in glass, never as a Ø95 lens thread — a Mirage filter does not screw onto a lens.
  • There is a guided tour for this page — the question-mark button beside the title starts it, or find it under Help → Guided Tours.
  • Reopening the Filter Finder brings back your last search, facets, sort and shortlist on this device; a link with its own view opens that one instead.
Common Pitfalls
  • The match score compares this catalogue’s ordinal ratings — it is not a measurement of the glass, and two lines at 100 % are not optically interchangeable.
  • Sizes are read from each maker's own shop or spec table and include the screw-in diameters, not just matte-box plates; one branded line (Tiffen Black Net) and the generic type rows are still unrecorded, as are Formatt Hitech's screw-in sizes. Picking a size HIDES every line whose sizes are not yet recorded — “unknown” is not evidence that a filter comes in 4×5.65, so those lines are excluded rather than assumed to fit.
  • “Not comparable” is an answer, not an error. Two filters that share fewer than two meaningful axes get no percentage at all — the polariser has no match in the catalogue, and a number there would be invented rather than measured.
  • Not every line is rated from a manufacturer’s own words. Star, Center Spot, Sepia and Blue Streak are sold by many firms under many names, so they are marked “generic type · in-house rating”. Tick “Manufacturer-rated lines only” to hide them.
  • A brand on a filter is not a claim about who built it. Manufacturer, OEM producer and trade brand overlap heavily — especially among historical makers — so read the Brand column as who sells it unless the line is manufacturer-rated.
  • Two different manufacturers sell a “Supermist”: Tokina Cinema and Formatt Hitech. They are separate products with separate ratings — check the Brand column before ordering, because the names alone will not tell them apart.

The calculators run offline in your browser once the device catalogue has loaded. Camera Simulators and Cinema Apps open other companies' websites and need a connection.

Was this helpful?

Related Topics

See also