C100 with Ninja has 60% more chroma information than a Blackmagic

Wanted to pass by this thread and include a couple of elements Im not seeing a lot of talk about in the C100 threads and this is on the presumption that these things are the same on the C100 with an external recorder as you would see on the C300. These are things that strongly influenced my decision to go with the C300 so, I'll ask them as questions to myself.

Does the C300 deliver natural skin tones?
Yes, it certainly does. Not just that but its skin tone rendition is fantastic, better than some cameras way above its price point in my opinion. In addition to that I firmly believe that skin tone rendition should be something thats discussed more: Resolution / DR / Skin tones and the following...

How would you describe the C300's motion rendition in 24/25 fps?
I hate to use the term film like as theres so many things that make up an image to get to that end, but it is, its film like plain and simple.
 
Barry_Green said:
Binning is combining multiple pixels into one, yes, but in a monochrome way. In turning a Bayer pattern RGBG block into a single RGB pixel, presumably there's a different term for that? Or is it simply demosaicing the 2x2 block?
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Well, you are right. Pixel binning is usually handled on sensor, and isn't intelligent, so it doesn't understand colour information, so is usually relegated to monochrome image sensors. But the idea is the same. Whereas in this case, the binning is happening post read-out, and it is intelligent (colour aware).

I wouldn't say it is demosaicing, because that usually involves incomplete colour information, and the interpolation thereof, which sorta isn't the case here. I like to think of this new method as colour-aware pixel-binning (CAPB), or intelligent pixel-binning (IPB), but IPB is already taken as an acronym, so I will simply use CAPB.

Whether or not that is appropriate, I can't say. But I like it.

mraaron895 said:
This is why the Canon Cinema cameras are so much more than other cameras on the market. They employ a brand new sensor technology, which was expensive to research and produce. One of the main reasons I switched from the FS100 to the c300 was that it couldn't distinguish the difference between hot pink and orange. I love having a S35 sensor that acts exactly like a 3 chip camera with the same color reproduction.
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It isn't new sensor technology that is doing it. This new way of handling the pixels is happening after the sensor read-out. It is common in the monochrome sensor world, and called pixel binning. It is just in this case, the sensor isn't doing the pixel binning, it is the image processing system which doing a colour-aware pixel binning after it reads out all the data from the sensor.
 
I think it is important to distinguish between spatial resolution and color depth. Increasing bits from 8 to 10 or 12 gives you increased subtly at each color sample, but it does nothing to increase the amount of color samples important to spatial resolution. So, ProRes C100 still has 60% more color resolution than BMCC ProRes. What is more important to the eye, color depth or spatial resolution? The eye has no way to know if the orginal has 256 shades of color or 4K, so what it sees first is spatial resolution. Of course, given identical spatial resolutions the eye will favor increased depth, but not by as much as you think.

It is like comparing a 1080p 8 bit to a 720p 10 bit; most audiences will favor the 1080p because they will see more spatial information.
 
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I am not impressed with the quality of the internal debayer in the BMCC shooting to Prores. A true high quality debayer algorithm matched to the specific color space of a particular sensor's filter gamuts gets more color information than a straight RGB sample by pixel can achieve at the same resolution. Oversampling does make a lot of difference though.
You do not lose color resolution information with a sohpisticated full interpolation, you gain.
 
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This is a very good topic, but got me wondering, why use a ninja instead of the more affordable blackmagic design hyperdeck shuttle 2? which now shoots prores
 
Barry_Green said:
Binning is combining multiple pixels into one, yes, but in a monochrome way. In turning a Bayer pattern RGBG block into a single RGB pixel, presumably there's a different term for that? Or is it simply demosaic'ing the 2x2 block?
Click to expand...
It is still binning 4 pixels into a single larger output pixel. The actual color sample ratio for the binned pixel would be 2G:1R:1B or comparable to a 4:2:2 encoded video pixel, which is what the camera outputs. An OLPF that produced a minimum COC equal to the binned pixel size would produce a uniform pixel color for sampling.
 
The BMD hyper deck has a low entry cost, but the reams of data it produces each time it records uncompressed and the subsequent long off load times, and the increased data storage costs will be a something that you pay for every time you use the BMD Hyper deck. What is the data volume for 1 hour of 1080-24 recorded on a Hyperdeck? Something like 700 gigs?
 
philiplipetz said:
I think it is important to distinguish between spatial resolution and color depth. Increasing bits from 8 to 10 or 12 gives you increased subtly at each color sample, but it does nothing to increase the amount of color samples important to spatial resolution.
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The thing is though that color isn't important to spatial resolution. That's why color is usually sub-sampled to 4:2:0 or 4:2:2...the human eye can't see small changes in color. The human eye perceives detail based on luminance, not color. Try it out in Photoshop...take an image and duplicate the layer...now set the top one to "Color" blend mode and start blurring the layer. See how little it changes the overall image? You start to see some fringing on some edges, but it definitely doesn't affect the resolution of the image to your eye.
 
However, it is still not clear whether the BMC will be able to overcome the production issues in the next few quarters. A cynical person may say that this camera is threatening to become more academic than real due to the production delays.

Who will want to be a guinea pig / glorified beta tester for this company since the critical part like sensor is in trouble?

However, I guess after arousing interest and fan following, they will take time to launch a camera with a bigger & better low light capable sensor. Now that the secrecy issues are not there - as every other camera company knows that Black Magic is into cameras - so sourcing sensors from established players shouldn't be an issue. I guess if they take that route, an alternate camera can come to the market and give some good competition to the established players. Unfortunately, BMC has lost the advantage.

dcloud said:
http://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/hyperdeckshuttle/
firmware is now out that supports prores!
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Great news about Prores for my Shuttle 2 :) Considering the other recorders on the market the Shuttle just took a leap forward.
 
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