F35: F35 vs Digital Bolex

[Viddovation]

CMOS chips cost more to develop, but they are cheaper to actually produce, particularly in quantity. Also, as JMtheDP says, CMOS can be produced on a standard semiconductor assembly line, while CCD requires a very specific assembly line useful for no other manufacturing processes. Also, both CMOS and CCD are subject to a failure rate - but not all failures are 100%, in many cases the quality control is to a desired standard. For RED, they used the same chips in both Epic and Scarlet, but the Scarlets got the chips that failed the EPIC QC, but were still working at a lower standard. Others still had to simply be tossed. CCDs are also much more difficult to manufacture in large sizes than CMOS chips, or so I've read. The combination of a multitude of these factors and others meant that the limited run of F35/Genesis CCD imagers were definitely expensive to produce, when accounting for R&D, failure at QC, the specialty assembly line, and so forth.

Also, CCD is a pretty mature technology, and the F35 sensor was pushing it's limits in many ways. CMOS by contrast has much more room for growth. Given that CMOS chips now are cheaper (when produced in quantity) the market has shifted in that direction, and it's unlikely they will look back.

 

[keithlango]

Fun thing is, as long as we can still get the frames off the disk then these cameras can remain useful and relevant to whomever wishes to stick with them for however long they wish to stick with them. And I'm talking pretty much all cinema cams: RED, Sony, BMD, Canon, Arri, etc.. They pretty much all produce very good to excellent images now. The notion of an absolute higher quality image driving a camera upgrade may have hit its zenith. Now if one "needs" to upgrade a camera it's probably for completely non-image quality related reasons (personal preference, image style, client expectations, marketing, workflow, ergonomics, dude bro bragging points, etc.).

So really, the gig is up: We all have no excuse. If the image sucks it's on us, not the gear.

 

[JMtheDP]

Very true Keith. Sadly that doesnt work when it comes to hiring out gear!

For those interested the CCD in the F35 only cost $600 to make. But the failure rate for the Genesis was 600-1. Ie. 600 went in the bin for one good one.

The Genesis sensor is "superior" to the F35 one only because the F35 has much better error correction and a bigger memory so it can handle more defective pixels!

 

[Viddovation]

Very true Keith. Sadly that doesnt work when it comes to hiring out gear!

For those interested the CCD in the F35 only cost $600 to make. But the failure rate for the Genesis was 600-1. Ie. 600 went in the bin for one good one.

The Genesis sensor is "superior" to the F35 one only because the F35 has much better error correction and a bigger memory so it can handle more defective pixels!

I'd love to see the sources on this. I've never heard hard numbers mentioned before on the topic.

 

[JMtheDP]

Mostly because it is impossible to get hard numbers from anyone who actually knows. I imagine the process may have also been refined for the F35, but possibly not.

After all, the F35's own manual says the camera has a 6MP sensor, which is simply not true.

My sources were people who know much more about these things than I do that I happened to walk past while they were discussing rumours wink wink nudge nudge

 

[Viddovation]

Mostly because it is impossible to get hard numbers from anyone who actually knows. I imagine the process may have also been refined for the F35, but possibly not.

After all, the F35's own manual says the camera has a 6MP sensor, which is simply not true.

My sources were people who know much more about these things than I do that I happened to walk past while they were discussing rumours wink wink nudge nudge

The problem is, even if numbers like the ones you provide are true, it leaves open plenty of room for confusion because we don't know how the numbers were derived. For instance, what does $600 include? Raw materials? Salaries during production? Modifications and preparation of the assembly line? Research and development? Etc, etc. And even the person who you heard from in passing may not know or may have an inaccurate grasp of the full costs. And if we then take that number and compare it against a number we find for another chip from a different camera, we may not be comparing them completely on the same basis.


As for the 6MP sensor... I would wonder if that is really an old math vs new math issue. As we all know the sensor is 5760x2160 (at least, active), but that's reduced to 5760x1080, which is essentially 6MP. Now, the binning of vertical pixels may be for edge detection, noise reduction, or increasing dynamic range, but you could look at it and argue it's a 6MP output, and therefore call it a 6MP sensor.

Sigh.

 

[JMtheDP]

You're almost never going to get any chip maker to reveal their full costs. In any case, replacing the sensor in a Genesis was a hideously expensive operation (a few did have to get changed for various reasons). The D-21 cost a similar amount to buy as the F35 and that was CMOS based, but they probably spent more money on the optical finder/shutter etc..

The first F900s were about £80,000 new

Remember that Sony make their own chips and are one of very few camera makers to do so. The tech in the F65 was well ahead of its time, same with the F35/Genesis.

 

[Viddovation]

You're almost never going to get any chip maker to reveal their full costs. In any case, replacing the sensor in a Genesis was a hideously expensive operation (a few did have to get changed for various reasons). The D-21 cost a similar amount to buy as the F35 and that was CMOS based, but they probably spent more money on the optical finder/shutter etc..

The first F900s were about £80,000 new

Remember that Sony make their own chips and are one of very few camera makers to do so. The tech in the F65 was well ahead of its time, same with the F35/Genesis.

I agree, that's why I'm arguing that your figure of $600 has to be taken with a grain of salt. We just don't know. Not really.

 

[JMtheDP]

I would suggest you take a large grain of salt with anything on the internet.

 

[paulcurtis]

I don't think the Alexa is cleaner than other cameras, i've seen some super noisy stuff in post. I think it's because most alexa shows are professional and have a decent chunk of lighting and grip so they can shoot at optimum ISOs properly.

I'm also pretty sure neat isn't embedded in the alexa either! Arri has some very very clever folk and their denoising (from the Amira in fact) happens before debayer and colour work. Neat is all about controlling YUV noise and it does a reasonable job, there are other denoisers that can be better in other situations.

There are so many issues from sensor to image, so many artefacts and reconstruction techniques.

cheers
Paul

 

[eddavid]

I think shooting Alexa at 400 ASA gives it a clean look - a lot of the details in the shadows when shooting at 800 ASA is very noisey so I usually just throw that out as I shoot with a lut

 

[JMtheDP]

Don't forget the ALEXA utilises their "dual gain path" architecture, which is some form of clever noise reduction system, in a way

 

[Aaveum]

I'm not really into multiquoting either.
Alexa has a much cleaner sensor than the F35 - the DP on that wicked witch movie with Angelina Jolie who usually shots F35 shot it on the Alexa probably because it was cleaer.
Using an algorhythm like neatvideo can clean up the F35's CCD noise and I have done that on a bunch of projects myself.

There is no perfect world of ASA - until the 90's it was max of 200 ASA - now we are living in a 800 ASA world - things have changed a lot - but have movies looked better because of it? Me personally I don't think so. I still think Fargo and No Country for Old Men look better than anything Deakins has done on the Alexa.

But hey, it's more than that - it's budgets - it's production schedules - and as I find when I used to shoot at 50 ASA on the Letus 35mm DOF adapters - I brought lights in because I had to - now I am usually lazier - and don't bring in the lights as much - and sometimes I wish I did pretend I was still shooting that way.

Sony didn't screw themselves by going with the Sony F65 over the F35 - they hurt themselves by not making the F65 easier to work with in post - a la the Alexa that could crank out a Pro Res copy right there on the camera - this was their fault.
And the F55 wasn't probably the smartest move either - but I'm not sony nor do I know much about how they run as a company.
I also think Arri should have made a newer sensor by now over the Alexa sensor - but that's just me - a guy who is using a camera from 2008.
And finally Red screwed themselves by making the smaller epic body - the red one mx worked fine - no fan noises, more connections - it was just smarter.
Now they are really paying for it with the Red Weapon which is basically admitting they really screwed up with the design of the Epic body.

Anyway, I don't think we should criticize company's and their cameras - we should learn how to work with what we have and make it better.
If you don't like something, don't use it.

Ed, I can't tell if you misunderstood me or if you are agreeing.

But what I meant to say is that the Alexa is cleaner than the F35 out of the box, but it employs heavy noise reduction in camera while the F35 doesn't. The F35 also has a noise reduction function as we know and while it is not as good as the Alexa's the results are not so far behind if you use it. If you do it in post, like you suggested, it can basically match the Alexa is most situations.

I believe ISO 800 is the sweet spot for production. Anything over that is too much. ISO 500 if you really want to nail the look of 35mm film. But my perfect world scenario was not concerning ISOs but rather sensors. With movie cameras having CCDs and video cameras having CMOS. In production I couldn't care less for ISO2000. But if I'm shooting for video, meaning corporate, run and gun and other things, ISO 2000 definitely is an asset. So why sacrifice the artistry and other advantages that CCD gives you for extra sensitivity and higher frame rates when ISO 800 and 24fps for 95-99% of production is all I need?

I didn't mean that Sony screwed themselves going with the F65 over the F35. Not sales-wise anyhow. I meant that they pissed on everything they preached. Sony and Panavision preached and shouted about how a bayer sensor is no good because it can't give you full RGB (true) and how you need to start from a much higher resolution than what you want to output (also true). But then they go with a bayer sensor for the F65 and pretend the F35/Genesis promotional campaign never happened. They turn the F65 sensor 45 degrees in a move that looked to be more about saving face than any real gain, at least a meaningful one compared to the great 3-strip sensor design of the F35, and just called it a day. Never mind all the preaching that went on by them and Panavision. We never heard of that, right.

Then they do it again with the F55. The only portion of the F35/Genesis philosophy which carried over to the F65 was the massive resolution over sample. But they just dropped it all and released a pseudo 4K camera, doing the same thing they so hardly criticized RED for with the RED One. But the difference is that was RED in 2007 or 5 years before the F55. Again they just pretended they never said a 4K camera has to have enough pixels to resolve actual 4K and called the F55, F5, FS7 etc 4K cameras. All with a straight face.

 

[Aaveum]

I agree, that's why I'm arguing that your figure of $600 has to be taken with a grain of salt. We just don't know. Not really.

This goes against everything I have ever head about the F35 as well, including from Sony people. But if the F35 CCD was $600, how much is the F65 CMOS? $400? What about the F55 chip, $200? Based on everything I have heard, including that the sensor was the most expensive part of the F35, that $600 number doesn't make any sense to me either.

 

[Aaveum]

I don't think the Alexa is cleaner than other cameras, i've seen some super noisy stuff in post. I think it's because most alexa shows are professional and have a decent chunk of lighting and grip so they can shoot at optimum ISOs properly.

I'm also pretty sure neat isn't embedded in the alexa either! Arri has some very very clever folk and their denoising (from the Amira in fact) happens before debayer and colour work. Neat is all about controlling YUV noise and it does a reasonable job, there are other denoisers that can be better in other situations.

There are so many issues from sensor to image, so many artefacts and reconstruction techniques.

cheers
Paul

You make a great point. Alexa shows always have a budget. But if you look at very low light Alexa material you can see the ugly effect of the built in noise reduction, specially on faces. It looks like those DVDs of older movies shot on 35mm film that have gone through a denoise process.

By the way, I didn't mean the Alexa actually uses Neatvideo. That was tongue-in-cheek, hence the quote marks. What I meant by that is that it uses in camera noise reduction.

 

[Viddovation]

This goes against everything I have ever head about the F35 as well, including from Sony people. But if the F35 CCD was $600, how much is the F65 CMOS? $400? What about the F55 chip, $200? Based on everything I have heard, including that the sensor was the most expensive part of the F35, that $600 number doesn't make any sense to me either.

Even if that $600 figure is accurate, it may only be for the imager chip itself. The "sensor block" is a much larger component of the camera, and could easily have a much higher total cost. Again, this is where apples to apples comparisons become difficult if not outright impossible.

 

[eddavid]

I built a sony f35 out of spare parts in the back of a sony factory in Japan. It did cost around 150k. But those were the glory days.

 

[Razz16mm]

I have had my d16 for about 9 months now. It is about on par for DR with Red MX or a 5DII. Where it really shines is fine color discrimination due to having very saturated Bayer filters but this also costs it a stop of sensitivity. Optimum ISO is 200. Shoot it by a light meter at 200 ISO with raw view checks for highlight clipping and it can cover about 12 stops DR. This example measured 15 stops DR approximately by the light meter for the scene from full sun to deep shade

. Underexposed by 1.5 stops for highlight protection.

Sunrise shot.

One of my favorites from an art studio party.

And an experimental grade using wavelet transform raw processing in Raw Therapee. This is the painter Max Ginsburg that Suzy and I shot an interview with last week. Trying to emulate the values, palette, and texture of his paintings with this one.

This is a serious creative hobby camera for me. I'm just beginning to get proficient with grading it. It is like a blank canvas. But I love the quality of images it produces. There is a near complete absence of most of the common digital video artifacts like aliasing, moire, rolling shutter. You just have to feed it light.

 

[JMtheDP]

This goes against everything I have ever head about the F35 as well, including from Sony people. But if the F35 CCD was $600, how much is the F65 CMOS? $400? What about the F55 chip, $200? Based on everything I have heard, including that the sensor was the most expensive part of the F35, that $600 number doesn't make any sense to me either.

I think you may be slightly mis-interpreting me. What I said was to make an F35 "chip" costs $600 each time you try. However the number of "tries" you have to make to get one right was massive. It is the high failure rate which makes it expensive. High failure rates are not uncommon at all. I believe RED used to put their "lesser" sensors into the Scarlet (at least I read that) and companies like Intel/AMD etc... often produce masses of the exact same chip and then brand it different models depending on how well each one worked - the best performers are the expensive ones, the ones which didn't work so well wind up being budget models, etc...

The F65 did not abandon Sony's principles in any way like the F5/F55 did. The F65 was only ever billed as an "8K camera for 4K delivery"... I disagree entirely with the "8K" bit, but the 4K it produces is amongst the best you will get. You could not apply the massive over-sampling that the F35 had to 4K resolution in a S35 sized sensor as your pixel pitch will be tiny.

Believe me I fought the corner of the F35, even bringing it up in Sony's own temple of 4K with one of their head guys, asking why they'd abandoned their principles. I didn't get a straight answer (of course) but I got the impression Sony had just become tired of banging their head against a wall - as have ARRI. At least Sony came up with a Sensor that meets "a" definition of 4K.

 

[eddavid]

super beautiful stuff Razz16!
I really would do a test between f35 and db16 but I just don't feel up for it and again its ergonomics is the biggest difference and workflow, not image quality - and I don't need to do a test to know the difference. I think for all intensive purposes - it's not about resolution and both f35 and db16 will get you somewhere really beautiful. Now to mess with the alexa mini.