Panasonic seems to be announcing something "BIG" on December 15

[no_connection]

4 hours ago, webrunner5 said:

Well it is not the pixel count, it is the pixel size!

 

Well bigger pixels with same count would be bigger sensor.

For the same sensor size the megapixel count does not change the noise performance much unless you go to the extreme, you can check this by downloading raw files from cameras online and scale them properly to the same size. Go rescale a a7r image to a7s size and you won't get that big of a difference in noise. The fact that a7r don't do full pixel readout is a different issue. Or a7r2 vs a7s2 might be a better comparison.

Yes there will be some, and some sensors manage readout better or worse when they cram as much pixels as they can into a small area.

And the RGBW or other methods can't really be done with 1:1 readout rato without fun problems like aliasing and other debayer headaches. So oversampling do benefit by it more than the "bigger pixel" approach.

I'm just saying that slapping a lower resolution on it won't magically make it a lot better in low light if the "higher res" version of it was done decently enough.

[seku]

as they say, the proof is in the pudding? let's just wait and see how this will play out

and invest in great lenses meanwhile. great glass never gets old

[webrunner5]

7 hours ago, no_connection said:

Well bigger pixels with same count would be bigger sensor.

For the same sensor size the megapixel count does not change the noise performance much unless you go to the extreme, you can check this by downloading raw files from cameras online and scale them properly to the same size. Go rescale a a7r image to a7s size and you won't get that big of a difference in noise. The fact that a7r don't do full pixel readout is a different issue. Or a7r2 vs a7s2 might be a better comparison.

Yes there will be some, and some sensors manage readout better or worse when they cram as much pixels as they can into a small area.

And the RGBW or other methods can't really be done with 1:1 readout rato without fun problems like aliasing and other debayer headaches. So oversampling do benefit by it more than the "bigger pixel" approach.

I'm just saying that slapping a lower resolution on it won't magically make it a lot better in low light if the "higher res" version of it was done decently enough.

"Well bigger pixels with same count would be bigger sensor". ahh, you can only put so many pixels on a sensor. If you have a "bigger sensor"  those same sized pixels would not fill up a larger sensor. So you would have smaller "wells" to capture light with. Pixels Have to cover the entire sensor. The more you have the Smaller they have to be.

Hell maybe we are saying the same thing, but there is no way in heck you can have unbelievable low light using a sensor with say 50mb on a FF sensor.. Unless it is a MF sensor with HUGE sensors. And that is why MF cameras are so good. Large pixels per sq inch to gather more light..

One of the best older low light Cine cameras is a Sony F3. It only had like a 3.4 mp sensor in it. It is so the pixels, pixel pitch, can be huge to gather more light. And 2mp is all you need for 1080p anyways.

Hell when I got in Broadcast TV the top of the line Sony 3 Tube Cine 2/3 cameras had less than 1mp total because they were only 480i. And they weighed over 20 pounds. And before we could use them the techs had to turn them on at least an hour before we could even shoot them to "Warm" them up to be stable. And after that they had techs that checked them for correct color balance before we could  go out and shoot them in the field. They only did like 550 lines of resolution. Just Sony Beta. They cost about $100,000.00 a camera with deck..

When the first 2/3 CCD Sony Cine Cameras we had came in they did 720p @24fps and they had 1mp total. Anything above 24p was interlaced video, not true intra p footage. They weighed around 18 pounds or a bit less. They would do like 750 lines of resolution. That was Sony Beta SP. They cost about 75 to $80,000.00 a camera with deck..

Man how things have changed specs wise, but I bet the cost are damn near as much in real dollars as then. It was CRAZY ASS money to have a TV station back them. Millions and Millions of dollars, and that was insane crazy money back in the late 70's.

I remember the President of the company coming in once, , nearly pulling his hair out LoL, asking did we Really need another new switcher that cost nearly 1 million dollars to replace our old one!! I remember also the pedestal tripod for the main news camera on the floor cost 65,000 bucks alone. With the camera , box lens, and tripod it was close to $250,000.00. And we has 3 of those, 2 of them when I worked there were older though. Crazy stuff. I can't imagine what it cost TV stations to switch to Digital from Analog TV!!!! You just can't go into it a little at a time, it had to be all or nothing!

Old memories from a old guy LoL.

My one daughter in California still has 2 Sony 2/3 3 CCD cameras and recording decks, tripods, chargers, etc at her house I had in the 80"s I bought. She majored in Creative Writing at the time to help with the dialog. I was one of first people I knew in Ohio that was doing freelance broadcast video Ads for local people back them. Crazy times. I had more business than I could do part time at the time. I had very good credit at the time LoL.

You know even now is a good time to do local business Ads for people to help pay off your gear and hone your skills. Same opportunity now as then. It will never go away. People have to advertise. And they think you are God until you hand them the bill Lol. I have seen grown men nearly faint, Heh. The more takes the more money is a good thing to stress LoL.

[webrunner5]

I did a lot of crazy things back them. I was the first person in Ohio to ever own a IBM XT computer around 1982. It had a 4mb, yeah mb hard drive in it and 64k, yeah k of memory. I paid over 7,000 bucks for it. I was maybe the first person in the world two have to video monitors hooked up at the same time to a PC computer, maybe any type of computer.

I was trying to teach my daughter Digital Turtle Graphics and I wanted a Monochrome monitor for text, and a RGB color monitor for the graphics, running at the same time, to made it easier for her to learn. I had a degree in Computer Science at the time.

I called Digital Computers and they thought I was crazy, not going to happen, not possible. And then I called IBM and they said We Never ever thought about doing that. About 3 months later they wrote me a one off machine language program to make it happen. I had my picture and computer setup in their corporate newsletter, they gave me 500 dollars and a 600 dollar "six pack" I/O board for coming up with the idea. A few months later anyone could do it if they wanted to.

I also had a business called The Data Bank Company going at the same time. I was on the Web before there was a thing called the web. It was out of Phoenix, Arizona. Cost 250 dollars a month.  It was mostly just for Colleges. I was one of the few in the world that was on it as a regular person. I can't remember the name any more. I did research for court cases for lawyers.  I would download the data all night, I had a 300 baud modem with a 256k modem buffer on it.  And it print out using 3 Epson printers going 10 hours a day, I would wear out all 3 of them nearly each month!  used a 20# box of printer paper a day. Charged 60 bucks an hour back them. A ton of money in the early 80's. Worked out of my home part time. I was a BUSY bastard in those days. On the foreskin of technology as they say Lol.

[sondreg]

Then you'd know the easiest (and the best) way to increase light is to stop shooting progressive and go interlaced   /s

 

I don't remember the reasoning for this, but the earliest videocameras had +1 stop of light in interlaced mode.

[PannySVHS]

@webrunner5, Great writeup. An awesome read. I remember, when SVHS C was an entry into making cinema like interlaced images possible for nonprofessionals. Well, what we thought would be cinema like:) It´s a shame that a restarted into video with digital only two years ago. All this fun with fascinating tech I´ve been missing out on all those years. Do you remember the videotoaster from Newtech? I cam around one years ago in a TV station, built around an Amiga 4000. Kinda sad to see a fxxin ifon having zillion times more performance power than the hottest gfx computer money could back then buy. But so must have felt a lot of people when an electronic pocket calculator from the 80ies had more calculating power than computers from the early days, which were built with tubes and as large as a shopping mall:)

[no_connection]

7 hours ago, webrunner5 said:

Hell maybe we are saying the same thing, but there is no way in heck you can have unbelievable low light using a sensor with say 50mb on a FF sensor.. Unless it is a MF sensor with HUGE sensors. And that is why MF cameras are so good. Large pixels per sq inch to gather more light..

Well, if you look at a7rII vs a7sII you see there is not a huge difference in low light performance despite 1:4 difference in per pixel area (sensor not video as it can't use all pixels then), I had trouble finding a raw converter tho so I can't really show what I mean. If you scale a7rII jpeg to 50% they are not far off. Yes the pixels themself do get noisier, but when you combine 4 of them it reduce the noise of the resulting pixel you get that back, and can even use it to more intelligently reduce noise.

The difference between GH5 and GH5s sensor pixel size is less than the above mentioned.

Resolution vs noise is used all the time and is not a new concept, take bitstreaming for example, it's just 100% "noise" but averaged out it makes sound

At some point we are going to get down counting photons with "quantum sensors" where resolution is very high but you construct an image out of it. Photon energy would determine the color.

[Oliver Daniel]

So, with all the cryptic stuff going round and the current rumours, what do we realistically think the “GH5S” will be now? 

[no_connection]

Well to beat GH5 it would have to be way better in low light, and it probably is, but I would say that global shutter would be the video thing to do. More refined overall sure, but if it's meant to be video oriented having the option to go global shutter would be the biggest reason to go with a lower res sensor.

Also it's the 16th and no big thing.

[DBounce]

2 minutes ago, no_connection said:

Well to beat GH5 it would have to be way better in low light, and it probably is, but I would say that global shutter would be the video thing to do.

Way better in low-light than the GH5 should not be hard. I almost never push the GH5 beyond 1600 ISO. Whereas the 1DXMk2 can easily do clean 6400 and 12800 in a pinch. I would be happy with clean 6400 from the GH5. If we get more than that it would be great.

25 minutes ago, Oliver Daniel said:

So, with all the cryptic stuff going round and the current rumours, what do we realistically think the “GH5S” will be now? 

I think the latest 43rumor specs seem realistic. The question is how clean the new ISO range will be. Would have loved to have seen a clean raw output option.

[Inazuma]

I think Panasonic would be on to a real winner if it challenges the C line in low light and replaces the mechanical shutter with ND filters. 

[jonpais]

If it’s got clean ISO 6400, and you shoot with a focal reducer, what else will those who dislike u/4/3 find to complain about?

[Oliver Daniel]

16 minutes ago, Inazuma said:

I think Panasonic would be on to a real winner if it challenges the C line in low light and replaces the mechanical shutter with ND filters. 

This is the one big thing I miss from the FS5. Too often I have to increase the shutter speed because my Vari-ND doesn't have the right adapter ring for the lens or something. 

Better low light is an obvious one. I don't struggle too much with the current GH5 in video, if I ever take stills the low light is awful. 

The other intriguing think is 4k 50/60p in 10 bit. I'm really happy with the All-I 1080p mode though - absolutely awesome. So it's hard to say whether the 4k mode will be worth it. 

I think a few new frame rate options, better low light and improved dynamic range (possible through Dual ISO) will be what its all about. Mentions of RAW are a real long shot! 

It will be interesting if the video AF is improved, although not expecting much here. 

[Cinegain]

I think... 4/3" sensor, less megapixels, new sensor infrastructure (purer signals, nice color, lower noise, slight increase in dynamic range, far better highlight roll-off, faster readouts, practically no noticeable rolling shutter), improved processing (just overall cleaner, prettier), full V-Log (rather than V-Log L), possibly ProRes and h265 video recording options in all modes? Higher framerates possible. So I think this update mainly has to do with processing, data management and efficiency.

Not much more than that I think. No improved AF. No eND or anything. If they're hardcore about differentiating this from a stills or allround camera, it might possibly lack sensor stabilization to enable improved sensor data pulling (think one of the reasons traditional cinema cameras don't have this, as well as you're sorta expected to rig it up/support/stabilize it anyways), although it seemed to have gone shooting both on sticks and handheld, so who knows. Just... it wouldn't suprise me, as well for the fact that it would still render the GH5 a very valuable asset/tool in the bag. So... if you're under the impression this will be a magic unicorn... maybe lower your expectations just a little.

[deezid]

6 hours ago, jonpais said:

If it’s got clean ISO 6400, and you shoot with a focal reducer, what else will those who dislike u/4/3 find to complain about?

The missing Canon label...

[wolf33d]

10 hours ago, jonpais said:

If it’s got clean ISO 6400, and you shoot with a focal reducer, what else will those who dislike u/4/3 find to complain about?

As far as I am concerned I do not dislike M43. My complain on the GH5 is AF but that is not M43 related. 
Regarding sensor size, what people will probably complain VS Full Frame is the following: 

- Low Light. Yes it is going to be good, but 12mpx M43 will not equal FF 12mpx (A7S) for pixel size and therefore low light quality.

- Bokeh. That FF look.... And don't tell me about those speed booster that run a huge lens made for a big sensor on this camera, and loosing any chance of good AF with it. Why not use FF if it is to put FF glass on the body anyway...

Again depends on your use. For my photographic use, I could never use a M43 body. That's more related to DR (DR on M43 really sucks), malleability of the RAWs, low light and more (DoF for portraits for ex). Actually, I had the EM1 some time ago and I always produced way better landscapes out of a cheap APSC Nikon body, let alone my FF cameras. In Patagonia with the GH5, I did not take a single picture. Only used a small D5500 (very light body) on a tripod for landscapes. GH5 stayed on the Gimbal anyway. 

For video however, I could not care less of having better than clean ISO6400 as you mention so I will probably be totally fine with the GH5s, and I do not consider having extremely small DoF critical in video. I am satisfied enough with what a GH5 and good glass can get me wide open. I find it harder to work with super thin DoF anyway with moving subjects. 
In my case the only Go/No go for the GH5s will be AF. If it as a great DPAF I am in, if not I will wait and get the A7SIII (assuming it has GH5 specs and A7RIII AF, and will get A7RIII for photo. I am so tired of changing camera gear often.

But for people who need FF for video, it's gonna be about the 2 points above. I guess you cannot argue against those points. We all have different needs and that is good.

[mercer]

@wolf33d the 7D Mark iii will be out in the spring and you can have 4K and DPAF and you’ll be happy. 

And supposedly CLog

Hell the 5D Mark IV’s 1080p is pretty clean up to 60p. 

[Cliff Totten]

Sensor "A" and Sensor "B"....Sensor "A" has 4micron photo well and "B" has an 8micron. Both take in 100 (low light) photons and both produce the same voltage from those 100 photons. 

Let's say 1,000 photons will fully saturate a 4micorn well. Those same 1,000 photons might only fill "half" of the 8micron photosite well. The two of them have the same 
"low light" ability when they only have the same number of few photons collected but they both produce very different voltages when the light is good or strong. The smaller one will top out fast while the larger can keep producing higher and higher voltages before it saturates. So dynamic range in bright light is a big difference. But when light is so "low" that non of the pixels saturate, they will both produce the same low light performance. 

Big question....If an 8micron photosite takes in 100 photons....what can TWO photosites that are 4microns each do with 50 photons and 50 photons they both collected? Can you bin or "add" those two voltage readings "together" to equal the same voltage collected from ONE 8micron photosite with 100 photons?

How does pixel binning and summing actually work? Can you "really" play with and manipulate the light collection and voltage reading math like this?

We are dealing with small solar panels here. In very low light situations, a Micro 4/3 surface area only has exposure to a certain number of photons and can only generate voltages based on that limited value. How you "slice and dice" and "allocate into buckets" that FIXED NUMBER of low light photons....doesn't change the amount of overall light you took in on that read cycle.

You are either just bunching them up or spreading them out......but the overall photon count number doesn't change in "low light"? 

[Kisaha]

So, what was the announcement then?

[Mattias Burling]

37 minutes ago, Kisaha said:

So, what was the announcement then?

Its been pushed back. If I remember correctly the new date is jan 8.