It seems that GoPro is not quite done with camera updates this year. They just released a very small variant of the Hero 4 hardware called the GoPro Hero 4 Session. Some jokes have already come out about the name like the next Re-Session Camera to own. However this is more of an evolutionary and reductionist product than any release GoPro has ever made before.
The Hero 4 Black is a powerhouse little camera with great frame rates for slow motion and 4k video at 30p. Some have criticized the codec in 4k mode as being too lossy and we agree to a point. What interest us however is not the 4k mode for now which is absent from the GoPro Hero 4 Session altogether but the lower res Full HD and HD slow motion high frame rate modes.→ Continue Reading Full Post ←
Over the past week some footage from Sony and other real world uses has been surfacing. Many shows off the super slow motion modes and others tout the performance in 4k. The quality is for the most part good but not great and shows a clear aliasing and moire resolution loss at 480fps and 960fps. The codec at 50 Mbit is quite good and is not the weak link, the cameras suffer from line skipping as the readout frame rate increases to below 720p resolution in real terms while being saved on a 1080p wrapper.
We have compiled a series of footage samples found on the net for you to look at. Some are outright high speed samples and others are interface walk through samples. It should give a good idea of what quality we are talking about.→ Continue Reading Full Post ←
Warning: The parent company of FPS cameras “The Slow Motion Camera Company Ltd.” went out of business and entered liquidation proceedings. No further development of cameras is expected. More information here on Google Search!
It has been a little bit over a month since the last update of the fps1000 was posted. This time around it is all about the electronics and how they fit into the aluminum case and the first look at how it all fits in a tight package.→ Continue Reading Full Post ←
The Samsung NX500 has just been updated with firmware 1.10 There are several improvements and like it’s larger sibling the NX1 now the slow motion mode of 120fps at 720p in this camera is more easily accessible. The NX1 has a better slow motion mode than the NX500 as it is 1080p Full HD instead of 720p but this camera is also much less expensive and has also 4k video. These enhancements add a lot of oomph to an already good pocket-able large sensor camera.
The biggest improvements are codec quality bit-rate up to 70Mbps and the large sensor readout for up to 60fps at full HD 1080p which reduces aliasing and moire in normal speed frame rates. It is rare for companies too add so much in firmware but it is encouraging to see Samsung not only try but constantly deliver useful firmware updates to their cameras. It shows they are serious for their camera imaging department.→ Continue Reading Full Post ←
For many of us it seems counter intuitive to own a camera that doesn’t shoot color images. In this day and age of technological marvels, being constrained by black and white / monochrome output on recording is a strange proposition. For the world of high speed imaging however you have to re-examine the entire debate from a benefits point of view and why it could be ideal to have monochrome instead of RGB color as your high speed option.
Depending on the intended use Monochrome might give you more bang for your buck and save you a lot of money on lighting and power requirements to run those lights. To understand the benefits we need to dig in on why Monochrome camera sensors excel in areas where color sensors suffer and why this will hardly change with current sensor technology in the near future.→ Continue Reading Full Post ←
DxO the company associated with DXO Optics Pro RAW conversion and for it’s popular camera sensor rating scores has released their first hardware product based on a coupling with the Apple iPhone and iPad devices with lightning connector.
The camera attaches in the thunderbolt charging port and lets you swivel the phone or tablet screen for easier viewing angles. The power of the camera comes from what could be the highest quality portable device camera to date. The RAW and Super RAW modes claim unprecedented image quality with scores in RAW mode of 70 DxO points and in Super RAW of 85 points. In contrast the original full frame Canon 5D Mark 1 only gathered a sensor score of 71 in RAW mode. While the results show a clear progression in sensor technology they simply cannot match the aesthetics of a full frame sensor with a 1″ inch sensor.→ Continue Reading Full Post ←
