Source: Wikipedia.
It’s three years now that I am working on that tiny website. During that time I saw many “marketing-blabla-battles” 🙂 There was first the Megapixel war, than the ISO war, than the 3D war and than the camera miniaturization war. Of course 98% of these are driven by marketing departments more than real customer needs.
The 4K myth:
So what’s coming next on the Advertising front? At NABshow in Las Vegas everything was about 2K-4K-8K video recording. So I guess we will soon see massive advertising for broadcast but also consumer cameras with 4K recording. Panasonic already announced that they will implement 4K in many new consumer camcorders. At that time it’s hard to think that the nee Panasonic Gh3 will have 4K (really don’t think it’s coming) but I thought it would be interesting for you to share that article about 2K and 4K:
http://magazine.creativecow.net/article/the-truth-about-2k-4k-the-future-of-pixels.
Here John Galt writes says about 4k: “The great perpetrators of that mythology have been RED and Dalsa. That’s why I call these “marketing pixels.” It’s intentional obfuscation. Because they really do nothing to improve image quality. They may improve sales volume. But they don’t do anything to quality. But somehow the world has accepted that that’s 4K. It’s purely semantic. It’s like saying, “I don’t like my weight in pounds so I converted to kilos. It sounds better! You’d be amazed at how many non-technical people I meet, often producers and directors, but sometimes even cinematographers get fooled by that stuff.”
Global Shutter:
One of the few things I got from my sources is that Panasonic is working on global shutter sensors. That yes could be implemented in a future GH3. To learn more about that technology read that pdf document at Caspegroup (Click here to download).
Interesting or not? I hope I can get some top rumors about the GH3 soon. About time for Panasonic to steal the show from the [shoplink 29074]Olympus E-M5[/shoplink]! 😉
P.S.: The Panasonic m43 3D lens isn’t really a hotseller and Panasonic lowered the price from $249 down to $79!!! Check at Adorama (Click here).
73 Responses
consumers don’t always get fooled by marketeers look at Blu-Ray, DVD are still more popular, also 3D was suppose to be the next big thing but even in the last 12 months the amount of 3D cinema screenings has fallen.
Most consumers can’t tell/see the visible difference between 720p and 1080 so I can hardly see 4k making that much of a difference to consumers.
If cinemas etc think they can charge extra for a 4K screening and that consumers will pay they will be surely mistaken, if 4K doesn’t bring real tangible no brainer benefits then it will not succeed….
In camera apps would have a bigger impact than global shutter…
Yes, in camera apps is indeed far more important!
It is plausible that Panasonic is already working on both, the 4K/2K and on attached-to-camera apps
http://www.1001noisycameras.com/2012/04/android-phonedevice-docked-into-panasonic-4k-varicam-at-nab-2012.html
I wish to see the global and/or electronic shutters come into reality. Hate that ‘Jello’ effect and a quite camera would be nice.
Regarding the apps, years ago, I tried the CHDK hack on my Canon G7, and was amazed by the possibilities it had opened and wondered why no one of the manufacturers allowed for ‘open’ contributions.
4K is for cinema, not consumers.
@MJr
consumers pay the cinemas.
Panasonic is pushing that on $1000 camcorders too! 🙂
Well in that case i agree, “marketing-blabla-battles”. 😉
Have you watched a 2K presentation on a huge theater screen? It looks like crap. Film looks WAY better. 4K is necessary for theaters. Not so much for homes. But definitely for theaters and big screens (possibly even home theaters).
Who has the benefot of a global shutter?
Not a still shooter anyway!
Rather I take an electronic first curtain shutter instead.
Do you know what real estate on silicon a global shutter requires?
An 18 MP GH2 sensor would become an 9 MP GH3 sensor!
Which is fine for video, but not enough for still photo purposes.
If there was to be a global shutter you’d be reaping all the benefits of image stacking, be it noise reduction, extended DR or super resolution. There are even other advantages too, like no vibration no shutter noise and no shutter wear.
Completely agree on the electronic first curtain need. We are talking about cameras with a 2x crop factor that have a massive telephoto advantage over APS-C and that’s really a no brainer. I can’t understand why we don’r have it already…
Don’t we have the benefits of bracketing already with mechanical shutter?
Electronic shutter increases sensor complexity immensely. While it it gives some benefits for stills shooting (such as silent operation and less shutter lag), the trade offs of cost, loss of sensitivity and increased noise floor resulting from that incremental complexity seems to be hardly worth it.
I agree.
The electronic shutter in the Nikon J1 might prevent it from ever competing on the pricing front with the Oly EPM1 or Panny GH3.
1/100,000th sec shutter speeds?
1/100,000th sec flash sync
No shutter life issues
Silence
100+fps shooting (untill buffer fills).
Image stacking can be made from 100 short shots rather than just say 6 or so longer ones…
And there will be other things global electronic shutter can bring to the stills arena!
– No
– No
– Yes
– Yes
– No
– No
Problem is, you simply cannot pump all those data from a multmegapixel sensor at that speed, and when you put the buffer directly on the sensor, its memory cells will eat up the precious space previously occupied by photodiodes, thus reducing the amount of light the sensor could capture (and also increasing sensor heat, thus raising image noise).
Luckily, there is a third dimension of space available in the universe, so nobody is forced to put additional transistors on the same surface plane that is needed to receive photons.
Unfortunately your conjecture seems to have little common with practice. At least according to Aptina, current electronic shutter implementations rely mostly on “memory-in-pixel” approach where memory cells are located adjacent to photodiodes on the sensor plane, and current research seems to be focussed mostly on reducing adverse effects of this approach rather than implementing a different solution…
Practice may favor the cheaper approach by now, but have a look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-dimensional_integrated_circuit – it’s not quite impossible.
The multi-layer IC is a somewhat remote possibility, of course, but it doesn’t solve the problem of increased noise floor due to heat dissipation.
Are there any 4k TVs already out there?
Not for us mortals!
But there does exist 4k HDR screens of 50″…. for some stupid money!!!
I suppose the 3D-lens is basically a non-seller. Here in Sweden they gave it away if you bought the 45-200 telezoom.
The “3D-lens” is a misnomer, because it’s meant to record stereoscopic images, not a real 3D (voxel) image of the scenery before the camera (and not even a hologram).
It’s also a puny gimmick, as the distance between the two images is tiny in comparison to the human face, so a significant stereoscopic effect is only to be expected for close macro shots.
I guess they just wanted to put a “3D”-label somewhere on the box.
What makes the possibility of including a global shutter so difficult anyway? Sure, like any new tech it will take time to implement. But why do some think it’s so impossible for the gh3?
For all I know since obtaining a digital full HD television I really can tell the difference between 720p and 1080p, especially in my own shooting. There is no end to it. Never. Development, that is.
If the global shutter could be translated into an electronic shutter for stills, enabling effectively silent shutter (and not the loud SCHCLICK of my Pen), it could be quite good news for still shooters!
Otherwise, one may still need 4k video despite the cited article (good arguments in it, if we pass on the Bayer-related one which is not valid anymore since years) : it will produce a very clean 1080p output, just as a 1080p capture makes for a cleaner and sharper 720p output.
So, we don’t need 4k screens for that… but I personally want one to edit and process 12MP stills full-screen at 1:1!
I love the sound of the shutter on my Ep2.on the other hand, I hate my GH2 shutter sound. Feels empty and cheap.
It seems that the GH3 will be the professional video camera!
Admin: Make a poll: Who needs 4k 😀
4k is not for everyone.. shooting in 4k fills your harddrive quickly.. not to mention that almost all of the consumers don´t have 4k television.. but.. even if it´s called a consumer product , it´s not that “consumer” what you will be buying is a weathersealed body with cutting edge global shutter senzor for video.. something that doesn´t have a professional 5Dm3 or D800 .. If the gh2 costs 600€ and you can afford it to shoot your son playing with dog, then ok.. but remember it´s the panasonic HIGH END product.. so if you are a consumer buy a G or GF series .. Maaan I wish panasonic will bump the price about 1000€ and add focus the high end series for photographers and videographers that needs quality in a portable body..and not for crying moms and dads .. I don´t want to offend somebody.. but if you don´t need something.. or you don´t know what that codec is or you don´t shoot raw because you don´t need it.. IT DOESN´T MEAN SOMEBODY ELSE DOESN´T NEED IT TOO.. panasonic needs a professional body .. the optics for m4/3 system are almost perfect .. don´t limit others because you have no use for such a things..
I personally don´t need 4k , grading 4k avchd 4:2:0 is a big pain same as 1080p 4:2:0 .. and after announcement of the black magic cinema camera I think everything below 4:2:2 8/10bit codec is useless , so what i would like to see in gh3:
as a photographer:
1.improved DR/ISO/IQ
2.better colours
3.HDR in one photo
4.built in intervalometer/dng format/
as a videographer:
1. 1080/50p* 720/100p* or for someone 4k/25p* with avc ultra codec , yes avc-ultra D800 has uncompressed 4:2:2 8bit via HDMI, blacmagic shoots raw video so everything worse than avcultra doesn´t make sense to me (and it´s a really efficient codec)
2. built in ND filters
3. peaking
4. global shutter – no jello or rolling shutter
other things:
1.IPS screen with better resolution
2.oled viewfinder (something like nex-7)
3.weathersealing
4.battery grip option
5.IBIS (I know I know:( )
6.better ergonomics
7.fast focus tracking in video ,- I would like to shoot wide open at f1.4 and track somebody with a steadicam .. he would be allways in focus and the background would be nicely blurred
8. focus gh series for advanced users
sorry for my english.. I´m not native e. speaker
+1 on just about all of that.
And downsampling from 4k 4:2:0 to 1080p in post gives you much more chroma resolution which is very useful for some things. It also doesn’t have to take that much more space with more efficient (eg. longer GOP) compression, that’s the way consumer 4k will be done.
As a professional technical director:
wut?
Seriously, 4k is just a marketing gimmik? Is the equivalent of converting pounds to kilo? Wow.
I guess retina display is just a way of converting pound to kilos then.
4k is about pixel density or if you prefer, 4k is about having more pixel in the same space, it’s about trying to eliminate the pixel from your vision. You see, 1080p is great because the image definition is much better, the pixels are much smaller. The problem is TVs are now 50+ inches so HD isn’t that great anymore, you see the pixels and it accelerate eye fatigue a lot, after 1-2 hours your head starts being numb, you rub your eyes, you are tired. 4k and 8k and even 16k are format that aim to provide the same pixel density as HD on a 20 inch screen for example to a large TV or gigantic cinema screen.
I often do projection as large as 100′ x 20′, do you have any idea how crappy 1080p looks on those screens? That is why you need 4k-16k. I regularly do 10120×1080 pixels projections using 6x side by side HD projectors blended over 280 pixels. Guess how costly and insanely complex production is for those event? Now picture yourself how cheaper it will become when 4k-16k is affordable.
If you believe the retina display is indeed much better and easier to read and softer on the eyes than the alternative because it reached print density tell yourself that until your 50inch TV reaches 14300pixel wide you won’t experience the same effect. Ok, let’s admit that you watch your TV from further away than you read your iPad/iPhone, 8k might be what you are looking for then.
Pounds to Kilos? really?
All about viewing distance – originaly SD tvs were designed for a 9x the diagonal viewing distance – I guess HD screens are good for about 3-4 x the screen diagonal!
A 4K screen would have a viewing distance of about 2x the diagonal!
Mind you 4K would alow you to crop a full 1080 HD vid from the original 4k and allow much reframing and zooming!
Recommended viewing distance for full HD (1080 x 1920) is around 2X the screen width (varies from about 2.5 to 1.6 depending on who you talk to). See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optimum_HDTV_viewing_distance
It’s already pretty rare for consumers to have a set large enough and/or sit close enough to it to get the full benefit of HD (2K) TV. 4K is not going to appreciably improve their viewing experience.
: ) +1. But we’re ahead of the curve there, it will take a few years before the majority see it.
Agreed, it will be a good 10 years till broadcast will move to 4K(other than a few specialty ch.), the bandwidth is insane @ 4K
@ Matt.
I’d like IBIS in my Canon 5D MKIII and Nikon D800. Do you think it will be coming any time soon . . .
I can never understand why Panny are continually beaten up over the lack of IBIS. OIS is very effective and the lack of IBIS is never an issue with the two major players in the market.
+1000
Agreed. Both Canon and Nikon chose stabilized lenses over in-body stabilization because it was more effective when customized and tuned for the specific lens. The new Oly 5-point system is supposedly significantly better than the old Oly IBIS. I’d like to see tests with some Panasonic OIS lenses that switch between the EMD IBIS and OIS.
I think some people were so desperate to “prove” the “superiority” of “certain cameras”, that they grabbed at even the thinnest of “advantages”. All they could find were “better” JPEGs and IBIS.
BFD. Adjust your AWB and learn to hold a camera. 😉
Thats an odd assumption I think. I like IBIS, it makes the whole setup smaller, and its the only option in many cases.
I have among other the following lesens: Pana 20mm, oly 45mm and oly 9-18mm, there is no equivalent lenses with OIS, without IBIS it would be nothing. I don’t think its a thin advantage at all, its one of the major reasons I have a oly house. Other might of course have different priorities.
You clearly haven’t seen the EM-5 5 Axis video samples.
Or you are a silly troll. From your posting history I believe you to be a nonsensical troll.
The 5 Axis video is clearly superior to the Panasonic OIS. There is no comparison. Look at the many samples on the web.
The 5 Axis video stability is steady cam like.
That’s bullshit Mr. Reeee, Canon and Nikon didn’t “choose stabilized lenses over in-body stabilization”. The first stabilized solutions from these companies appeared in the middle of 1990s, there weren’t digital sensors in consumer cameras at that point at all so there was no choice to make, stabilization could have only been added to the lenses at that point. Canon and Nikon have been adding stabilizers into their lenses since film era and just continued to do so when digital cameras hit the market. Other companies that didn’t have a history of image stabilization did have a choice though and many have chosen IBIS.
Canikon chose lens based stabilization because that was only place where it could be done with film!
And with people having paid for those stabilized lenses they’re now clinging to that legacy unlike Olympus who started from clean plate and created 4/3 as digital from the start.
And you can bet your head that Canikon don’t want to pay probable licensing fees for using tech patented by others…
@Esa
You are forgetting about video. IBIS is the last thing you want when sampling moving footage.
And you’re forgetting to take your medication for Canikon addiction.
http://www.pekkapotka.com/journal/2012/3/7/videos-on-e-m5-stabilizer-and-c-af.html
I don´t know.. I think many companies didn´t cared about IBIS because lens stabilization was more effective.. but now after the great IBIS in EM-5 I think manufacturers will look more at this technology.. I think that pannasonic´s patent about IBIS is a signal they are studying it.. What I would like to have is IBIS and in-lens stabilization option in GH3, so you can choose which is better for your needs .. but now I personally think IBIS is more powerfull ,especially after seeing stabilized videos with IBIS
Sure would be nice for the GH3…
+1 IBIS really nice to have in the coming GH3…
4K has its uses for acquisition – use those extra pixels for reframing, stabilization, etc.
4K for delivery is the marketing monkeys doing what they do.
That 7-year old brief on electronic shutter looks very outdated, so here’s a link to Aptina’s 2012 global shutter whitepaper which might be more relevant (and actually reveal some problems that make the implementation of electronic shutter quite a dubious idea for shooting stills):
http://www.aptina.com/products/technology/Aptina_Global-Shutter-WhitePaper.pdf
I find the piece on 4K a bit strange and not that relevant for camera. Is there no quality loss if you scale a photography from a 16 MP-sensor down to 1080p? Yes there is, and the same is the case for videoes, the only difference is that there are many frames instead of one (You need a good implmentation of 4K video though, too get the quality that is possible)
There was first the Megapixel war, than the ISO war, than the 3D war and than the camera miniaturization war.
And finally, our beloved admin ceased confusing than and then.
Well, let us hope so.
Small language issues aside, here is a bigger one. It is about “still”.
For me as a stills shooter, global shutter is a non-issue. What definitely is an issue however, is the shutter sound. I find it utterly disturbing.
The german word “still” means silent.
I’d love a still system camera.
That would be advantage of pure electronic shutter. Plus it can get 1/8000 without problems.. (and even faster.. 1/16000).
Yea sure 4K is useless..
..as useless as D800, right?
Get over yourselves, please.
4K can have 1) better DR 2) better detail (obviously) 3) better SNR (if you downsize to 1080p).
Point is, that except GH2 with direct 1080p via teleconv, nothing has “true” full HD. So for things like Canon 5DMK3 would 4K support be pretty usefull (as its 1080p output is.. bleh..).
More pixels doesnt hurt if you are not forced to use them or if you dont get lower quality with them (eg. too much mpix on too small sensor problem).
4K and global shutter seems to be in it’s early stages and it will take time before they are meaningful to industrialize.
“3D”: This will never be a hit. I have been involved in some research over 3D and virtual reality. It is problematic from many points of view. One aspect very few talk about is health concerns. Being in a virtual reality environment often and long can cause serious problems. Anything between headache and people that remain in the virtual world even after the test was finished. This is a very serous state for a human being.
3D is fun for a few minutes now and then, a whole movie is too much….
HDR in one image: Actually been close to research in that area as well. I have seen special built HDR video camera with extreme capacity and a semi-sphere lens. It recorded enourmus amount of data per second that needed lots computercraft and storage. HDR was on a totally different level than we talk about i photography. It was a 4 Mpix camera…..
Operation was quite easy and results amazing. The lens design + software ment you could, from the video, create a 3D environment that could be used for different types of HDR photolike renderings.
Something to play with for you video guys!? The camera was 2011 no 1 in the world and not exactly affordable.
I find the 3D haters incredible. I don’t deny that some people don’t get on with it, and a small percentage of people don’t even have good (or any) depth perception. OK – but to come out with blanket statements like ‘a whole movie is too much’ is just absurd. A large number of people go to see 3D movies and enjoy them, without falling sick every time.
Get some (pun intended) perspective please.
I am an professional expert on perspective and 3D and base what I say on scientific research.
That is my perspective!
OK, but then you haven’t explained why vast numbers of people enjoy 3D movies and 3D games without issues.
As I said, I don’t doubt that there are some individuals who cannot cope with 3D, or enjoy it. That’s very different from claiming 3D represents a widespread health risk.
I shoot in 3D, and hang out with 3D stills and video experts who have done this for a very long time. They’ve seen it all, including the health claims. It’s important to investigate them, but people have been watching 3D for generations without ill effects.
The Nikon 1 will likely be the first with a global shutter due to the smaller sensor. It already has an electronic shutter that operates at 60fps and that will only improve over time. m43 will then be next.
Bottom line, the problem is the “new way” of counting pixels for 4K?
I really want global shutter, I just hope that Panasonic can keep and usable ISO 3200 with decent DR, but I don’t think they would launch it if it couldn’t keep the IQ, right? So let’s assume that if they do, it’s because they can get the benefits and keep the IQ. In last case, I think that they can go for a 12MP or less to keep the IQ.
You need to check your sources. The real question is: Who is John Galt?
“4k” resolution for video brings almost no visible benefit in almost every use case, while the (much more trivial to realize) 60p recording (instead of 24p or 30p) benefit can be seen for anything but still images by anyone, any time.
It’s plain ridiculous that 2012 has seen the market introduction of many non-60p-capable cameras, while that feature had been implemented already years ago in cheap cameras (like the Sanyo Xacti HD 2000).
Panasonic now has 1080p60 in the compact ZS20 and the superzoom FZ150, and the latter has been around for the better part of a year now. How long is it going to take them to get around to making an M43 camera that can do it?
Don’t forget Sony having 50/60p in most of their system camera bodies released since year ago.
I don’t think 4K is useless if it is truly resolving 4K resolution and not just advertised that way. It has many applications such as frame grabbing still images from video (8MP versus 2MP is a big difference), doing more video in post-production, (such as adding a zoom or cropping more after the fact), and so on.
The real question is, which is the first smartphone sucking 4k video out of a 1/3″ sensor: The Galaxy SIV, the Xperia S2 or the Two X? And the second one, will Nokias last symbian smartphone pixel-bin VGA video out of an 8K-able 1″sensor, before Microsoft sells Nokia to Lenovo because they want to concentrate on software developing for business customers?
Microsoft don’t own Nokia, but otherwise a pretty accurate post on the neverending story of consumer electronics.
“Microsoft don’t own Nokia”
No, it is even worse.
They gave them Windows Phone, the most toxic piece of software ever. Nokia’s chances of survival are minimal.
You’re right, but since Microsoft gave Nokia over 1 Billion Dollar for promoting Windows Phone I assume a takeover is the next logical step in case Nokia fails to recover under its own power. On the other side, I think it’s just a matter of time that a customer-friendly unixoid OS will knock MS out of the consumer notebook market like Android did on the smartphone market, while Microsoft will probably dominate the business and enterprise market forever. But of course, prophecy always was fly-by-night business 🙂
I would like IBIS and global shutter. There are no lenses that have ridiculously large apertures and OIS.
How can photographers say that 4K is not important or needed? Ok so try this, take. 2MP image, blow it up to 50-120″. Now look at it from say 3 meters (or around 9′) and tell me it is fine. Now blow it up to say, 400-500″ and look at it from say 20 meters and tell me it is still fine. Then tell me cameras don’t need more than 2, that’s right 2 MPs because those viewing scenarios are fine.
+1 for IBIS in GH3… to use with some Great Vintage Lenses.
what about global shutter ?
or likes this
http://invisage.com/technology
called ‘InstantShutter’
I loved how DVDs looked in SD CTR TVs, and even in the first 720p TVs, but they look very bad in full HD 1080P TVs… pixelated and full of artifacts. How bad will they look in 4K TVs? It’s kinda sad how they push the standarts… they dont have more room for improvement, so they make the old good stuff to be bad. For example, youtube videos with standart definition (from 3 years ago) look terrible in today’s mbp retina displays.