What did Sony mean by "no blackouts?" Are they talking about a 30 minute recording limit. Binned 4k would be unfortunate as is 8K limited to 30 fps or 4:2:0. <--Not sure about the last point, is the 8K 420 or 422?
New Sony Alpha Camera | January 26th
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What did Sony mean by "no blackouts?" Are they talking about a 30 minute recording limit. Binned 4k would be unfortunate as is 8K limited to 30 fps or 4:2:0. <--Not sure about the last point, is the 8K 420 or 422?
Bassman2003
Veteran
"No blackouts" refers to shooting stills at high speed. On other cameras you will pickup the black space between frames as they wizz by in the viewfinder like a blade projector. I think the 8k is 10bit 4:2:0. I am not sure if there is an 8k 24p choice (probably). I read the record times for 8k should be "substantially longer than 30 minutes". Either way, it sounds like the thing was engineered to be a little better than the R5 for heat management!
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"No blackouts" refers to shooting still at high speed.
:thumbup:
puredrifting
Major Contributor
I like mine so much I bought two more for a trio of them (live stream multi cam). Great little cameras.
The last two I bought open box last year from Amazon for $800.00 and some change ea. Killer deal.
Bassman2003
Veteran
Can't beat $800!
puredrifting
Major Contributor
Exactly what I do. For those rare occasions where clients will ask me for stills when shooting video, typically they want corporate headshots when doing corporate interviews, I just bring the 80D with the C200 or C300 MKII.
I had the 5D MKII and MKIII and trying to switch between shooting video and stills was a nightmare. If you shot a still while shooting video, it froze the video frame for about a second. And who wants to shoot stills with a
1/48th shutter when you're shooting 23.98? And I like my strobes for stills and continuous lighting, obviously for video. Two worlds that just don't blend for crap IMHO.
It's funny, when I was writing for Digital Photo Pro magazine, my editor had me write a bunch of articles in a series about the melding of both stills and video intpo hybrid cameras, using hybrid workflows because "Eventually
stills and video will be the same, still photographers will all shoot video and video shooters will have such high resolution cameras that video grabs will be as good as stills." What a load of crap. Purely propaganda.
None of the DPs I know care about stills when DPing, thats the realm of the set photographer and only a few of the pro photographers I know care about or do much beyond dabbling with video. Sure, an occasional video gig for them but it's definitely not their normal working mode to shoot
video while doing editorial, magazine or stock shoots, they make their money with stills and they goof around with video but none of them could make a living at video. In my experience, making the transition from still shooter to DP is
pretty common, lots of great DPs started as stills shooters but VERY few still shooters evolve into fully rounded professional, successful filmmakers. For a lot of them I've worked with and around, being a still shooter sort of handicaps them
from being good at narrative storytelling, directing actors, writing, editing and especially sound. Again general observations over years, not talking about anyone who posts here ;-)
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They may not ever merge since stills products will aim for a higher resolution while tolerating a lower frame rate ... but an 8K camera will have a sufficient resolution in stills and sufficient frame rate in 4K. So, this becomes a new tool that's good enough for pro stills and pro video in one body. And, with that, it becomes less of a convergence of the two than a technological advancement that achieves a "retina" level for both stills and video.
What you have left then is the workflow of a purely video camera and purely stills camera in their respective fields. But those are getting closer too. Hypothetically speaking, A7SIII could have had 24-30 MPX for phototgraphy and a downsampled 6K-into-4K for filming. Sony chose not to do it in 2020 but, allegedly, A7IV will indeed ballpark these specs, making it a fairly affordable hybrid model at ~ $2,500. And A1 basically pushes the envelope on the technology further.
Of course, professional studios sets would be going with the FX- or C-series at their entry level equipment while portrait photographer could get "inexpensive" medium format pieces with a much higher res. On the other hand, Sony just released their first 8K camera and it wasn't a $50,000 Venice but a $6,500 A1. And A1's 4K will likely be good enough for feature films. And the glossy mags too.
PS. As Norbro likes pointing out, these new releases immediately shoot to the top of the B&H best seller lists, so someone must be buying them. Look at it as a far more capable XT-3 or GH-5 for people that could afford it.
ahalpert
Major Contributor
Sony alpha rumors now stating with certainty that the a7iv will have the following specs:
I read somewhere else that it may only be 8-bit internal which would kill my interest. Otherwise I'm down for a 10-bit a7 or a6xxx with higher potential crop factor than my a7siii.
I read somewhere else that it may only be 8-bit internal which would kill my interest. Otherwise I'm down for a 10-bit a7 or a6xxx with higher potential crop factor than my a7siii.
Samuel Dilworth
Well-known member
Since the flash-synch speed is 1/200 s with the electronic shutter, the readout time for the whole sensor must be less than 5 ms. Not bad for shuffling 50 million pixels.
But considering this readout time, why is 4K video in the Super 35 / APS-C format limited to 60p?
It’s also odd that the camera is downsampling to 8K (at 30p) from the full width of the frame but pixel-binning for 4K (at frame rates far higher than 30p). Seems to suggest that even now there are processing power limitations, whether because of heat concerns or battery life or because the processors still aren’t quite fast enough (or the code isn’t optimised enough … firmware updates ahoy?).
But considering this readout time, why is 4K video in the Super 35 / APS-C format limited to 60p?
It’s also odd that the camera is downsampling to 8K (at 30p) from the full width of the frame but pixel-binning for 4K (at frame rates far higher than 30p). Seems to suggest that even now there are processing power limitations, whether because of heat concerns or battery life or because the processors still aren’t quite fast enough (or the code isn’t optimised enough … firmware updates ahoy?).
Bassman2003
Veteran
I was thinking the same thing. Fastest sensor logic on the planet but the full sensor 4k video is pixel binned? Does not make a lot of sense when aligned with the "no holds barred" 1-series price. Maybe this is the forced cartel loophole showing up as I would bet that Canon will use the larger body of the R1 to get the record times up with the HQ video. Sad, when I read this I thought, once again, this industry just can not release a product without some stupid limitation. At least Canon included the high quality modes in the R5 at the expense of public ridicule. Maybe, just maybe their thinking is to acquire in 8k (24.25 30p) since the 4kHQ files from the R5 are not much easier to work with in post. Depends upon the 8k file sizes and how easy they are to work with.
Run&Gun
Veteran
Exactly. We don't shoot at high enough shutter speeds, under normal shooting conditions, to grab a good still frame from video, and shooting stills you're going to be shooting at such a high shutter speed that the video will look like flat*, strobey garbage.
*meaning the subjects/objects will look like cardboard cutouts, I wasn't referring to lighting.
High1ander
Well-known member
Depending on the time-frame I think it is a solid argument. Somewhat akin to the old "in the future there will be 5 big computers". If you really look at it, there are 5 big computers Google/Youtube, Facebook, etc. and your phone is just a "cloud-client". Gaming is turning cloud-based... Now with the same freedom of time and broadly speaking, applied to your statement: I think, that obviously 8K 24fps with 1/48th shutter doesn't cut it. But 4K and 8K is meant to serve higher frame rates, especially for sports. Where 60fps and 120fps is preferred, shooting at those speeds all of a sudden gives you 1/120th and 1/240th shutter speeds, not great, but not bad either. Also, seeing how things are going with AI and processing power, it might very well be possible/preferred to shoot in 4K-8K with higher shutter speeds, 1000 or more, and just let the AI add blur for the video... My point is somewhat two-folded here, "we" are trained to think shutter-speeds should be double speed of the FPS, but that is purely a cultural thing, which only comes from a 100 years of exposure to it. It isn't that far fetched since music now is considered better/correct according to teenagers when it is "compressed" like 128kb mp3, rather than a very dynamic uncompressed song. -However, I would say if I read an article saying video/stills are the same and should use the same gear/settings that the writer would be full of BS, it is propaganda now, but it might be true in the future.
FWIW, Panasonic S1R manages to eliminate the interpolation artifacts of the high resolution pixel-shift mode, where sixteen sequential exposures create a 4x image. Other, mostly lower priced cameras, including Sony A7RIV, aren't as successful. Overall, this doesn't seem like an impossible obstacle to overcome.*
Likewise, Canon C300 MKIII can blend frames from its dual gain sensor without (any known) artifacts. On this forum, Alexa users - OK, it was JB - mentioned that ARRI's dual readout did have them, if one paid attention. Red's multiple exposures had them as well. But technology does advance. Forward.
*This will obviously depend on the exact shutter speed.
Likewise, Canon C300 MKIII can blend frames from its dual gain sensor without (any known) artifacts. On this forum, Alexa users - OK, it was JB - mentioned that ARRI's dual readout did have them, if one paid attention. Red's multiple exposures had them as well. But technology does advance. Forward.
*This will obviously depend on the exact shutter speed.
Bassman2003
Veteran
I will let that one just sit there...
