A gyro-stabilised gimbal gives the best all round performance for aerial filming. Arena offers the renowned Cineflex V14 system for both SD & HD shoots. The V14 can be supplied on either our AS355F2 twin squirrel aircraft for "go-anywhere" filming, or our Robinson R44 Raven II aircraft for budget applications (certain flying restrictions apply). We think our choice of aircraft, technical specifications, experience, knowledge & pricing can't be beaten.

Aircraft: The AS355F2 is a well proven twin turbine engine aircraft, that can work lower and much further into a built up area than a single engine aircraft. The R44 Raven II is a proven single piston engine aircraft ideal as an economical cameraship. Both aircraft can carry the Cineflex V14, offer good performance and duration. Both aircraft are available with floats for filming over water.

Camera: The V14 uses a Sony HDC-F950 Cinealta 2.2 megapixel 2/3" FIT 3-CCD camera. Images are derived from a 16:9 aspect sensor, (rather than a letterboxed 4:3 sensor). Features include multi-matrix operation, adaptive highlight control, knee saturation, selectable gamma with initial gain adjustment, variable black gamma range and level dependent detail. The HDC-950 is promoted as a cinema quality camera.

Lens: The V14 uses a Fujinon HA42x9.7 BERD HD lens. This gives 9.7mm at the wide end and 407mm fully zoomed in. This increases to 19.4mm to 815mm with the selectable x2 extender. In traditional 35mm photographic terms, that's a range of 36mm to 3,000mm. Shots are rock-ready due to the V14's excellent stabilisation performance.

Field of view: 9.7mm (fully wide) equates to a 52.7 degrees (H) x 31.1 degrees (V) angle of view. 815mm (fully zoomed) equates to 0.7 degrees (H) x 0.4 degrees (V). That's effectively over four times more detail than say a standard ENG lens, like a 21x 7.8mm using a x2 extender. (42x 9.7 x2= 815mm= 0.8 degree diagonal; versus 21x 7.8 x2= 336mm= 1.9 degree diagonal).

SD: Most engineers agree the best SD pictures are obtained via an HD camera. Aerial imagery contains a lot of moving information which is difficult to compress. So a cleaner HD image means the Codec spends less resource compressing unwanted noise than in say an SD picture, and more resource compressing the viewable image. In layman's terms the picture is less blocky and you will see more detail in the moving areas of the image.

HD: The HDC-950 captures in the following formats. 1080/60i, 1080/50i, 1080/30P, 1080/25P, 1080/24P, 540/60P.

VTR: For SD shoots we record onto HD-Cam and then dub onto Digi-beta or DV , retaining the HD masters on your behalf for future dubs on SD or HD as required. Despite this SD work is still charged at an SD price. For HD shoots we can record in 4:4:4 on HD-Cam SR, HD-Cam and SSD (solid state devices using CF cards).

Crew: Arena has been operating in the aerial filming market for over 12 years and held various UK news contracts for around 10 years. We have our own CAA AOC and own 5 aircraft. We employ staff pilots, camera operators and broadcast engineers. At Arena we believe we have the most extensive range of expertise available anywhere in the industry.

Value for money: We have always offered clear and easy to understand pricing. There are no hidden extras. Flying is expensive, we want you to come back in the future and recommend us to others, so we make every airborne minute count. Our powerful cameras and skilled crew allow us to get the shots you want quickly and without a drama. Why not call us for a budgetary price on 01737 822011?