Camera rumors for 2016?

6K Full Frame Sony FS5 (similar body) camera due this NAB 2016.

I just found this on Sony Alpha Rumors.

Specs:

Full Frame Sony FS5 (similar body) camera due this NAB 2016.
Full Frame Sensor (based on a Sony 6K sensor, with improved 4K from it)
Improved AF similar to the a6300,
10bit 4:2:2 Internal recording (not LongGop)
RAW output similar to the one coming to the FS5
A new Sony Touchscreen
IBIS
Improved Menu System, and easy access to commonly used features.
Improvement Colour Science
Improved White Balance
Price is slightly above the FS7


http://www.sonyalpharumors.com/sr2-rumored-specs-of-a-new-sony-e-mount-6k-camera/



Personally I'd take this with a grain of salt, not sure what sensor they would use but the
other specs make sense in terms of improvements we are likely to see in any upgrade.
I think it's only a matter of time until we see a FF sensor in the FS body.
Just My 2 Cents.
 
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6K Full Frame Sony FS5 (similar body) camera due this NAB 2016.

I just found this on Sony Alpha Rumors.

Specs:

Full Frame Sony FS5 (similar body) camera due this NAB 2016.
Full Frame Sensor (based on a Sony 6K sensor, with improved 4K from it)
Improved AF similar to the a6300,
10bit 4:2:2 Internal recording (not LongGop)
RAW output similar to the one coming to the FS5
A new Sony Touchscreen
IBIS
Improved Menu System, and easy access to commonly used features.
Improvement Colour Science
Improved White Balance
Price is slightly above the FS7


http://www.sonyalpharumors.com/sr2-rumored-specs-of-a-new-sony-e-mount-6k-camera/
Still not convinced with FS5 specs (4k 8 bit), this new camera could be the winner instead.
 
Ya, I think the guy (the owner of the whole 43/Mirrorless/SonyAlpha/FujiRumours chain of sites) got played here. That said, Sony's execs did promise that 2016 will exceed expectations. With the NAB coming up in a month, Sony could shake up the $10,000-$20,000 niche by a whole lot.
 
It's certainly possible and not at all surprising, especially if it's higher-priced than the FS7.

I'm not sure why some think it unthinkable:

  • Do you think a 135 sensor is too big for the body of an FS5? The VG900, for example, is a camcorder body with a full-frame sensor. Then again, the A7S is even smaller, so I don't see the problem.
  • Do you think a 135 sensor is too expensive? Then see my argument about the VG900 or the A7S, only think price instead of size.
  • Something else? Then whatever reason is so obvious it's not worth mentioning, is not obvious enough to me.


That being said, I'm not attracted more to a full-frame sensor than an S35 one. I like shallow focus, but I like having all things in focus too sometimes. Something around 4/3 or S35 is ideal. I'd even take S16.
 
ARRI manufacturing harks back to the pre- and WWII era German economy, which essentially disdained the "American style" mass production techniques and used the so-called "Taktzeit" (loosely translated as "timing") methodology. Which was the primary reason - in my opinion - of why the Germans lost the war. For example, having built the largest automobile factory in the world for car manufacturing (VW, then "Kraft durch Freude/"Strength through joy"), the state run plant produced about 58,000 Kubelwagen/Swinnwagen (military versions of the Maykäfer/May Beetle) in about four and a years of production or roughly a thousand per month. By comparison, Wyllys-Overland produced ~ 360,000 or ~ 8,000/mo from the factory half the size. The German system was based on highly skilled labor that took years to educate and bring up to the required standards. The American system was based on "Rosie the Riveter". Obviously, since then, the German manufacturers in general developed automated technologies on par with anyone in the world but, IMO, they still have the "kraftsman" mentality, which is why there's essentially no low end product that comes out of Germany. Many nations - the US, Mexico and anyone in South East Asia - is perfectly willing to slap together an inexpensive mass-assembled product to be sold at the gigantic retail outlets but that rarely happens in Germany and rarely comes from it it...

Soooo on the money DLD.
As a company you have to carve out your section of 'turf'.
(Henry) Ford chose high volume/low prices as his strategy; whereas Rolls-Royce went with low volume/high quality (and high prices.)

Combatentropy, Arri is not "obligated" to lower their prices, just sell to the masses. They've chosen the higher end of the spectrum. It's not always a matter of simple economics.
But on the other hand, consider this; technology is becoming cheaper by the day.
Think about it; if a $6000 Sony FS5 (or a camera like it) had come out 5 years ago, we would have collectively crapped our pants. :shocked:
I mean jeez, look at the footage coming from the (alleged) BMD Ursa Mini 4.6k. It looks pretty 'filmic' for well under $8k.
I would imagine Arri will have to up it's game considerably to retain it's 'Rolls-Royce' stature in the face of growing competition.
 
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It's certainly possible and not at all surprising, especially if it's higher-priced than the FS7.

I'm not sure why some think it unthinkable:

  • Do you think a 135 sensor is too big for the body of an FS5? The VG900, for example, is a camcorder body with a full-frame sensor. Then again, the A7S is even smaller, so I don't see the problem...

RX1/II has a full frame sensor in a sub-compact P&S style body ... but I don't see it being the basis of a ~ $10,000 pro camera either. At least, not in 2016.


Soooo on the money DLD. As a company you have to carve out your section of 'turf'.
(Henry) Ford chose high volume/low prices as his strategy; whereas Rolls-Royce went with low volume/high quality (and high prices.)
The amusing/ironic thing here is that Hitler was a huge admirer of Ford's and has bestowed the German Cross in Gold upon him, the highest honor that could be given to a foreign individual during that era. Fortunately for his enemies, Hitler did not insist on Ford's history of mass assembly. In the fall of 1942, a top US tank manufacturing facility (Detroit Arsenal Tank Plant/DATP) was producing roughly the double of the number of tanks each month (adjusting for the relative weights and costs of the individual models) than the entire German war industry combined.

As to ARRI, historically, the high end/professional film/TV production was high profit/low volume, which allowed for an "artisan" approach from the like of Panavision, ARRI, Sony, etc. In the last decade and a half, the industry in general has become just the opposite - high volume and lower margins. There'll always be some high end, by definition, but a 14-stop, 6K camera in the $10,000-$12,000 range will make a lot of the high end unnecessary.
 
Think about it; if a $6000 Sony FS5 (or a camera like it) had come out 5 years ago, we would have collectively crapped our pants. :shocked:
I mean jeez, look at the footage coming from the (alleged) BMD Ursa Mini 4.6k. It looks pretty 'filmic' for well under $8k.
I would imagine Arri will have to up it's game considerably to retain it's 'Rolls-Royce' stature in the face of growing competition.

The Sony FS5 is a very nice camcorder that I have been asking for since at least 2008. So if it had come out five years ago, I would have said, as I do now, it just needs global shutter. A less-compressed codec would be nice too, also possible five years ago. The FS5 is a really good example, actually, of why I'm so frustrated with the camera companies' glacial pace. DLD has in posts past said that in Japan collusion is legal, and to me that helps explain it. When they're not pulling a Canon and stepping on the brakes of progress as much as they can get away with, they are tripping and falling over design gaffs. Technology is improving, but it's like watching the paint dry.

As for Arri, there seems to always be room at the top if you are just: reliable, durable, ergonomic, resilient (keeps working in hot or cold temperatures, etc.), and fast (fast menus, fast boot, etc.). They don't need to go to 8K or 18 f-stops. There are sharply diminishing returns after 4K (after 2K in fact), after 12 f-stops, and so on. My point is, no matter what year it is, there will always be flimsy plastic buggy slow-booting products. Making a reliable, intuitive product for some reason is always hard, maybe because it's from getting a thousand little details right, rather than just pulling a Gillette and adding a fifth blade.
 
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When does it end?
Well, as mentioned just above this post, there's a law of diminishing returns. In this case, we have a human eye/brain limit to discern images finer than a modern camera is already capable of delivering. It's like with a car tech : a manufacturer can easily make a 600 HP automobile but, since you can only drive it legally 80 MPH tops in the US anyway, all a car really needs is ~ 40-50 HP. (technically speaking, a sedan traveling at ~ 60 MPH constant speed will only use about 20-25 HP, which is why - once again going back to history - Ferdinand Porsche's Volkswagen design deemed a 25 HP engine entirely sufficient for going 100 KMH/62 MPH on the Autobahn). Off the already existing image acquisition technologies, I can see holography picking up steam (though 3D is dead and buried) going into the future. In terms of the conventional 2D video, however, the best displays technology (laser powered 4K projectors) are pretty much at or above the human eye level and the pro cameras are at or above the display level. And, if one looks at the lowest priced pro spec/pro featured camera, URSA 4.6K Mini is supposed to deliver it for about $5,000 already. And Sony will probably try to match that - or, at worst, come close to that - by the NAB'16.

And then create something similar for $2,500 by 2017.

And then a better model for $1,000 by 2,018.

And then they will just close shop and go home.
 
They'll probably start the whole thing over with 8K. Which should bring us to at least 2020 to 2022.
8K will work for the large commercial displays (75" and greater), where an advertiser might want a superior resolution at a point-blank range. 8K cameras will be featured during the major sporting events. There certainly will be several 8K cameras at the NAB in a month. For most shooters, however, the affordability and the workflow improvements of the 4K gear will probably take precedence.

PS. A point about product rumors, since this is a rumor thread - a single post by an allegedly "in-the-know" member on a Honda Forum has generated a slew of articles on all the major car publications for the last couple of months. The rumor happened to be fairly plausible - a potential 2017 Civic SI with ~ 220 HP turbo engine - but it's been the only source of such gossip. And yet, it's on Yahoo Auto, Road&Track, etc.
 
Here's an interesting tidbit. Folks over at Chipworks have decided to take apart Galaxy S7 and found that this Samsung smartphone - let me repeat it ... Samsung smartphone - has a Dual Pixel Phase Detection auto focus a la Canon. And that the sensor is (probably ... highly probably) made by Sony.

Dual pixel phase detection autofocus (PDAF) technology! We first saw this concept in use in 2013 in a much different imaging application: the Canon EOS 70D DSLR. Canon committed 80% of the 70D’s active pixel array to dual pixel CMOS AF functionality. A similar concept has now been adapted to the world of small-pixel mobile camera chips, where 100% of the 12 MP active pixel array is committed to both sensing and providing data to the AF system. What is impressive about the new dual pixel feature is the chip design team's ability to roll out this technology in a 1.4 µm pixel generation (Canon’s DSLR system used 4.1 µm generation pixels). The results are stunning – the S7’s photos are of high quality, especially when viewed on its Quad HD display.
We’ll be doing more thorough analysis of the dual pixel technology over the coming days and weeks, but our initial review of the 12 MP camera module shows a camera module size of 12.1 mm x 12.1 mm x 5.4 mm thick. We’ve been reading the web articles indicating a Sony IMX260 design win for the 12 MP socket and we’re eagerly awaiting results from our lab to confirm. Based on the “SONY” logo on the module’s flex cable, we believe the speculation to be true.



http://www.chipworks.com/about-chipworks/overview/blog/samsung-galaxy-s7-edge-teardown
 
And then create something similar for $2,500 by 2017.

And then a better model for $1,000 by 2,018.

And then they will just close shop and go home.

No matter what the year, major companies like Sony will produce innovative products for people whose budgets are any of the following:
$250
$500
$1000
$2500
$5000
$10,000
$25,000
$50,000
“Whatever money is in your budget, we’d like it all.”
 
No matter what the year, major companies like Sony will produce innovative products for people whose budgets are any of the following:
$250
$500
$1000
$2500
$5000
$10,000
$25,000
$50,000
“Whatever money is in your budget, we’d like it all.”
That's true but the bulk of sales will reflect a constant downward slide in price with a trajectory similar to computers, which is what the cameras are pretty much anyway. When I first got into retail - by visiting stores, at first - I recall an average computer running about $2,500, which would be ~ $5,000 today after accounting for inflation. Meanwhile, I reckon an average home PC runs somewhere around $500-$700 in 2016 while delivering performance barely imaginable in the 1980's. The difference, however, is that cameras run into the eye/brain limitations, as bandied about earlier.

BTW, with regard to the Sony sensors in Samsung smartphones, it is now confirmed, including the model number, but ... not every Galaxy7 will have the same sensor. Some will have Samsung's own and Samsung isn't disclosing at the moment how a consumer could tell which is which.
 
I posted this at the NAB'16 thread. C500 is rumored to be dropping in price from $16,000 to $10,000 starting next week (Monday). So, with its replacement being bandied about for almost a year now, this seems like a sure sign that it is indeed on its way.

Of course, what it is ain't exactly clear.
 
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