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 ←
Blackmagic Design may have just solved the problem of RAW video capture for any camera and every type of user. In essence, it gives the benefits of RAW capture while allowing flexibility in file size depending on production needs. It is a compressed format but by using a clever demosaic algorithm that happens in-camera, it shrinks the file size much more than other formats while preserving quality and RAW features like White Balance, ISO, exposure, NR, clarity and color bit depth.
For Slow motion cameras, it may be the codec of the future as it will allow the best quality without the enormous file sizes associated with image sequences like DNG or other RAW formats. Being open source and free of licenses it aims to be adopted by the entire industry faster than other formats and will be free of the platform-specific nature of codecs like Apple’s ProRes which only works on Mac OS X. The Blackmagic RAW beta is already available here!
Blackmagic RAW Codec Features:
- Compression: 3:1, 5:1, 8:1 and 12:1
- Constant Quality Encoding (Best Quality)
- Constant Bitrate Encoding (Lower File Size)
- Up to 12 Bit Color
- ISO, Exposure, White Balance adjustable
- Real Time Playback and Editing (DaVinci Resolve Now)
- Platform Agnostic
- Mac and Windows .BRAW Players Available now
- License free and Free SDK
As you can see from the 4k frame size graph above expressed in Megabytes/sec, the codec allows for incredible compression levels close to the best H.264 out there at 12:1 while retaining RAW capabilities. The higher quality levels allow for up to 274 MB/sec if needed for production. Contrast that to regular RAW uncompressed at 548MB/sec and you can see the huge benefits this codec has to offer.
Introducing Blackmagic RAW by Blackmagic Design:
Blackmagic RAW Explained by LumaForge: → Continue Reading Full Post ←
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