Panasonic's Low Light Monsters

[sanveer]

A lot of people including Andrew have bene asking that Panasonic make a lower Resolution Sensor optimised for low light, keeping the pixel count low. Apparently Panasonic conveyed this brief to Sony and Voila !!!

I just noticed this from [bleeeeh] and checked it on the Sony Website to confit.  

Apparently Sony has developed a super low light sensor for M4/3, which is an 8MP (4k or a little under that). I am guessing that with the right processing this should increasing light sensitivity a few times.

http://www.sony-semicon.co.jp/products_en/news/detail/170301.pdf

[JurijTurnsek]

Another boost for DJI! Maybe this is why they delayed the OSMO successor.

[Cinegain]

Nah, Canon and Sony are deep in the scientific and surveillance game with certain camera ranges that have no consumer ambition at all. They're way expensive too.

[Chrad]

I know a certain video camera manufacturer with a proclivity to using industrial sensors and an MFT mount camera that is due for an update. 

[IronFilm]

1 minute ago, Chrad said:

I know a certain video camera manufacturer with a proclivity to using industrial sensors and an MFT mount camera that is due for an update. 

Is it a three letter acronym that starts with B and ends with D? ;-)

[Cinegain]

A proper BMPCC successor wouldn't be bad! But... then the focus would be on DR and gradability, not lowlight.

[Chrad]

19 minutes ago, Cinegain said:

A proper BMPCC successor wouldn't be bad! But... then the focus would be on DR and gradability, not lowlight.

Why not both? The size of the pixels here is huge. I don't know much about lens design, but I don't see why prioritising low light should necessarily mean poor DR.

[Cinegain]

It would be somewhat of a first, no? A lowlight monster cinema camera? I mean, they could make an exception, as the BMPCC might often be used as-is, without much or any lighting equipment, but most of the cinema cameras traditionally have pretty lousy high ISO noise performance, some even don't have the option to go all that high in the first place. You don't want to be far off from your base ISO, I guess that might be one reason for not having the ISO up all the way high or low. We've seen with the A7S that LOG profiles with a high base ISO can actually impose limitations rather than lift them. More in a practical way, anyways.

[Chrad]

2 hours ago, Cinegain said:

It would be somewhat of a first, no? A lowlight monster cinema camera? I mean, they could make an exception, as the BMPCC might often be used as-is, without much or any lighting equipment, but most of the cinema cameras traditionally have pretty lousy high ISO noise performance, some even don't have the option to go all that high in the first place. You don't want to be far off from your base ISO, I guess that might be one reason for not having the ISO up all the way high or low. We've seen with the A7S that LOG profiles with a high base ISO can actually impose limitations rather than lift them. More in a practical way, anyways.

These days all the cinema cameras have pretty high base ISO. Alexa is 800, as are the 4.6K, Pocket and 2.5K Blackmagics. Alexa has outstanding noise performance - to give you an idea, Birdman was shot at 1250. Varicam 35 is the true low light monster with two base ISOs on the sensor - 800 and 5000, with the same noise level for each.

[Cinegain]

I think everything up to and including ISO6400 should be considered quite normal generic territory. It's great the GH5 is now very capable at ISO3200. But that's nowhere near 'low light monster' levels, no? Go up from ISO6400 and every expensive Sony more or less handles ISO12800 as a champ. ISO25600, because why not... and only then are we starting to get somewhere in the monster levels... ISO51200, 102400, 204800, 409600! Absolutely unneccessary, but cool.

Think it's more for stuff like https://www.usa.canon.com/internet/portal/us/home/products/details/cameras/multi-purpose-cameras/me20f-sh & https://pro.sony.com/bbsc/ssr/cat-broadcastcameras/cat-pov/product-UMCS3C%2FP/ . MFT would help considerably keeping the set-up small and stealthy, so that might be the whole 'why' around this.

[noone]

1 hour ago, Cinegain said:

ISO51200, 102400, 204800, 409600! Absolutely unneccessary, but cool

For  most sure.      Some of us will take all we can get.      I think the RED Helium Weapon is the new low light champeen of the world currently.

I saw that PDF on DPreview (they were linking to it for the 150mp Medium format sensor).     I would love to see someone (anyone) use that 8mp m4/3 sensor in a hybrid camera but if it happened it would need to be excellent in specs for more than low light to justify making it or the cost would be too much since they otherwise would only sell to people like me.

204800 and 409600 ISOs are a step to far currently but I have had normal photos at ISO 51200 used in Newspapers.      102400 would be usable too (certainly for web use).     Black and white and you can go a little higher.     

For video, with the A7s, is ok too.    I set ISO 102400 sometimes with auto ISO in the hope it will only go to ISO 80000 if I need it.       In really low light, if I use 51200 with auto and it should be a bit higher, I see ghosting more sometimes.

What I want is to be able to shoot the same effectively no matter what the time of day or night.

 

[Kisaha]

With 8megapixels won't be a hybrid camera, even though we know that megapixels don't mean a thing, 8 is too little for most serious users, and less serious users, won't be able to pay for a "low light monster".

I just hope it will have ISO 435908209358270 because I am trying to expose Batman and I need a few millions billions more ISO sensitivity for the Batcave.

[noone]

I don't think it will happen at all as It would be too low res for most but if it was hybrid, it would at least sell a few more than if it was simply a video camera (and should therefore be cheaper).

If it did happen, I would be fine if it was usable at ISO 51200 or 102400 in a pinch.

I find it funny how some people like to knock others requirements just because it isn't something they need or use. 

I would simply like to be able to use a normal shutter speed at night (or in this case a bit longer).