combatentropy
Veteran
The dimension I meant is Resolution.
OLYMPUS selling off camera division
- Thread starter cyvideo
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Resolution is a gradient straight line chart. If you look at the current pricing, the entry level P&S is 8-12 MPX, MFT is 16-20, APS-C 24-26, FF 24-61 and MF 50-150 (not counting the pixel shifting). At this point, there's a direct correlation between the sensor resolution and the camera price. Which is why the cartel is keeping the spread between the various tiers.
In the automotive business, the single greatest car price stat was its engine power. Entry level compacts 80-120, affordable compacts 150-180, medium size/medium price sedans 180-250, upmarket sedans 250-350, luxury 300-700. The difference is that, while the camera cartel keeps this pixel separation between all brands, the car market is completely flexible. Brand names try to keep the tiers for themselves but their competitors constantly introduce newer models, which shifts sales from brand to brand and minimizes self-crippling.
As to my taste - I love Sigma's Foveon line but will admit to its workflow peculiarities.
combatentropy
Veteran
The camera companies' idea of a value is not mine. (And neither is the car companies', for that matter.)
I would love to have an 8-megapixel camera. Now if you are shifting the discussion to what you would like in a still camera, I would understand if you might want a bit more. Even then, I don't see why you want more than, say, 24 megapixels unless you are an artist making wall-size prints for a gallery.
Resolution below a certain point is bad. I am not anti-resolution. Below a certain threshold, it bugs me. For example, I happen to be transferring some old Mini-DV tapes to computer, and the 720x480 resolution for those old memories is regrettable. I prefer something 2K to 4K.
Far beyond the needed resolution (the visible resolution) is actually counterproductive --- as has been discussed ad infinitum at this forum.
I would love to have an 8-megapixel camera. Now if you are shifting the discussion to what you would like in a still camera, I would understand if you might want a bit more. Even then, I don't see why you want more than, say, 24 megapixels unless you are an artist making wall-size prints for a gallery.
Resolution below a certain point is bad. I am not anti-resolution. Below a certain threshold, it bugs me. For example, I happen to be transferring some old Mini-DV tapes to computer, and the 720x480 resolution for those old memories is regrettable. I prefer something 2K to 4K.
Far beyond the needed resolution (the visible resolution) is actually counterproductive --- as has been discussed ad infinitum at this forum.
Well, according to some, BMD 12K is way beyond the needed resolution. Yet here it is.
PS. When Tony Northrup shot the 16 image pixel shift on A7RIV, he said he noticed the difference from 61 MPX in a single exposure to the 240 MPX combined. Sony, naturally, crippled the camera by not offering the 4X producing 120 MPX.
PS. When Tony Northrup shot the 16 image pixel shift on A7RIV, he said he noticed the difference from 61 MPX in a single exposure to the 240 MPX combined. Sony, naturally, crippled the camera by not offering the 4X producing 120 MPX.
ahalpert
Major Contributor
I'm with combat - but horses for courses. Some photogs and videographers crop a lot. Then you need all those throwaway pixels. Or if I'm watching sports/nature/war movies - bring on the oversampled detail
But me personally HD is fine. 4K is for customer demand and even then they're squishy, right? Brawley said Hulu mandated 4K yet ended up shooting it in less
But me personally HD is fine. 4K is for customer demand and even then they're squishy, right? Brawley said Hulu mandated 4K yet ended up shooting it in less
combatentropy
Veteran
I'm not sure what that proves, except that companies make needless features, which I already agree with.
Now that is interesting! I would be interested to know more, because I cannot see how it could be under a normal angle of view. If it wasn't a blind test --- if Tony knew when he was looking at the 61 MPX and when he was looking at the 240 MPX --- then it could all be psychological.
Again, we all agree that companies cripple cameras.
---
The resolution race calls to my mind this metaphor. Imagine a man whose sidewalk went only halfway from his driveway to his front door. Awkward.
One day he finally gets the money to complete the sidewalk. "The sidewalk looks great, Ed," his neighbors say.
But Ed doesn't stop there. He likes the sidewalk so much that he continues paving right through his house and out the back door. "Ed, what are you doing?"
Ed continues paving. The sidewalk goes down the middle of his back yard and to his fence.
Then he starts paving into a grassy field behind his house and into a pond.
combatentropy
Veteran
I understand, and that is less excessive than a 12K Bayer pattern. But I was already fine with 6K Bayer downsampled to 4K or even 4K Bayer downsampled to 2K.
If everything else was hunky dory, then these increases in resolution wouldn't bother me as much. But as it stands, most cameras could use some attention in other areas: global shutter, ergonomics, boot time, battery life, media affordability, etc.
It's like a car without any tires. Have you added tires yet? No, but we gave it a new paint job. Now it's really, really, really orange!
If everything else was hunky dory, then these increases in resolution wouldn't bother me as much. But as it stands, most cameras could use some attention in other areas: global shutter, ergonomics, boot time, battery life, media affordability, etc.
It's like a car without any tires. Have you added tires yet? No, but we gave it a new paint job. Now it's really, really, really orange!
ahalpert
Major Contributor
Agreed but it's very much horses for courses. Some people scoff when you bring up media affordability. But they must not be shooting multicamera continuous rolling for low-budget clients!
My next hill to climb is AF. But in part just because my competitors are getting it. Frankly, I'd be better off if no one had it because I compete well manually.
Otherwise, I was pretty satisfied with my S1. Just needed good AF, no-crop 4K60p and ideally internal RAW codecs.
Maybe I'm easier to please than you. But I'm getting close to finding satisfaction. Maybe it'll be the R5 or A7SIII who knows
My next hill to climb is AF. But in part just because my competitors are getting it. Frankly, I'd be better off if no one had it because I compete well manually.
Otherwise, I was pretty satisfied with my S1. Just needed good AF, no-crop 4K60p and ideally internal RAW codecs.
Maybe I'm easier to please than you. But I'm getting close to finding satisfaction. Maybe it'll be the R5 or A7SIII who knows
combatentropy
Veteran
<broken-record>
What sticks in my craw is rolling shutter. If all cams had global, then I probably would have picked one up long ago and hardly ever post here --- except maybe an actual video sample.
Even 1ms, even 0.0000001ms, bothers me. I can't articulate my reasoning convincingly, and I may be crazy. Something about it feels wrong, twisted.
</broken-record>
There is also a much higher ideal in me that longs for the modern, video equivalent of the Leica M3. And no, I don't mean it has to look like that. But its attitude should be like that.
Something ridiculously simple, that just gets out of your way. It would be so simple that it would in fact annoy a large swath of people, I know it.
But for me, my ideal camera is manual focus, doesn't let me grade it until post, just has the instrumentation to assure me that my focus is perfect and my exposure is within certain bounds. Basically: ISO, shutter speed, and frame rate are the only controls on the camera body itself. The lenses would have f-stop and focus and zoom. Everything else is deferred until post.
All ergonomic rough edges would be sanded away --- which would be the hardest part. No silly recording time limits. No overheating, yet no fan either. Able to work carelessly in the arctic and desert. Multihour battery life. Instantaneous boot. Metal body (I dropped it, so what? Here, let me hammer this nail with it.)
I'm in it not for business but for pleasure nowadays, so my criteria are a bit different than someone "just trying to make a profitable business". Such a person probably has ideals but much sooner than me says, "I just got to pick a camera and go."
What sticks in my craw is rolling shutter. If all cams had global, then I probably would have picked one up long ago and hardly ever post here --- except maybe an actual video sample.
Even 1ms, even 0.0000001ms, bothers me. I can't articulate my reasoning convincingly, and I may be crazy. Something about it feels wrong, twisted.
</broken-record>
There is also a much higher ideal in me that longs for the modern, video equivalent of the Leica M3. And no, I don't mean it has to look like that. But its attitude should be like that.
Something ridiculously simple, that just gets out of your way. It would be so simple that it would in fact annoy a large swath of people, I know it.
But for me, my ideal camera is manual focus, doesn't let me grade it until post, just has the instrumentation to assure me that my focus is perfect and my exposure is within certain bounds. Basically: ISO, shutter speed, and frame rate are the only controls on the camera body itself. The lenses would have f-stop and focus and zoom. Everything else is deferred until post.
All ergonomic rough edges would be sanded away --- which would be the hardest part. No silly recording time limits. No overheating, yet no fan either. Able to work carelessly in the arctic and desert. Multihour battery life. Instantaneous boot. Metal body (I dropped it, so what? Here, let me hammer this nail with it.)
I'm in it not for business but for pleasure nowadays, so my criteria are a bit different than someone "just trying to make a profitable business". Such a person probably has ideals but much sooner than me says, "I just got to pick a camera and go."
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Further footage will show its aims. Canon R5 is 8K, which pretty much no one was asking for. Yet here it is.
And, while no one may have been asking for Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcat Redeye and its 797 horsey pucks, there it is too.
I think it's much simpler that that. He took some exterior shots of his home, found that the 16-shot composite smears anything that might move within that 16-shot sequence, including the tree branches, leaves, flowers and so on, but that fixed subjects like homes do show an increased detail. It's been the same way on all pixel-shifting cameras, from Olympus to Panasonic to Sony. It's just that Olympus and the MFT Panasonic (G9, IIRC) have double the res off four shots, which was deemed sufficient for the extra detail without too much smearing of moving objects. Sony didn't include the double-off-four, much like Fuji didn't on their medium format GFX100, though other cameras with that Sony sensor (Hasselblad, Phase One) have this feature on their bodies.
Have you ever owned or spent considerable amount of time watching images on a DLP front projector with a rotating color wheel?
John Brawley
Well-known member
This has come up in a few places.
I think it's a bogus argument. We've long been supersampling for smaller / inferior screens and you can almost always tell a difference.
Apple TV's aerial screensavers have had me enthralled, and I believe they're shot as 3 x 8K plates stitched together by Phil Holland (at least some of them). When I first saw these I couldn't believe what I was seeing and I couldn't figure out why it looked so damn good on my 1920 TV. and so....yeah you shoot them 3 8K cameras to make a very high resolution image and they look magnificent streamed to 1920...funny that...
JB
combatentropy
Veteran
I agree that a Bayer sensor must be supersampled, if you want that pristine perfect target resolution. For instance, a 2K Bayer sensor (like in the original Pocket) will not a 2K RGB image make.
But I believe that the ratio is 1.5, and higher ratios do not matter. For instance, the Arri Alexa, recording a raw image at 2880x1620, is precisely 1.5 times 1920x1080. Such a recording, downsampled to 1920x1080, will look sharper than the Pocket.
But if you were to take, say, a Red and film at 3840x2160, and then downsample that to 1920x1080, then it will look no sharper than the Arri.
But I believe that the ratio is 1.5, and higher ratios do not matter. For instance, the Arri Alexa, recording a raw image at 2880x1620, is precisely 1.5 times 1920x1080. Such a recording, downsampled to 1920x1080, will look sharper than the Pocket.
But if you were to take, say, a Red and film at 3840x2160, and then downsample that to 1920x1080, then it will look no sharper than the Arri.
ahalpert
Major Contributor
Is that why The Great looked so crummy and soft on my screen? JK
I dont think one wants the same amount of detail for a portrait as for a landscape screensaver. Horses for courses.
True, you can throw away detail but not add it back in (except via AI magic). So a 12K can be a one-size fits all resolutions
But my bread and butter is not aerial landscape screensavers, so I dont need to buy one. If I get a gig like that, maybe I'll rent a 12K
But yes - it does seem like the 12K has piqued the interest of the resolution-chasers who like RED
I'm more interested in the color quality
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There's a diminishing effect in the high resolution images shown on a lower resolution screens.
But ... screens are getting better and better too. For example, 4K on a 60" TV is about 73 PPI. 8K on the same size TV would be around 300. But top current smartphone screens exceed 500 already.
As to the mass markets, 8K TV sets have been at the retailers for a while and start at ~ $2,500 for a 55". New 8K cameras are being released as we speak. Major streamers will trickle out some 8K footage coming soon. The Olympics and the Euros will probably be streamed in 8K in 2021. And, of course, your 46-61 MPX stills will look gorgeous on it as well.
But ... screens are getting better and better too. For example, 4K on a 60" TV is about 73 PPI. 8K on the same size TV would be around 300. But top current smartphone screens exceed 500 already.
As to the mass markets, 8K TV sets have been at the retailers for a while and start at ~ $2,500 for a 55". New 8K cameras are being released as we speak. Major streamers will trickle out some 8K footage coming soon. The Olympics and the Euros will probably be streamed in 8K in 2021. And, of course, your 46-61 MPX stills will look gorgeous on it as well.
They're incurring huge losses now and their projections going forward are dire. Obviously, smartphones are taking over the consumer portion of the market, while the remaining enthusiast/pro niche is too small to support all the remaining cartel members. So, it's Olympus, then Ricoh/Pentax, and after that Nikon. Panasonic doesn't really need its consumer division anyway and could drop out at any moment. The trend is a Sonycan duopoly, which won't be much different from the current cartel, except with fewer mounts.