Pmw F5 & F55

I've seen a lot of global-shutter CMOS (Panavision Dynamax, CMOSIS, and several machine-vision cameras) but like you said they maxed out at 10 or 11 f-stops. I'm curious what Sony did to wring 14 from it
 
cowpunk52 said:
Yeah, this is something I was speaking with a couple of other operators about today. Even if you're solo, when the cam is on your shoulder, aren't those buttons & LCD going to be against your cheek and the side of your head? Seems like a very odd placement, but maybe I'm missing something.
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I suspect we'll probably see something similar to the Remote Assistant's Control Panel found on the F35/F65, which puts that same functionality off camera for AC's to work with. Heck, it may even come in a smart-phone based app.

I hope the camera has the same sort of lock-down feature as the F35/F65 (and the C300 too), it's good for peace of mind.
 
I think the control panel placement is okay. The F5/F55 are mid-range products that share a common camera body, so they made a decision to favor the small crew/solo shooter situation. Putting the panel on the VF side is more logical here because that's where the operator stands most of the time.

The fact that EPIC records RAW onboard isn't really any special technical feat. You can see from Sony's RAW recorder, to pull this off it's just a box that's about a 1/3 of the length of the camera body. So it's just a matter of packaging and cooling these electronics. RED chose to integrate RAW into the camera body. Sony chose not to and instead put it in the back. Each choice has its pros and cons. RED's way has the problem of cooling. They put in the same box as the sensor and in a small box at that. So it's tough to cool it and you end up with noisy fans. Sony put it in a separate module, which in some ways is a better approach. If you don't need it, don't attach it. If you need it, attach it to the back. Simple. No wires or anything. Just snap it in like a battery. This is a good place for it because you want useful weight in the back for counterbalance. But also, it's away from the sensor so you've spread out the heat load over a bigger area.

Steve, Sony's brochure says the F55 uses the same color filter array as the F65.

I wonder if Sony has patented their method of acheiving this global shutter. They might be better off not doing a patent (and disclosing the details) and keeping it as a trade secret.
 
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Piolet said:
I wonder if Sony has patented their method of acheiving this global shutter. They might be better off not doing a patent (and disclosing the details) and keeping it as a trade secret.
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It is patented under United States Patent application 20110310282 and you can read it online here if you like.
 
combatentropy said:
I've seen a lot of global-shutter CMOS (Panavision Dynamax, CMOSIS, and several machine-vision cameras) but like you said they maxed out at 10 or 11 f-stops. I'm curious what Sony did to wring 14 from it
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Currently, as you say, global-shutter sensors are primarily for industrial and machine-vision cameras, until now they weren't really designed for image quality so much as pure functionality. Barcode scanning is one example, as you can imagine, rolling shutter is unsuited for scanning vertical lines of a barcode rapidly. Dynamax is another example, they've been talking about it since 2009, and they announced a dramatically downscaled version of it earlier this year(again, for industrial imaging), but the sensor for a cinema camera has pretty much been dropped off the face of the earth. Even CMOSIS which landed the new Leica M contract, but that too, for a company touting global-shutter technology, is using a rolling shutter sensor in their flagship contract.

Technically, given the area necessary for pixel-level memory, a low pixel density camera would be more ideal, since the photodiode size can be larger. I would have expected a 1080p camera with a ~3MP sensor like the F3 to be a more ideal first candidate for global-shutter camera, not a 4K F55, as the larger photodiodes would allow flexibility to add pixel-level memory. Granted, 4K (8.9MP) is considered fairly low-pixel density for a S35 size sensor nowadays.

I'm guessing that Sony's stacked-sensor technology may have a role to play. Sony may have put the pixel-level memory in a stacked fashion, usually you want to reduce stack height, but Sony may have overcome this hurdle as suggested by their recent advances. We may be seeing this new technology implemented within this sensor, but I'm purely speculating.
 
I know how they did global shutter... magic.

Chronicle.jpg
 
Dear Sony,

Very happy to see that you listened to professionals in the field when designing the new F5&F55.
please explain to me why you took the trouble to place all the BNC connectors either facing backwards or at an angle
to prevent them from being torn of a possible moving camera,
but totally stopped thinking about such consequences when it came to the sound en recorder power XLR's
and the EVF plug?

Kind regards,

Thomas


does anybody out there has an email address for the design team?
 
Editman Sweden said:
It's clear you can do audio with the F5/55 but it's more of possible feature rather than one given priority.
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Please tell me what camera other than a ENG camera has given audio a priority? For myself I hope the preamps are clean, something sony has not always been able to do.
 
Steve Castle said:
Currently, as you say, global-shutter sensors are primarily for industrial and machine-vision cameras, until now they weren't really designed for image quality so much as pure functionality. Barcode scanning is one example, as you can imagine, rolling shutter is unsuited for scanning vertical lines of a barcode rapidly. Dynamax is another example, they've been talking about it since 2009, and they announced a dramatically downscaled version of it earlier this year(again, for industrial imaging), but the sensor for a cinema camera has pretty much been dropped off the face of the earth. Even CMOSIS which landed the new Leica M contract, but that too, for a company touting global-shutter technology, is using a rolling shutter sensor in their flagship contract.

Technically, given the area necessary for pixel-level memory, a low pixel density camera would be more ideal, since the photodiode size can be larger. I would have expected a 1080p camera with a ~3MP sensor like the F3 to be a more ideal first candidate for global-shutter camera, not a 4K F55, as the larger photodiodes would allow flexibility to add pixel-level memory. Granted, 4K (8.9MP) is considered fairly low-pixel density for a S35 size sensor nowadays.

I'm guessing that Sony's stacked-sensor technology may have a role to play. Sony may have put the pixel-level memory in a stacked fashion, usually you want to reduce stack height, but Sony may have overcome this hurdle as suggested by their recent advances. We may be seeing this new technology implemented within this sensor, but I'm purely speculating.
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I'll be playing wich a CMOSIS CMV12000 in December. Still don't know how much info they'll allow me to share, but I sure hope image quality is good enough for motion picture cameras, not just uber-beefed-up barcode scanners!
 
I wonder why the new cams don't have Sony A-mount lenses as an option? They list pretty much every other lens mount but their own.
 
vanvideo said:
I wonder why the new cams don't have Sony A-mount lenses as an option? They list pretty much every other lens mount but their own.
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Because no one's made one yet. As far as I can tell the only lens mount that Sony make for their universal FZ mount system (which is a terrific design) is a PL-mount (which comes with the F3/F5/F55). All of the other FZ mounts available are made by 3rd parties.
 
Grug said:
Because no one's made one yet. As far as I can tell the only lens mount that Sony make for their universal FZ mount system (which is a terrific design) is a PL-mount (which comes with the F3/F5/F55). All of the other FZ mounts available are made by 3rd parties.
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OK, makes sense. But what still doesn't make sense is why Sony has yet to develop such a lens mount for their own lenses, to be used on their own cameras. They've already made A-mount to E-mount adapters. Why not A-mount to FZ-mount? The flange distance is the same in the E-mount and FZ mounts.

(Can you tell I already have a collection of A-mount lenses?)
 
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vanvideo said:
OK, makes sense. But what still doesn't make sense is why Sony has yet to develop such a lens mount for their own lenses, to be used on their own cameras. They've already made A-mount to E-mount adapters. Why not A-mount to FZ-mount? The flange distance is the same in the E-mount and FZ mounts.

(Can you tell I already have a collection of A-mount lenses?)
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I imagine it's probably for much the same reason that they've now developed a 2nd generation of PL-mount lenses - because they think 'pro' lenses should be used on their 'pro' cameras. They're probably keen to keep a clear delineation between their consumer division's cameras (NEX) and their professional division's (CineAlta).
 
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