Tag Archives: best

BEST SLOW MOTION CAMERAS OF 2018!

BEST SLOW MOTION CAMERAS 2018

As 2018 comes to a close it is time to look back through the year’s camera releases and see which delivered quality at an affordable price in slow motion.  Phone slow motion options above 480fps were a big surprise this year and the frame rate quality improved in other cameras up to 240fps.

There has been a stagnation in the mid to professional camera range at the 240fps with no big improvements afterward. The best quality and value once again came from the Chronos 1.4c from Krontech and the edgertronic cameras which offer professional quality results at a very reasonable price. Read on for our best of 2018 results! → Continue Reading Full Post ←

Blackmagic PCC4k Petition calls for S16 Crop!

Blackmagic PCC4k Petition

An enthusiastic supporter of the recently announced Black Magic Pocket Cinema Camera 4k, is aiming at getting the company to incorporate a Super 16 or S16 crop format on the sensor so that S16 lenses can be used with the camera without recording the extra vignetted information.  However, as you must know by now crop frames in sensor read-out are an excellent way to increase frame rate capabilities in cameras.

So we encourage you to sign the petition here and place some comments that also call for increasing the frame rate options in S16 mode so that the camera captures better slow motion footage.  The camera will already be capable of 120fps Full HD 1080p crop in windowed mode but a S16 crop would allow for extra frame rate options at that resolution. 96fps would be one possibility. And while you are at it maybe ask for 720p crop and 240fps which is not probable but worth a try. -HSC

Lumix TS7 First Rugged Cam Viewfinder Does 120fps!

Lumix TS7

The Lumix TS7 by Panasonic “TS7 in the US, Canada,  FT7 outside of North America” is a well-rounded package when it comes to pricing and features.  It is a 4k 30/25/24 ready camera and it can go underwater 31 Meters or 102ft plus all the cool ruggedized features you might expect on a camera of this kind like being crush-proof up to 220lbs/100kg and freezeproof down to  -10 °C / +14 °F.  It is a real alternative to smaller action cameras like the GoPro, Xiaomi Yi 4k+ and Sony Action Cam series.

The lens is a 28–128 mm 35mm equivalent 4.6x zoom range which is quite sharp across the range as we have seen from samples. The main issue with this camera is the small 1/2.3″ BSI sensor and the fact that it packs 20MP or a resolution of 5184 x 3888px which is a little too cramped to be ideal for low light or in our view underwater performance without added bright artificial lighting.  ISO goes from a low of 80 to a high of 6400 which probably is already pushing it too much.  This camera would have been a better bet with a 10 or 12MP BSI sensor to maintain some edge in low light for the competition.  → Continue Reading Full Post ←

Huawei P20 Pro Slow Motion 960fps 720p Mode!

Huawei P20

Huawei’s P20 Pro is a beautiful phone that merges the sleek design of the Samsung Galaxy series with the Apple front screen notch while not compromising in camera design with a 3 sensor + lens combo that may be the best camera solution on a phone yet. In fact, DPreview has an article on the stills camera performance here. They call it “the most innovative mobile device we have seen in quite some time”  which is a tall order considering how good the competition camera’s like in the Pixel 2 XL, Galaxy S9 and the iPhone X have gotten.

What interests us, however, is the slow-motion mode which allows the phone to shoot a 0.25sec burst of 720p video at 960fps which is slightly above the time recorded by the Galaxy S9 and Sony Xperia XZ series of last year but still below the new Xperia XZ2’s 0.4 seconds at 720p this year.  We were not impressed with the quality of either phone when it came to overall resolution and artifacts so we were skeptical about the Huawei P20 Pro since the start. → Continue Reading Full Post ←

Panasonic EVA1 Firmware Update 2.02 Frame Rate Improvements!

Panasonic EVA1 Firmware 2.02

The new v2.02 firmware update for the Panasonic EVA1 includes improved bit rates at a variety of frame rates like:    2k- 422-Intra Frame Recording 200M/100M Max 120fps (equivalent to 400Mbps) Which may improve slow-motion quality considerably by allowing more data to be saved instead of scrapped.

For digital recorder owners, there is a lot to be excited about as the camera will now output RAW data at: 5.7K/30p Full sensor, 4K/60p Crop ,  2K/240p Sensor Crop.   Since the 240fps mode saved internally exhibited very severe aliasing, moire and line skipping; the fact that RAW is now a possibility should bring the camera’s capabilities up a notch and deliver excellent slow-motion quality. We hope to have some samples of the RAW recording on the EVA1 in a  future update. → Continue Reading Full Post ←

GH5s Slow Motion Quality is Inferior to GH5!

GH5s Slow Motion

As expected based on early comments of the slow motion mode on the GH5s, the camera has pronounced aliasing “seen in this video by Max Yuryev” and softness the higher the frame rate goes. Even at 120p it is less detailed than the standard GH5.  It may be a function of supersampling in the higher megapixel  20MP GH5 vs the 10.2MP GH5s which is creating the new artifacts.

While the GH5s can shoot up to 192fps without cropping the sensor, anything above that up to 240fps it has a slight sensor crop which further decreases quality.  While the VFR mode on the camera is better than most cameras in the price range that attempt the feat, it is of note that the quality instead of increasing or remaining the same as the sister model takes a hit which may kill it as an option for slow motion needs.  We still believe the standard GH5 is the best Lumix option even when compared to the G9 in VFR mode. → Continue Reading Full Post ←