Tag Archives: BSI Sensor

Phantom TMX 7510 does 76000 fps in HD!

Phantom TMX 7510

The scientists at Vision Research are at it again at their favorite pastime of hyper slow motion gear creation.  The new TMX 7510 Phantom camera is the fastest ever in their arsenal with a mind-bending spec of 75 Gigapixels throughput which is capable of delivering 76,000fps  1 Megapixel resolution or slightly higher than HD at 1280 x 800px.

The camera features the first BSI or Back-side illuminated sensor ever used in a Phantom camera. This allows for much better low-light performance which is crucial for slow motion applications.  The camera tops out at a ridiculous 1.75 million fps frame rate at 1280 x 32px in standard width mode or 640 x 64px in Binned mode.  One second recorded at that speed creates a file that plays back for 972min or just over 16hrs in a 30fps timeline.  Yikes! → Continue Reading Full Post ←

Nikon Stacked CMOS Sensor Will do 1000fps in 4k!

Nikon Stacked CMOS Sensor

Nikon Japan has been busy creating the next generation of 1″ stacked sensors.  The latest is a 17.84 Megapixel stacked design with hyper-fast memory interconnect that shoots up to 1000fps at 4k resolution which is no slouch. The sensor is still in development but it will be a possibility to see it in a camera that could compete head to head with the Sony RX series which now dominate prosumer P&S sales.  It was announced at ISSCC (International Solid-State Circuits Conference) held in San Francisco, February 15, 2021.

The sensor works by shooting in buckets of 16 x 16 pixels as one block, and then subsequently 264 x 264 pixel blocks (4224 x 4224 pixels) are conformed to form the final image at nearly 18MP.  It is unclear at this time if 4k video will be a windowed resolution or a supersampled then reduced final image from the full sensor.  The market for this sensor goes beyond consumer cameras as it is aimed at other applications like self-driving cars and production lines. → Continue Reading Full Post ←

Panasonic Camcorders CES 2018 WXF1K & VX1K

Panasonic Camcorders CES 2018

Panasonic besides formally announcing the GH5s Lumix camera at CES 2018, also introduced 3 new camcorders that will replace their current offerings, in what could be a dependable yearly occurrence.   Panasonic seems to avoid the fact that camcorder sales are probably as rare as Blackberry devices these days but whatever their motivations are, it seems Panasonic, Sony & Canon are keeping the flame alive.

With every introduction, Panasonic seems to improve steadily in image quality and features with continued innovation especially in the areas of HDR imaging and O.I.S Optical Image Stabilization which now sports a hybrid system that uses three technologies to create what might be the best stabilized camcorder ever produced. The demo is certainly impressive and should make every high zoom fan excited about the possibilities of this technology in higher end gear.

  • HC-WXF1K – Premium Model 4K Camcorder features professional-level functionality including EVF and Manual Ring Operation $999.99 USD
  • HC-VX1K – provides performance without compromise with 4K picture quality and new 4K cropping functions $799.99 USD
  • HCV-800K – Full HD Camcorder features newly developed Leica lens and new large MOS sensor

HC-WXF1K Main Features:

  • 4K Cinema-Like recording experience with advanced in-camera capture and button control options.
  • LEICA DICOMAR 24X optical zoom lens (25-600mm, F1.8-4.0), and large 1/2.5” BSI MOS Sensor for impressive capture even in low light.
  • Three Optical Image Stabilization (O.I.S.) technologies work together for impressive stability under many shooting conditions; 5-Axis Hybrid O.I.S. Plus, Ball O.I.S., and Adaptive O.I.S.
  • Electronic Viewfinder (EVF) and manual control ring that emulates a professional recording experience.
  • For a more natural looking image, a new Active Contrast feature equalizes contrast, and the HDR Movie mode enables a wider dynamic range between dark and bright areas.

4K High-Precision AF

Enjoy high-speed, excellent tracking performance and stability. With Custom AF, you can also choose from three focus modes.

Active Contrast

Automatically equalizes the gradation in response to the brightness distribution within the image. → Continue Reading Full Post ←

Sony 1000fps Sensor for Smartphones Developed!

Sony 1000fps Sensor

You have to hand it to Sony for their continued hardware innovation. The sensor technology that brought you the RX Camera series with stacked CMOS Technology; which is DRAM included as a middle layer along with signal processing makes it possible to capture data at tremendous pixel rates in the sensor block which leapfrogs competitors products.

That same 3-Layer stacked design is now unveiled on a cellphone geared sensor with a maximum performance at 1080p 1000fps and 4k 60fps. It is using the same buffer DRAM technology that will let you record for a limited time window and then save and process on your handset.   Considering the speed quoted it is not out of the question to expect the Sony RX series of cameras to reach or exceed this level on upcoming iterations.

Sony 1000fps Sensor 3-Layer Stacked Main Specs:

  • 5520 (H) x 3840 (V) 21.2 megapixels Sensor
  • Diagonal 7.73mm (Type 1/2.3)
  • Pixel Fill Rate: 2,316 Megapixels/sec or 2.3Giga Pixels/sec
  • Rolling Shutter Extremely Reduced at 1/120 sec and up
  • Read Speed 8.478 ms (4:3 19.3 mp) / 6.962 ms (16:9 17.1 mp)
  • Maximum frame rate of 1,000 fps in full HD (1920×1080 pixels)
  • 60fps 4K (3840 x 2160)
  • Still images/sec 30fps 4:3 19.3 megapixels / 16:9 17.1 megapixels
  • 1G bit DRAM or 125 Megabytes
  • 2.5V / 1.8V / 1.1V Power Supply
  • Bayer RAW Output

Just as with the Sony RX series of cameras the sensor block has now a DRAM module stacked inside the CMOS Package which lets the sensor buffer images at much faster speed and reduce rolling shutter jello to levels never before possible. If anything this sensor technology can get rid of the horrendous wobbly nature of unstable phone video when using a higher shutter speed like 1/120 which should be easy on daylight shots. The read out being 4x faster than the previous fastest Sony BSI sensor for phones should make rolling shutter skew an afterthought in every situation except low light when shutter speeds below 1/50 are needed.

The Super Slow Motion Movie Taken by 3-layer Stacked CMOS Image Sensor with DRAM by Sony:

In the video above you can see the new sensor in prototype form recording 960fps and or 1000fps then played back at lower speeds like 15fps.  The quality does look impressive at first glance and very little image degradation.

Looking Closer:

You can see above that on closer inspection Color Moire and aliasing are showing up in the 960fps 1080p sample.  While controlled compared to other cameras it is still far from the image quality the sensor is capable of at 30 and 60fps.   As with RX series cameras the new sensor is throwing away line information to get to the higher frame rates even when it is capable of true 1080p 1000fps in spec.

Problems arise when you feed 2 Gigapixels of image data a second to a cellphone processing pipeline and one with limited memory at that.   The phone is doing it’s best to preserve motion and frame the content considering the limited resources of the memory bus.   If the phone tried to preserve all the pixel data at 1080p it would result in little over 60 frames RAW data for the DRAM on the chip package which defeats the purpose.  Several things are in order to extract the performance including line skipping, color data scrapping and heavy compression before the footage is saved to the SD card or internal storage.

The processing of the images is done inside the sensor package within the logic processing layer. Which means the sensor can be used on many phone combinations without the need of a specific processing core. The Sony sensor spits out 60 or 30fps ready video to record to the phone storage module. You can of course add some processing in the front end like color filters and a specific file wrapper.

You still have to give credit to Sony for making it look more than acceptable at these frame rates and we expect near 1080p quality at the listed spec of 240fps which would be in line with the Sony RX Camera line which is based on the same technology.

What We Expect in Shipping Products:

Considering the 4k 60fps and 1080p 240fps spec touted in the Sony documents we expect to see phones that have the following spec some time later this year or early 2018:

  • 4k 24/25/30/60fps full sensor capture and down-sample.
  • 120fps Full HD Continuous Shooting
  • 240fps Full HD Time limited shooting 2 or 4 seconds.
  • 480fps Lower Resolution Video in 1080p Wrapper 2 or 4 seconds. Moire and aliasing start to show up.
  • 960fps/1000fps Video in 1080p wrapper with 1/2 real 1080p resolution. Moire and aliasing increased and very apparent.
  • Sony Xperia line of  handsets should ship with the sensor first.
  • Other brands like Samsung, Google, Apple, Lenovo, HTC, Huawei and Motorola to follow in flagship handsets.

In any case, Sony continues it’s progressive innovation push towards better image quality and higher frame rates. The dream of a true slow motion cellphone option is getting closer by the day.  We should see some impressive releases in the portable space soon enough.    We’ll cover this sensor release in phones closely!-HSC

You can read more about this high tech sensor release at the official Sony site here: http://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/News/Press/201702/17-013E/index.html

Thanks to our readers slowmosage, JNBiz, HUBNT and Gonb for alerting us to these news!

Sony a99 II Slow Motion Samples!

Sony a99 II Slow Motion

The Sony a99 II with SLT “fixed translucent mirror design” has been awaited by the A Mount users who only have this camera to upgrade. It is by no means a slouch with it’s impressive specs like 42MP BSI Sensor and 12fps full AF picture shooting.  It also has 4k video recording at 24, 25 and 30p and a 120fps slow motion mode that works at 1080p full HD.

The slow motion quality has been mostly an obscure feature since no samples have been available until recently.  The original a99 had 60fps full HD on a 24MP sensor but the a99 II Doubles every spec and performance is not affected. It is really a monster of a camera for still shooters that can go head to head with the Nikon D5 and or Canon 1DX Mark II without skipping a beat.

The Slow motion on the a99 II interface above lets you choose between 100fps PAL or 120fps NTSC along with lower frame rates for fast shutter motion like 15fps for the fast cuts of fight scenes for example.

One negative is the absence of continuous AF in full manual video mode which is a correctable omission with firmware. As pointed out by Kai W on the review video at the end of this post.

Sony a99 II Slow Motion Samples:

a99 ii slow motion test 120fps 1080p by Vash PH:

A99 Mark 2 S&Q Video Mode – Time lapse & Slow Motion by Ticknor Photography:

a99II slow motion by Васил Николов:

Kingfisher hunting by Marko König– a99 II @ 100p and FS700 at 400p:

Sony Posted a hybrid video demo a few months back about the a6500 and a99 II slow and quick motion features which are identical on both cameras:

Slow-Mo Quality?

It is clear from these samples that the a99 II is a pretty good 100p/120p 1080 slow motion shooter with plenty of detail and no real image degradation in this mode, looks like true 1080p with no real aliasing or moire problems. If you need clean 120fps on an interchangeable lens camera the a99 II has you covered. It should be as good as the a6500 with the added benefit of a Full Frame 35mm sensor.

More a99 II Videos:

Here are some more Sony a99 II videos “Not Slow Motion” that you might find interesting:

Sony a99 II (4K) by CyberPhoto AB:

Sony A99 II Top 5 Features by FilmIn5D:

Sony a99 II Hands-on Review (FINAL VERSION!!) by Kai W:

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