Sony 4k camera?

Vincent Sweeney · November 6, 2009

Does anyone know if this rumor of a pro 4K Sony camera is true or not? F35 with a sensor upgrade? Thoughts on how post may/could work?

David Mullen ASC · November 6, 2009

Does anyone know if this rumor of a pro 4K Sony camera is true or not? F35 with a sensor upgrade? Thoughts on how post may/could work?

Maybe it's like that live 4K JVC camera that was at NAB... I think it used the F35 sensor, which is roughly 12MP, which has two pixel rows of each color filter stripe, repeated, one row of the same color basically ND'd down to capture overexposure detail. I think they basically kept the two rows the same level of filtration/density so as to be able to double the horizontal resolution rather than downsample to 1080P, as the F35 does to get a wider dynamic range. So it's really a quad HD camera, 3840 pixels across rather than 1920.

Phil Rhodes · November 7, 2009

Two problems with that:

- Asymmetry beyond 2:1 in resolution provides distinctly diminishing returns in terms of perceived sharpness, and

- the F35 sensor really isn't that good...

P

Keith Walters · November 7, 2009

The general layout of the Genesis and F35 chips suggests that Sony designed the basic sensors with a "cover all bases" approach.

After the chip is fabricated, by changing the masking they can use it as a 1920 x 1090 RGB filtered sensor or a 5750 x 2160 Bayer masked sensor.

I suspect that Sony have decided that a practical "4K" market simply does not exist, since currently near 100% of "4K" RED footage winds up as either 2K "film", 1920 x 1080 HDTV, or lesser formats.

Keith Walters · November 7, 2009

- the F35 sensor really isn't that good...

So, Mr Rhodes, you play your hand at last! You're obviously part of the secret world-wide dichroic prism manufacturers' cartel, seeking every opportunity to discredit the technological excellence of microscopic squares of coloured gel against your tired old ultra-precision glass products, merely to maintain the wretched stranglehold status quo and obscene proliferation of multi-chip cameras. (Well, that's what I read on Reduser anyway).

The DaVinci Code has nothing on you chaps, I'll give you that.

(Humourous hint: by inserting the edge of your desktop or table between your thumb and index finger you can make an ominous drumming sound which, with a bit of practice can be made to simulate the rising and falling sound of a helicopter swooping overhead. Then whenever somebody gets excessively anal about some trivial matter, you can say: "Quiet! I think I can hear the black helicopters of the {whatever} enforcement agency circling!")

Edited November 7, 2009 by Keith Walters

Phil Rhodes · November 7, 2009

I would be extremely happy with the F35 sensor if it didn't bloom so much.

Other than that it's cherry, and seems to have (critically) somewhat better dynamic range than anything else.

Unfortunately it blooms like a 1990 vintage CCTV camera.

Edit: What do I like? Viper. The thing has no vices. Its downsides are a perhaps slightly noisier picture than would be ideal, and, depending on the lens, an absolutely microscopic tendency to magenta-green bokeh. It has a very tiny overflow artifact in its CCD which is easily fixable. That's it. Otherwise it's a more or less transparent light to SDI box. Which is what I want.

P

Alex Zustra · November 9, 2009

Where do you guys learn about this stuff?

Edited November 9, 2009 by Alex Zustra

Keith Walters · November 10, 2009

Where do you guys learn about this stuff?

What? The helicopter noise?

I leaned that from a Foley artist :rolleyes:

As for the other stuff, I attended a some seminars run by Philips in the early 1980s which gave me an excellent grounding in CCD technology.

The rest of it is basically "filling in the gaps", that is, deducing how the things work, from the very limited amount of information the manufacturers seem to want to to release sometimes. Otherwise, it's pretty much a matter at looking at the results other people get with the cameras.