Does the new Canons 3x-10 put E-T-C in the shade

[flinty]

Does the new canon T3is 3x-10 new lossless zoom feature put the GH2s E-T-C in the shade,it reportedly gives 10x extra losless zoom to a lens compared to the GH2s 2.6 extra,the 3.9 extra useing 720P is useless as the quality of the vdeo is very bad,this was one of the reasons i chose the GH for wildlfe useing E-T-C when needed

 

[MR Fanny]

is this relative to sensor size? so say having this feature on a full frame will yield more lossless zoom?

 

[flinty]

The T3i is not full frame but 1.6 and the 3x-10 extra 10x zoom is completely new to canon dslrs

 

[Dazza]

Not exactly sure how they manage 10x lossless zoom since the sensor is only 18 MP. Maybe it's just marketing fluff to give a bigger number.

Intermediate sensor crops would be nice though like they have on the Nokia phones

Edit : numbers munched up

 

[pomoville]

I don't quite understand this, as cropping 1080p out of the GH2 sensor elicits only a 2.6x crop -- its sensor is 16 megapixels. How can cropping 1080p out of Canon's 18 MP sensor allow for a lossless 10x zoom?

...

After researching, I found this helpful page: http://www.michaelthemaven.com/?postID=1739&how-canon-t3is-new-10x-video-zoom-probably-works

So taking 1080p out of the sensor gives a 3x crop -- a bit less than what you would get zooming an 18-180 from full-wide to full-tele (18x2=36, 36x2=72, 72x2=144, 144x1.25=180, so the frame gets "cropped" 3x and change.)

I think that's right, anyway. So presumably the 10x is the actual 1080p crop while everything between 3x-10x is done by line-skipping. That said, I don't see why you couldn't line skip all the way from 1x-10x?

This is still somewhat confusing to me, so it wouldn't be terribly surprising if I got something mixed up.

 

[mpgxsvcd]

Imaging resource tested this new Canon feature and while it is quite cool it is not lossless like the GH2’s ETC is.

The canon zoom can actually be continuously controlled while filming from 3x-10x by using the left and right buttons. That is cool but it is always scaling the image. This is not a 1:1 pixel mode at all. It is just a really good implementation of digital zoom. Which in my book is nowhere near what the ETC mode is.

 

[flinty]

In some tests i have done in 24P with E-T-C there is more noise on the picture and a banding affect at the same zoom angle ,this i find dissapointing,is E-T-C a hype after all.