Thursday is NAB‘s rump day. The show floor closes early, at 4 p.m. instead of the usual 6 p.m. And if you stay to the bitter end as I do inevitably each year, you get to hear a voice over the P.A. announcing NAB‘s end, a cheer going up from tired booth workers, then a Scottish bagpiper playing a live version of “Amazing Grace.” I‘ve never actually seen the bagpiper, just heard him.

What‘s truly special about Thursday is that most of the madding crowd has gone. Thursday is viewed as a slow day, and it‘s the day that folks abandon their own booths to go inspect firsthand what else NAB has to offer on display, including their competitor‘s products. Quite a few industry VIPs, for instance, were drawn as if by magnetic force to RED‘s booth today. As I idled my motor near the Phantom High-Speed Digital Cameras in Abel Cine Tech‘s booth a short while this afternoon, several employees of JVC and Panasonic dropped by.

In my case, Thursday is always Leitner‘s Last-Minute Mad Dash. Happens every year, no matter how well-organized I attempt to be. (“No plan survives contact with the enemy,” but German Field Marshall Helmuth von Molke could just as well have been handicapping the odds of clockwork schedules surviving contact with the vast geographies of NAB‘s show floors.)

So I literally sprinted around Central and South Halls today, trying to touch all the bases I‘d managed to miss the previous three days. And I took a snapshot camera this time. To take pictures of–what else?–cameras.

A picture‘s worth a thousand words, which saves yours truly some time and keyboard tapping. (It‘s been an intense NAB and I‘m, pardon the pun, tapped out.) So enjoy these brief descriptions, presented in the order I came across these items on the show floor–let‘s hear it for serendipity–and if you‘re interested in how these technologies will fare between now and next year‘s NAB, stay tuned to Millimeter and Digital Content Producer.

Silicon Imaging‘s SI-2K Digital Cinema Camera, with sleek new design courtesy Munich‘s P+S Technik. Features standard cine PL mount, direct-to-disk CineForm RAW recording, and embedded Iridas SpeedGrade for on-location “look management” of images. Photo taken at P+S Technik‘s booth.

Silicon Imaging‘s SI-2K Mini (at right) with P+S Technik universal lens mount adapter (at left)–adapter is nearly same size as camera!

Sinuous lightweight ARRI 235 35mm camera with gorgeous Angenieux 28-76mm short zoom. Photo with Angenieux rep taken at Angenieux booth.

Mitch Gross of Abel Cine Tech with Phantom HD High-Speed Digital Camera, which features Super 35mm-sized CMOS sensor, PL mount, Sony color viewfinder, variable frame rates up to 1000 frames/sec.

65mm-sized CMOS sensor behind PL mount of Phantom 65 4K High-Speed Digital Camera, which outputs 4K at variable frame rates up to 125 frames/sec. Phantom 65 4K camera is otherwise identical in size to Phantom HD.

Could it be? Perforations at NAB? Aaton‘s 2-perf/3-perf Penelope is a tight number.

She‘s formidable on the outside too. Note those dual batteries, unique to Aaton 16 and 35mm cameras.

These aren‘t cameras exactly, but they‘re a camera‘s best friends: LitePanels‘ 1×1 square-foot dimmable, lightweight “wireless” LED light (they have their own flat Lithium-ion battery on back) held by inventor Pat Grosswendt, who doesn‘t seem to mind being a human light stand.

Looks like Aaton‘s wooden handgrip carver got carried away. And wouldn‘t this require a wooden lens? Seen at P+S Technik‘s booth.

Prototype of 3 x 1/2-inch sensor XDCAM EX. (CCD or CMOS? Sony won‘t say…) Two slots available for SanDisk consumer flash memory (at right) using faster ExpressCard standard (2x faster than P2). Same 18, 25, and 35 Mbps MPEG2 as XDCAM HD. LCD screen pivots out from under broad internal mic. About $8,000.

And get this: XDCAM EX‘s focus ring does not travel continuously. Yes, those are true focus marks in feet and meters. And yes, those are traditional f/stops inscribed on the inner ring.

Saving best for last, Sony‘s amazing 3-CCD F23, reportedly capable of 12+ stops of latitude thanks to new prism technology and new IT CCDs with multi-element micro-lenses. Portable SRW-1 HDCAM SR recorder attaches like a film magazine. Standing behind is proud papa Jeff Cree of Burbank‘s Band Pro Film and Digital, which has already placed an order for 100 F23s.

Jeff showed me that if you remove the lensed eyepiece from the F23‘s color viewfinder, the viewfinder converts to a 3.5-inch LCD screen. Cool!

If one image sums up the burning intensity of NAB 2007, this is it. The last picture I took on Thursday as I exited South Hall for good.

To all my talented friends at NAB, see you next year!