Ian-T
Veteran
ha...muh baaddd!!!Shhh, this was going so well
The new GH2 and the Hack
- Thread starter blues
- Start date
I'm sure you guys have seen this:
GH1 no longer available in UK:
http://43rumors.com/panasonic-gh1-discontinued-in-uk/
Mockups of rumored cameras
http://blog.livedoor.jp/e_p1/archives/51464445.html
GH1 no longer available in UK:
http://43rumors.com/panasonic-gh1-discontinued-in-uk/
Mockups of rumored cameras
http://blog.livedoor.jp/e_p1/archives/51464445.html
Nope the new feature in the upcoming cameras that will blow everyone away will actually be a form of digital zoom for video. These cameras will use the fact that all of these camcorders are already scaling the footage down from the cameras native resolution to 1920x1080 or 1280x720 in some cases.
The new cameras will shoot using the full sensor at wide angles and then scale that back to 1080p. Then they will also have a zoom feature that will start cropping the sensor as you zoom in further. This allows you to shoot with something like the upcoming 14mm F2.5 and turn it into 14-84mm F2.5.
Since you are already down rezzing with video this form of digital zoom does not reduce image resolution or quality. And at 84mm it will actually be using 1:1 pixel mapped 1920x1080.
Also another benefit is that the depth of field will not change as you zoom. Imagine putting something like the Canon 55mm F1.2 on this camera and being able to shoot all the way to 330mm @ F1.2 with it! Can you say night time safari videos?
Oh yea it will also have a silent and automatic zoom since it uses an internal digital zoom as opposed to the traditional mechanical optical zoom.
That is the feature I have been waiting for in a hybrid camera. What do you all think?
The new cameras will shoot using the full sensor at wide angles and then scale that back to 1080p. Then they will also have a zoom feature that will start cropping the sensor as you zoom in further. This allows you to shoot with something like the upcoming 14mm F2.5 and turn it into 14-84mm F2.5.
Since you are already down rezzing with video this form of digital zoom does not reduce image resolution or quality. And at 84mm it will actually be using 1:1 pixel mapped 1920x1080.
Also another benefit is that the depth of field will not change as you zoom. Imagine putting something like the Canon 55mm F1.2 on this camera and being able to shoot all the way to 330mm @ F1.2 with it! Can you say night time safari videos?
Oh yea it will also have a silent and automatic zoom since it uses an internal digital zoom as opposed to the traditional mechanical optical zoom.
That is the feature I have been waiting for in a hybrid camera. What do you all think?
So you shoot video with the 20mm only? I doubt that.
Next to disabling AF-S in video mode, disabling the crop/resample digital zoom mode while shooting video also ticks me off. That would be really cool if they changed this in the GH2!
Barry_Green
Moderator
If by "it" you mean "so, is this a totally nonexistent photoshop hack mockup of an unannounced product", then yes, that is it.
so is this it?
Vitaliy Kiselev
Carbonite Member
Sometimes people become dumb thinking amazing things about camera that will be announced in the end of September and widey available in December only.
Earth is really much closer than you think.
Earth is really much closer than you think.
Ben_B
Veteran
Really couldn't care less. I choose focal lengths based on optical effects, space compression, DOF, etc, not (usually) to get closer to the subject. A digital crop doesn't change the focal length so is pretty useless artistically.
Absolutely correct. Artistically this is not of a huge benefit. This would be targeted at the amateur user that wants to shoot high quality video in a point and shoot style camera. Manufactures probably won't implement this only because it turns their less expensive prime lenses into zoom lenses for video.
It would be something more useful to event videographers, where the kit lens falls short compared to an ENG/prosumer camcorder. Obviously, the GH1 is just a consumer camera that amateur/student/low-budget film-makers find pretty handy, but its low light possibilites and manual controls make it a pretty good addition to an event videographer's kit....it just sucks when you have to shoot from a distance...and even worse when shooting from a distance in poor lighting. i.e...wedding ceremonies.
deltoidjohn
Veteran
How so? It would allow me to use a 50mm f/1.4 to shoot surfing footage just before dawn and after dusk. This is often the best time for quality waves, especially in the best locations like Hawaii, Indonesia, Mexico etc where daytime land/water temps cause onshore winds during the daylight hours but you get favorable offshore winds when the sun is hiding - Not to mention the dramatic lighting and colours you get at these times. a 300mm f1.4 which has a deeper dof than it apparently should? Thats one artistic choice I would like to have!
However I do agree they might hesitate to do this for fear of damaging their lens sales.
I just meant that it wouldn't mimic the same image as a telephoto lens. It will however, give you the exact same detail and light absorbing capabilities with a tighter field of view.
How cool would it be to be able to shoot 40mm(35mm equivalent) through 240mm video with F1.7 light abilities and a continuous automatic zoom.
I would love to see your surfing videos as well.
Actually, it does the same basic thing as optical magnification (aka "zooming"). Space compression is a direct effect of moving the camera relative to the subject in order to maintain framing. It is not an "optical" effect. It is a camera positioning or perspective effect (This assumes typical rectilinear lenses). So a sensor based zoom certainly does have potential for artistic use.
It would be something more useful to event videographers, where the kit lens falls short compared to an ENG/prosumer camcorder. Obviously, the GH1 is just a consumer camera that amateur/student/low-budget film-makers find pretty handy, but its low light possibilites and manual controls make it a pretty good addition to an event videographer's kit....it just sucks when you have to shoot from a distance...and even worse when shooting from a distance in poor lighting. i.e...wedding ceremonies.
The problem with the digital zoom is that the area for light collection and hence the camera's ultimate potential for low light sensitivity goes down as a smaller and smaller portion of the sensor is used in the digital zoom mode.
Of course, it is currently unclear whether or not all pixels of the sensor are being used currently by the GH1. I've yet to see a good case demonstrating that line-skipping is at work (though it may be) or that it might not use the full horizontal sampling. If lots of pixels are being skipped, then the cropped mode won't suffer as much relatively. Also, visually a cropped mode can be superior because the camera anti-aliasing filter is optimized for a 1:1 pixel image.
rambooc1
Well-known member
GH1 uses pixel binning not line skipping like the Canon 5dm2.
But it will. The only difference is that the DoF won't be as shallow.
As a simple example, if you use a 50mm f/2 lens on a GH1 that is using a theoretical 2x "crop" mode, you will have the same FoV, DoF and "image compression" as if you were shooting with a 100mm lens at f/4 with the full sensor. And this would be about the same as shooting with a full 35mm still frame at 200mm and f/8.
If you wanted to imitate a 200mm f/4 on a 35mm still camera, then you need that 50mm lens to open up to f/1.0.
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That's what I suspect based on image quality. Or to be more precise, I suspect a relatively crude (bilinear or even bicubic with no low pass filtering) downsampling algorithm, not actual on-chip pixel binning. But I haven't seen anything that really proves it one way or t'other.
A relatively crude downsampling algorithm does not offer the same noise reducing benefits of actual binning or a proper downsampling scheme where a digital low pass filter is applied prior to downsampling.