CineD Databases

During his time as camera and lens rental technician, Florian created a digital camera and lens Knowledge Base, which contained in-depth information about professional cameras and lenses and their compatibility.

The Knowledge Base, previously accessible at brains.florianmilz.com (UCDB), has been upgraded into the CineD Databases on August 17th, 2022 with expanded functionality and improved usability.

Learn about all the tools and what they can do, as well as some history behind the original Knowledge Base and the transition to the new CineD Databases below.

Knowledge Base 2.0

The CineD Databases contain simple-to-use tools for finding information about cameras and lenses, and how they work together with the Lens Coverage Tool. Using the Camera Database, you can compare Lab Test data and check camera recording modes & times. The Lens Database offers technical details for modern and vintage cinema and photo lenses.

Camera Database

The Camera Database includes hundreds of the latest cine and photo cameras. You can easily look up all the possible recording modes, resolutions, recording formats and recording times.

In addition, you can see how well the cameras perform according to CineD's standardized Lab Tests, which test the Dynamic Range and Rolling Shutter performance. These test results tell how, how well cameras actually perform compared to what manufacturers claim.

The integrated camera comparison feature lets you compare results between multiple cameras at the same time.

Lens Coverage Tool

The Lens Coverage Tool lets you choose a camera & recording mode from the Camera Database, and combine it with a lens of your choice from the Lens Database.

As a result, you get a graphical representation of the lens image circle, overlaid on top of the camera recoding mode and camera sensor. This quickly gives you an idea, if this camera and lens pairing is compatible.

In addition, you can add extenders or speed boosters to see what effect they would have. You also get information on where you can buy the gear and more in-depth information like the Field of View, and helpers for working with anamorphic lenses.

Lens Database

The Lens Database is built around a large selection of spherical and anamorphic zoom & prime lenses, photo as well as cine lenses.

This tool helps you find dozens of modern & vintage lenses, and includes links for most of the lenses to where you can buy them.

Quickly filtering and comparing such a large catalogue of lenses greatly helps you make a buying decision. It also helps film crew like camera operators and assistants be more efficient during camera prep.

You can also quickly switch to the Lens Coverage Tool and virtually put any lens on any camera from the Camera Database to see if the lens coverage is compatible with the resolution and sensor crop of your camera.

Original Knowledge Base (UCDB)

It all started with the Camera Database, originally called "Ultimate Camera Database" (UCDB). This small web project contained all possible camera recording modes, resolutions, recording formats, and how many minutes you could record onto a single memory card before it was full.

This tool provided answers to most questions that Florian would be asked regularly by rental clients.

The website served as an online helper for the rental staff, and it was way more convenient than searching through multiple spreadsheets that were saved locally on a computer somewhere.

Lens Tables

Soon after the "Ultimate Camera Database", the next project was to collect technical data for all the lenses that were available to rent at the camera rental.

Often times, rental staff had to look up the front diameter of lenses in order to include the correct matte box clamp adapter, or the filter thread of photo lenses, so the correct ND filter size could be booked. Lens weight and size was important to know, when customers wanted to put a camera package on gimbals.

All of this data would end up in lens tables as part of the Knowledge Base.

Lens Coverage Tool

The Lens Coverage Tool is the tool that ultimately put the Knowledge Base on the radar of many manufacturers, production companies and freelancers.

It combined all the necessary recording modes and recording formats from the camera database, and the lens image circles from the lens tables.

The result was a simple graphical representation of the image circle, overlaid on top of the camera sensor to visualize, whether or not the lens covered the sensor and recording format, very similar to what you can find in today's Lens Coverage Tool.