GH2 Which sensor is larger; a M/43rd sensor or a 2/3" 3MOS news camera sensor?

R

rc444

Well-known member
Hi Everyone,

While most of us know that an APS sensor is larger than a micro four thirds sensor, how does Panasonic's micro four thirds sensor compare to the dimensions of a 2/3" sensor of a typical 3MOS/3CCD broadcast video camera like the HVX-502? Does the four thirds sensor cover a larger area than the 2/3" sensor? I haven't been able to find out the exact dimensions of the 2/3" frame.

Thanks
rc444
 
Yeah, 4/3" theoretically, would be twice the diagonal of 2/3" (2/3x2=4/3), however I find chips are rarely spot on to their 'class size'. Meaning the 4/3" chip or 2/3" chip will have a sensor that is very close to but not exactly 4/3" or 2/3". Makes things a bit more complicated.

Excuse me if I'm wrong, but I always thought the 2/3" chip was 1/4th the surface area of 4/3" chip, and the sensors were ballpark same :/

So 4/3" was twice the size, meaning 4x the surface area.

Now you've got me wondering if I've been wrong.




EDIT: On Abel's FoV calculator, I went to confirm.

Seems the Panasonic AF100 m4/3 sensor is 17.8 x 10mm while 2/3rds is 9.6 x 5.4mm.

Close to what I thought, a little less of a difference though.

Instead of 4x the surface area, it's roughly 3.5x the surface area.

On another website, I found the numbers (not 100% sure I can trust this source) for a Panasonic GH2 on 16:9 mode was 18.8 x 10.6.

The GH2 sensor at 16:9 video is 3.85x the surface area, if using the same 2/3" chip sensor size in the previous comparison.
 
Last edited:
Ryan Patrick O'Hara said:
Yeah, 4/3" would be twice the diagonal of 2/3" (2/3x2=4/3)

Excuse me if I'm wrong, but I always thought the 2/3" sensor was 1/4th the surface area of 4/3" chip. :/

So 4/3" was twice the size, meaning 4x the surface area.
Click to expand...

That sounds right - 225/58 is 3.9X larger (= 290% increase). The Abel's FOV numbers is likely reflect a 16:9 aspect ration etc, which is why its a bit smaller.
 
The off-the-cuff rounded-off answer is: 4/3 is four times as large as 2/3. Sure there's rounding errors and whatnot, and not all sensors are the same size (4/3 is technically 17.3x13.0, but 4/3 cameras can be 18.8 x 13.0 or 17.8 x 10.0 etc...) but just in general terms to grasp the answer to the question asked in this thread, "which sensor is larger", it would take four 2/3" sensors to make up the same size as a single 4/3 sensor.
 
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