We were very skeptical earlier in the year when the R5 specs were just a rumor. Canon has not really been delivering powerful video features out of their Cinema line and we expected this new camera to be a crippled continuation of the trend. We were not only wrong but now know that Canon is banking the future of the EOS line on cameras like the R5 with features that really put it in a class all by itself.
The original video darling was the EOS 5D Mark II which made it possible to use the EOS line of lenses with a video mode that delivered good enough quality for the web and some careful productions. The camera had issues like severe rolling shutter and a tendency to moire and alias so bad that many shots were really ruined. However, the excellent Canon color quality and lens choices made it so popular that it really forced companies to change the video options forever. Now Canon intends to do as big a splash with the introduction of 8k video internally on the new camera.→ Continue Reading Full Post ←
The Chinese company from Shenzhen OnePlus has always been regarded as a pusher and advancer of cutting edge technology at a price that is more affordable than most premium brands. The good news has always been that the lower price has not really made it a premium-less experience, actually, many of their phones are so advanced and feature-rich than many flagships from Samsung and Apple have trouble catching up in features like the 120Hz display refresh of the 7T last year.
Since the OnePlus 6 and 6T slow motion in 2018 made inroads by allowing 480fps 720p recording for an unheard of in the phone space “3.75 sec” recording time it has been one of the best slow motion phones to own. They repeated that feat with the OnePlus 7 and 7T in 2019. Now in 2020 after many pushed dates for announcement due to the pandemic situation they have now unveiled the OnePlus 8 and 8 Pro flagship phones. They are premium and advanced that compete head to head with the best out there. They also include 480fps and from the looks of the sample, it seems to be increased in quality with much less pixelation.→ Continue Reading Full Post ←
2020 is already becoming a very busy year for camera releases. The CES Show this past week had a bunch of announcements in the professional, amateur and aerial drone markets that shoot high frame rates. We will try to cover the most useful cameras in the coming weeks. We want to start with the Insta360 ONE R Modular camera from Chinese company Shenzhen Arashi Vision Co., Ltd. which is a very interesting product that de-couples the sensor module from the body so you can interchange the actual imaging hardware on the fly for specific shots/jobs.
The real gem for slow motion fans is the 4K version instead of the 360 and or the 1″ version which both max out at 120fps 1080p instead of 200p. Many people will cry foul at the 200fps spec when GoPro and DJI do 240fps as do most slow motion capable smartphones but 200fps, if done well with the 100Mbps codec, could be a real diamond in the rough for your arsenal in action cameras.→ Continue Reading Full Post ←
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 ←
Today Google unveiled the heavily leaked Pixel 4 and Pixel 4 XL phones which have the latest and greatest camera module geared up for computational photography enthusiasts. It brings in the dual camera back design of many competitors and also drops the notch in turn for a thicker bezel which looks in our view better. The phone is sporting the latest Snapdragon 855, 6GB of RAM and up to 128GB of fast flash memory.
Sadly the phone is keeping the exact same high frame rate specs of the Pixel 3 of last year. So 240fps is staying at 720p and 120fps at 1080p is the max at that resolution. It is clear Google is not interested in delivering performance in high frame rates like their rivals in the Android space. Even Apple offers a much better 1080p 240fps spec which is offered on the back cameras with little trouble. Even the iPhone 11 bests the Pixel 4 in the Selfie department as it allows up to 120fps 1080p for (Slofies™) which is a prominent feature of the handset.→ 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 ←
