The world's third consumer 8K camera has arrived, but it's not from Nikon, Fujifilm, Panasonic or Olympus – it's from niche Chinese manufacturer Bosma.
Following in the footsteps of the Canon EOS R5 (opens in new tab) and Sony A1 (opens in new tab), and beating both the Nikon Z9 (opens in new tab) and Sharp 8K Video Camera (opens in new tab) to the punch, the Bosma G1 8K is a curious camera from a little-known company in China best known for making binoculars, telescopes and smart cameras.
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Unlike the former three full-frame systems, the Bosma G1 8K uses a Micro Four Thirds image sensor and mount – just like the Sharp 8K Video Camera. Indeed, it appears that the Bosma uses the same sensor – a brand-new 33MP CMOS affair with a resolution of 7680 x 4320 – as the Sharp camera, which has been in a state of limbo ever since being revealed at CES 2019.
"There is a very good chance that this is the same exact sensor that was being used in Sharp’s 8K Micro Four Thirds Camera," notes Newsshooter (opens in new tab). "Sharp and Astro Design have collaborated before on quite a few cameras and that also appears to be the case with the Bosma G1 8K."
Astro Design is a distributor in Japan that is currently renting and selling the camera – which was quoted as having a $5,000 price tag in this interview (opens in new tab) from CES 2020.
The Bosma captures 8K at 30 or 25p at a bitrate of 200Mbps, and 4K at 60, 50, 30, 25 or 24p at 100Mbps, with continuous recording times of up to 30 minutes. Both 8-bit and 10-bit recording is offered, using the H.264 or H.265 codec for MOV or MP4 files.
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No doubt to keep costs down, the camera uses CFast 2.0 cards or records directly to an external SSD – though it is geared towards real-time streaming via HDMI 2.1 or a low-price, live 5G streaming option.
Full specs of the Bosma G1 8K can be found on the Astro Design website (opens in new tab), or you can check out the YouTube presentation above (make sure to turn on subtitles unless you can read Japanese!)
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Sony A1 review (opens in new tab)
Nikon Z9 announced with 8K video and stacked sensor (opens in new tab)
