The Huawei Mate 30 Pro has been out for a few weeks outside the US, mainly in China and India and we have gathered 15 video samples from its slow motion mode which as of today is the best performing high-speed phone ever developed. We had some shortcomings about the way the phone reaches the highly hyped 7,680fps mode which is 1920fps multiplied by 4x in software from a small snapshot of the video memory.
We also had some suspicions that the 1080p 960fps mode was also interpolated but looking at the samples we gathered it seems that was a premature call. The phone is actually capturing the full frame rate at 1080p or close to that. The real max mode is 1920fps at 720p which is then interpolated to 7,680fps with good success by the new Kirin 990 chipset. Your mileage may vary and the results depend on the subject matter more than anything as organic slower motion looks much better than fast unpredictable bursts that break the interpolation algorithm.→ Continue Reading Full Post ←
The latest beta version of One UI 2.0 which is the Samsung interface layer on top of Android 10, is featuring an initial selfie mode for the front camera in the Galaxy S10 and Note 10, to match Apple’s Slo-fie feature which debuted on the iPhone 11. The Samsung focused Sammobile.com has already tested the feature and has shown that it is working but with still some performance issues to be ironed out.
For starters, the footage stutters like it is losing some frames from what looks to be a 120fps 720p capture on the front selfie camera. Then there is no real adjustment at the moment of capture allowed on the interface but there are post-recording editing and speed stretching that should allow some level of control. It would be ideal to have access to a full manual feature on this mode, but it seems it is kind of a bolted-on software upgrade feature to allow a better feature for feature comparison with Apple. If that is the case Samsung should also allow all the cameras on the back to shoot slow motion video and not only the standard wide default cam.→ Continue Reading Full Post ←
Now that Apple’s latest and greatest phone the iPhone 11 and 11 Pro Max have been out in the wild for a few weeks, it is time to revisit the performance of the slow motion video mode of this all-encompassing handset. The iPhone has always been a good slow mo performer but the new cameras and bigger lenses with more advanced processing gave us high hopes for increases in video quality and fewer artifacts.
The slow motion quality should be better across both the 11 and 11 Max since they share essentially the same system of optics and bionic chip. Quality must be identical except for the two or three camera configurations. One thing that separates the iPhone is that you can shoot slow motion in all cameras and not just in the standard wide like Samsung or other Android phones. This is one thing Apple wins in spades and we hope to see other manufacturers adopt as standard.→ Continue Reading Full Post ←
Meet the new GoPro Hero 8 Black which is a refinement of last year’s Hero 7 Black. It has better hyper smooth stabilization, it has now stabilized slow motion modes and has a smaller form factor with a clever undercarriage that folds into the mount support system to reduce footprint which is very clever. The real big changes are the Mods which are attachments that let you expand the capabilities of the camera to get a more professional kit if needed. They are relatively inexpensive but do offer a better package than what the competition has to offer.
The Slow Motion modes remain identical to the Hero 7 Black of last year as it still uses the same GP1 processing engine which was released over two years ago with the Hero 6 Black. By now it would have been ideal to see an updated processor and sensor combo to get even higher frame rates like 4k 120p and 1080p 480fps but GoPro has decided to press the last drop of juice from their custom chip investment to keep up with their restructuring goals.→ Continue Reading Full Post ←
Huawei has just launched the Mate 30 Pro and Mate 30 Pro 5G Smartphones which sport an impressive camera module with a large sensor array that shoots at 40 Megapixels. We had rumors sent a couple of weeks back but had our reservations due to the less than optimal slow motion in the P20 and other Huawei Smartphones. The phone is now untouched by the competition as it can shoot a half-second at 1920fps 720p or 960fps total which translates to 32 seconds on a 30p timeline.
The headline slow motion feature of 7680fps is not real as it is derived from the 1920fps 720p half-second which the phone then uses AI selection to isolate a 0.12 seconds segment of the capture then finally interpolated by the Kirin 990 Chipset to the full 7680fps. So it does a 4x slow motion on top of it to get the great-looking result.→ Continue Reading Full Post ←
The new Sony PXW-FX9 XDCAM 6K Full-Frame Camera is what Sony fans have been waiting ever since the APS-C cameras Super 35 cameras like the FS5 and FS7 made the rounds. It is all that those cameras offered but now on a state of the art Full Frame sensor with Dual ISO capable of 800 and 4000 depending on the needed use. By being extremely sensitive the camera needs ND filtration and it doesn’t disappoint on that feature either by including a ramping – smooth increments ND filter from 1/4 to 1/128 which adjusts on Auto Mode depending on the scene without ruining the shot. An industry first.
On the Slow Motion front, the camera is consistent with Sony pedigree with now offering 120fps Full HD and with a promised firmware update 180fps Full HD and also 16-bit raw 4K/2K footage up to 120 fps to an external recorder. This is close but not quite what the FS5 is capable of in FHD which includes 240fps. The FS7 has in contrast 240fps @ 2K RAW Ext Rec & 180fps 1920*1080 Internal. Much closer to what the FX9 is capable of doing.→ Continue Reading Full Post ←
