not to mention the lens...

> 200 dollars for a 1920x1080 one

Really? But at what size? 1/6", surely not 1/2" and definately not 35mm, right?

At 1/6", even with three sensors, sensitivity is low, such is the case with my PDX10. Even though it doesn't do HDV, it has a high-res sensor which accounts for it's great downsampled SD image, better than the PD170 under certain conditions. It's sensitivity seems similar to that of the FX1/Z1, although Sony has done a better job with gain and noise and the sensor is larger. I doubt that the sensor array in this new cam costs anything below US$800.

And as Toke hints, the larger the sensor, the larger the optics and they are also a very expensive component, especially if you want the 800 lines or more of res for HDV.

<<<-- Originally posted by Ignacio Rodriguez: But you would get a better image with a camera with three 1/2" CCDs, and that would probably be less expensive than a single 2/3" CCD. Sensor size is critical to the cost of a camera system because it directly affects the size of the lenses and because larger sensors are much more expensive to make because yields are much lower, this means more CCDs have to be made to get a good one, thus more money is spent. -->>>

3x1/2" use more silicon than 1x2/3" so if quality of production line is ok, then 3x1/2" should be more expensive. These hd chips have been made many years now, so the yield issues should be in the past.

But like Juan, I don't think that ccd/cmos costs are so critical anymore or at least in the future.

And then the critical part will be the lens.

You can already see that in consumer still cameras. Because megapixels are advertised, you can buy a cheap 8Mp camera with lens that has resolving power less than half of the chip.

A good lens for consumer dslr costs many times more than the body.

Zeiss digiprimes are the sharpest lenses in the world and their resolving power is just the needed 100lp/mm for 2/3" hd. But they would be very expensive to make even for mass market.

For 1/3" lens to have resolving power of 2Mp, it needs to have 200lp/mm and that would be even more expensive.

So to design a successful new hd camera to pros/prosumers with optimal price/quality ratio, one needs to find the sweet spot in lenses.

So what would be the optimal choise for imager's size if one considers the resolution, aperture, size, weight, price, etc.?

I believe that 4/3" would be ideal format for overall use.
Biggers are too bulky for document use and smallers lack of sensivity and resolution.
If it would become mass market product maybe lenses for that size might have even 4k resolving power for reasonable price.

> So what would be the optimal choise for imager's size
> one considers the resolution, aperture, size, weight, price,
> etc.?

Very keen question, Toke. I have always thought that --since economics of scale and competition in the field of 35mm photography have for decades provided us with increasingly high quality and low cost lenses-- the logical choice is to use a 35mm sensor. Especially if, as you say, sensor size is not such a cost factor. Even considering --as I do-- that sensor size does affect the price of a camera to a large degree, there is such a vast array of cheap 35mm lenses sharp enough for good ol' chemical photography, that surely at least some of them must be good enough for 1920x1080 video.

There are still a few technical problems to fix for this to be possible. The most important one is dealing with the way photo lenses focus light onto film, because where film doesn't care about the direction of light, electronic sensors do, so their will probably have to be something like a HAD sensor, but instead of a lens in front of each pixel it will have a white translucid element to diffuse light. Of course this will mean losing some light, but at such a large sensor size that should not be a problem.

The other important technical problem for HD at consumer prices has been dealing with all that data, but this problem has already been solved by using MPEG2 at 25 Mbps. It would work even better at 50 Mbps with a hard disk instead of tape. And using the MPEG4 AVC can only be better still, not to mention QuickTime-native so anything can edit it.

So the question is, which company will take this opportunity and hit the nail on the head with a consumer 35mm 1920x1080 video camera with an SLR lens mount?

For one thing, it has to be somebody with no significant pro line to kill. This rules out Sony, Panasonic, Ikegami and perhaps Canon because they provide the lenses for high-end video.

I really hope people from JVC, Nikon, Minolta and other companies are reading this.

Maybe a good alternative (if sensor size does affect cost--which I think it would) would be a 16mm sensor size--after all, there are lots of different 16mm motion picture lenses on the market (I imagine both zoom and primes) that are older and fairly cheap...

I see your point Kevin, but is it not even easier and cheaper to get good 35mm photo lenses than it is to get a hold of good 16mm lenses? Besides, at 16mm, there is not too much light getting in there and I believe we are aproaching the thoretical limit of small sensors with Sony's HAD implementation on the FX1/Z1. Heck Sony is even using non-square pixels to suck every possible photon falling into the imaging area.

<<<-- Originally posted by Ignacio Rodriguez: Besides, at 16mm, there is not too much light getting in there and I believe we are aproaching the thoretical limit of small sensors with Sony's HAD implementation on the FX1/Z1. -->>>

1/3" sensor is 4.8mm wide and super16 gate is 12.4mm wide, so s16 sized sensor would be 3 stops more sensitive...

> 1/3" sensor is 4.8mm wide and super16 gate is 12.4mm
> wide, so s16 sized sensor would be 3 stops more sensitive...

Yes. Surely better, but still not enough to reach PD170 sensitivity with a single sensor at a high resolution, I think. Besides, if --as you claim-- cost is not so dependant on sensor size, the bigger the sensor the more control we have of depth of field and we want that. More light, more control, more choice of lenses for less money... so my vote goes for 35mm single sensor that can use photo lenses. Yours?

<<<-- Originally posted by Ignacio Rodriguez: ... so my vote goes for 35mm single sensor that can use photo lenses. Yours? -->>>

I have some canon ef lenses, so using them with moving image sounds tempting, but I believe focus pulling in documentary style shooting with 36mm wide imager might be too hard. Using 25mm wide image in 35mm cine film for fiction work is hard enough.
But those nikon and canon cameras that have 1.5-1.6 focal length multiplier imagers might be in reasonable range.
Olympus and panasonic just released co-operation with 4/3" cameras.
If they would just develop also a videocamera based on that size.

If 4/3" imagers and lenses would become common in still world, I see no reason why those lenses wouldn't be cheaper than modern kino lenses.

So for overall camera I'd choose 4/3". After all that's 90% of academy aperture...
Preferably with 4k-resolution (12Mp?, 16Mp?) in univiusium format...
If just somebody would come up with casing that would be handy for both still and moving pictures.

Some little facts:

1) A 2/3 inch sensor is in fact the nearest to a 16mm film equivalent.
They are about 9.6 to 10mm wide sensitive area (16mm film 12mm aprox).

2)Sensitivity is not so easy to calculate based on sensitive silicon surface.
A ProcamHD3560 (2/3 inch) is far more sensitive than the 36x24 mm sensors used on Kodak's latest digital SRL camera.
A DVX100 has higher sensitivity than many other cameras I've seen with bigger sensors.

3)Any decent modern SRL lens (call it Canon, Nikkor,Zeiss,Leica or even Pentax :) ) easily exceed an "aerial resolution" of 100lp/mm.
Limitations are not in fact related to the lenses themselves but to contructive characteristics of camera body, shutter mechanism, ambiental/weather conditions and negative itself.
(think about that an ultra prime lens is supposed to resolve beyond 600lp/mm "aerial" and you will never get much more of around 80 lp/mm on 35mm movie film negative no matter what you try to do)

Also remember that Century optics takes apart Canon SRL zooms, disassemble them, put all those nice lenses inside different mechanics and sell them for cinema use at 50 times the original price.

Also I would trust more on modern SRL lenses resolution if using them for digital HD sensors than getting old 16mm lenses wich were not design for higher resolutions than the one available for 16mm film at their time (you know old coatings, etc)

these are my two cents, hope nobody got offended by this.

<<<-- Originally posted by Juan M. M. Fiebelkorn: Any decent modern SRL lens (call it Canon, Nikkor,Zeiss,Leica or even Pentax :) ) easily exceed an "aerial resolution" of 100lp/mm.
Limitations are not in fact related to the lenses themselves but to contructive characteristics of camera body, shutter mechanism, ambiental/weather conditions and negative itself.
(think about that an ultra prime lens is supposed to resolve beyond 600lp/mm "aerial" and you will never get much more of around 80 lp/mm on 35mm movie film negative no matter what you try to do) -->>>

Can you tell what you mean by "aerial resolution"?
If we take the best canon lense for slr: EF 200/1,8L USM
http://www.photodo.com/prod/lens/detail/CaEF200_18LUSM-56.shtml
It has mtf of 0.71 with 40lp/mm.
So I can't believe that it resolves anything above 100lp/mm.
Zeiss digiprimes have 90% mtf at 56lp/mm. From that I believe that they still resolve something in 100lp/mm, but not much after that.

"aerial" is the resolving power the lens give for an image before hitting the negative, I mean it is the "actual" resolving power of the lens not affected by any mechanics or negative.
Zeiis uses it all the time.Make a deep search at their page and you will find it.
BTW.I tested A Pentax 50mm F 1.7 long time ago and with a low ASA intermediate stock it resolved around 90 Lp/mm at F 4.0.
(using open shutter and a flash light.
When we did the same using the mech shutter it went down to around 49 lp/mm)

<<<-- Originally posted by Juan M. M. Fiebelkorn : "aerial" is the resolving power the lens give for an image before hitting the negative, I mean it is the "actual" resolving power of the lens not affected by any mechanics or negative. Zeiis uses it all the time. -->>>

There's no sense talking about lp/mm figures without MTF.
Do you honestly believe that Zeiss would advertize their Digiprimes with 56lp/mm if it would be hundreds with some mtf?
Or do you think that your Pentax is so much better?

Ok.I'm not trying to argue.
I'm just saying the normal SRL Lenses you use are enough for motion picture and for HDTV.
You say they aren't.
Here the conversation ends.
I won't change my point of view because it came from my own tests.And you won't change your point of view cause probably you have your own different experience, so there is no point to keep posting about this here.
Bye :)

I'm not saying that they are not "enough".
I'm just saying that it might not be optimal format.
With 4/3" would be easier to focus and lenses would be smaller and lighter weighted.
And compering the zooms that are available, it seems that you could get bigger apertures with 4/3" than with 24x36 size, so that compensates lesser sensivity of smaller chip.

<<<-- Originally posted by Chris Hurd : ...any of the current Canon Optura series camcorders (which have an RGB filter) will match the look of the older three-chip Canon XL1 and GL1 camcorders under the proper lighting conditions... -->>>

Chris,

Which Optura do you consider current? I recently did a comparison between an Optura-10 and my GL2 hoping to use the smaller camera on some riskier shots. I was pretty disapointed. Once it was in the NLE, the shots looked like the difference of film and video. Granted, the GL2 settings were tweaked, but I wouldn't say the cams were even close. In fact, color was the big penalty, the reds on the Optura were dull and the greens were grey.

You must be talking about the newer Optura-40 or somthing I haven't seen, no?

The Optura 10 uses a CMY filter, the new Optura's use RGB. Check this chart:

http://www.dvinfo.net/canonoptura/articles/compare.php

The interesting thing about digital SLR's is that when the lighting gets bad we use a flash to give what is needed for that single ccd. If we could always shoot video with a huge light a single ccd video camera will look good. Try using your digital SLR in bad lighting with no flash and it will look pretty bad.

Thomas,
sensivity is just about pixel sizes.
If resolution is constant, then is't just about chip area.
Eg. 2/3" 1-chip has area of 4x1/3" so it is more sensitive than 1/3" 3-chip camera.
There isn't any magic in 3ccd's.

Doesn't 3 chips give you more detail in your picture than a 1CCD?

Sorry if it's a stupid question.

3 CCDs in a beam splitter arrangement will give you more resolution that 1 of the same CCDs with a Bayer mask because there is no interpolation. And then the pixel offsetting trick yields a bit more still. But then remember that the green channel provides most of the picture information, that in a Bayer chip half the pixels are green sensitive, and that in DV 3/4 of the color information is tossed out and you can see that the engineers have a very interesting trade space in which to evolve their designs.

And it certainly is not a stupid question.

Thanks

> I have some canon ef lenses, so using them with
> moving image sounds tempting, but I believe focus
> pulling in documentary style shooting with 36mm
> wide imager might be too hard.

No. Well... yes, it would be hard if you used the larger apertures. But having a large sensor and lenses, you have more light to work with so if you were to film documentary style, you would expose at the slowest possible shutter speed and keep the lens at the smallest aperture. Thus, larger optics don't keep you from having wide DOF, rather they give you the option to control DOF.

Anyway, we are way off-topic. My proposal to camera makers is, make a camera with a single large sensor, and if you can't make a low cost 35mm sensor, go as large as possible but small enough to keep the camera below US$5k and have it include a built in ground glass or similar intermediate surface, and a 35mm photo mount which accepts servo-focus lenses.

Who does make the ccd's? the majority?

Matsushita or Sony?

The reason most cams are 1/6th of an inch are they are made in a crap full and outsourced (like intel or amd chips)

We will be seeing more small ccd's its just the market, if they start making one 2/3 ccd's performance and low light go up but the ratio of production drops(for every slab less peices come out good) same thing with micro chips(the intel P4 prescott produces more heat and is slower than northwood, but its made on a 90nm fab(northwood 130nm) %30-40 more profit after production starts rolling)

1/6'th ccds are mass produced, gotta applaud Pana giving us 3ccd in the $600 relm (electronics and maybe everything is all about production and profit)

The other thing about still cameras is they have a lot more flexibility in shutter speed -- you can, in some circumstances, reasonably take the camera to shutter speeds exceeding a second. You can't do that with moving images.

> The other thing about still cameras is they have
> a lot more flexibility in shutter speed -- you can, in
> some circumstances, reasonably take the camera to
> shutter speeds exceeding a second. You can't do
> that with moving images.

Exactly. Which is why consumer digicams can make do with a single small sensor. Video doesn't have the advantage of stopping time, so it's either 3 sensors or larger sensors to get enought light at 1/50 or 1/60 and above. Thus, if we want single sensors for video, they have to be big, especially for HD, otherwise we will end up with noise pictures and lousy low-light performance like the JVC HDV experiment.

I have been quiet for awhile, but I now would like to say a bit more.

First, it seems to me that the size of the imager would have NOTHING to do with sensivity. Imagine shooting some ISO 100 film with a particular lens at say f/4.5 at say 1/200 sec on a piece of 35mm film. We now take scissors and cut out a piece of the film to say a 16mm image. Is not the smaller image exactly the same exposure as the larger one? Certainly it is! it's PART of it! Will not ISO 100 film give an identically exposed image at f/4.5 and 1/200 sec (and under the same conditions) REGARDLESS of the focal length of the lens and the size of the film? It's just that you need a shorter focal length lens to give the same field of view with a smaller imager - film OR CCD. Aperture is always given in terms of the focal length (f/4.5 means that the actual aperture is focal length DIVIDED by 4.5). This all means that ISO 100 film will always give the same exposure results with a particular f-stop and shutter speed, regardless of the size of the piece of film you are using, or the focal length of the lens. The same would hold true for CCD imagers.

Let's go to the 3 CCD thing. It is certainly true that 3 imagers (RGB) are more sensitive than one (all else being equal). Though there is a little loss in the prism, 100% of the green light gets to the green imager, 100% of the blue light to the blue, and 100% of the red light to the red. On the other hand, a single imager filters the light at the surface of the imager. That means the minute green filter on top of a green pixel THROWS AWAY the red and blue light hitting it. The same is true for the other color filters. That's why the single CCD camera starts the sensitivity race behind the 3CCD.

Luminance is not equally divided among the three colors. Green has something over 60% of the luminance, blue only about 11%, with the rest going to red. This is why I thought the JVC approach with a white filter (throws away nothing), a green filter (throws away less than 40% OF THE LIGHT HITTING THAT FILTER), a yellow filter (throws away only about 11% OF THE LIGHT HITTING THAT FILTER). It has one other filter, but I forget what it is. And by NOT using a blue filter, which throws away 89% of the light hitting it, JVC was able to improve S/N considerably over the typical RGB filtering. At this point some high school algebra is used to get red, green, and blue. (R+G+B=Luminance)

And time marches on. Improvements continue to be made. And there is a balance between, cost, size, weight - and a ton of other factors. I find it interesting that no one has seen fit to make a 3CCD still camera (anyone know of one?).

Keep those cards and letters coming!

<<<-- Originally posted by David Kennett : First, it seems to me that the size of the imager would have NOTHING to do with sensivity. Imagine shooting some ISO 100 film with a particular lens at say f/4.5 at say 1/200 sec on a piece of 35mm film. We now take scissors and cut out a piece of the film to say a 16mm image. Is not the smaller image exactly the same exposure as the larger one? Certainly it is! it's PART of it! Will not ISO 100 film give an identically exposed image at f/4.5 and 1/200 sec (and under the same conditions) REGARDLESS of the focal length of the lens and the size of the film? -->>>

Right, but with a loss of resolution. If you're trying to duplicate the resolution of the original 35mm piece of film in the 16mm swath, you need to pack the "sensors" closer together. The tighter you pack them together -- whether you're talking about film or CCDs/CMOS, but especially the latter -- the less light every individual sensor can gather -- because the smaller it is, the less light it receives. (Or, more accurately, the less surface area it has to gather light.) So the only way to maintain the same light sensitivity at a smaller size is to not pack the sensors, i.e. lower the resolution.

As for why there aren't 3-CCD imagers in still cameras: one, I think the size/weight additon would be somewhat prohibitive. And the move is away from CCDs at all, and toward CMOS imaging, in the high end. The new 11+ megapixel cameras from Canon and Kodak are rather large, 35mm, which -- see above -- has its own benefits.

Colin,

I guess I'll have to think about that size of pixels thing. Fine grain films are less sensitive, so maybe you have something. In any case, sensors seem to be getting smaller AND more sensitive over time. I've never seen anything that says that BECAUSE an imager is larger, it is more sensitive either. So many other variables too!

<<<-- Originally posted by David Kennett : First, it seems to me that the size of the imager would have NOTHING to do with sensivity. ......

Luminance is not equally divided among the three colors. -->>>

David,

1) more area = more photons. It is law of phisics

2) you are totally right and this thread is plenty of wrong math.

> more area = more photons. It is law of phisics

This is true. It's the reason why the cameras usually used for broadcast video will usually have larger sensor than the ones we can buy for home or prosumer use.

It is true that advances in electronics, specifically in the low noise signal amplifiers and analog to digital converters have allowed more usable gain, thus smaller sensors appear to be more sensitive. But there is a limit to that, which is being approached noways with CCDs. The limit is noise. Even though your average Handycam can capture video at 7 lux, the quality of a broadcast camera at 7 lux will be like the quality of the Handycam in full daylight. At 7 lux most small single sensor cameras will exhibit high levels of noise, cameras with multiple sensors will show less noise and the cameras with multiple large sensor (i.e. 2/3") will show almost no noise at all.

Yeah didnt ever think that but your right,

makes a lot of cents

ccd's harder to produce than silicon chips

smaller ccd's+cpu for gain correction cheaper then big cdd's

and offcourse big ccd's+cpu gain correction=$10,000+ equip

it is hard to integrate individual amplifiers in CCDs. It is done in CMOS and one of the uses is to increase a better dinamic range. Other use to reduce noise.

Everything is relative but I predict that prosumer cameras with 3CCD will go away and if they stay it's only for marketing reasons. All the pro photocamera don't have 3 CCD, results are asthonishing.

The Panavision movie camera uses only 1 CCD:

http://tinyurl.com/5glds

All this advantage of 3 CCD is really a bit funny.

Gabriele

CAN SOMEONE MAKE IT???

a prosumer 1ccd monster with xlr and a high quality color prism

3ccd might be a marketing thing... but how do so many people get duped?

why can't a pana or sony or canon come with a 1ccd big bad cam

***NAB 2005 PRIDE AND JOY***

*THE CANON PANASONIC SONY HYBRID*

2.3" SONY cmos chip with
a high quality CANON glass prism for color

CANON 24x optical zoom + canon wide + tele adaptors

MATSUSHITA(HITACHI) 80gig 2.5" harddrive
+ wifi wireless G built in

SONY 5" lcd and lithium battery system for power

packed into a PANASONIC DVX type body with XLR inputs

with an isreali vegitarian leather KATA bag

$6999 M.S.R.P.

"why can't a pana or sony or canon come with a 1ccd big bad cam"

No one at this point in time will attempt to market from this angle. The masses are far to focused on three chip hype for the last 6 years. Marketing suicide. Thank god for JVC for showing that one chip is possible. It will take the perfect, and I mean PERFECT cam to ever make 1ccd a market dominating product. Even then it will be a massive up-hill battle.

Actually JVC demonstrated that --at least at a small size and price-- the single-sensor concept for video is not there yet. Sensitivity and noise were really bad with their first HDV-type camera.

The only way single-sensor will work well is with LARGE sensors, and those are still expensive, for similar reasons that large LCD panels are expensive. The larger area makes for a higher chance of dead pixels, so to get a good 35mm CCD or CMOS the manufacturer needs to make and discard a large number of units, hence the exponentially higher cost related to size.

Yes, many digicams have large sensors, but they are SLOW, most digicams cannot go past 10 fps. And even slow sensors are expensive at large sizes. The Canon digicam with the 35mm-sized chip is a good example. They are slow because the photo market needs much higher resolution than the video market, and it takes time to process a frame with all those pixels.

The sensors required for good, fast 1920x1080 video do exist, but are not yet made in quantities that bring their price down to prosumer levels. Pretty soon the offerings will probably exist but be expensive. Actually they already do but are far from the prosumer pricing we would all want. Time will fix that. But by the time it is fixed, we will all want something else, like chaotic optics or 120p or 4k or who knows what. It is just human nature, to want more and more.

So what does a professional do? Learns how to work with the available technology, pushes it to the limit and saves money for the upgrade, or rents on a project by project basis.

I definately agree that 3CCD's aren't needed anymore. Most of my experience is with the Jyhd10, however recently I've been shooting with my XL2. I did a controlled shoot the other day, and I was blown away with the results from the JVC. I actually had to do color correction on the Canon in post. Granted I'm way more familiar with the JVC, the XL2 is a way better camera to use, but I wish (at times) that it shot as nice as the JVC. I'm sure as I get more and more familiar with XL2 my opinions might change. For a camera (JYHD10) that has taken alot of abuse, it never stops amazing me. I scrinch when I say this, but if you know how to use it and can put up with it's many inperfections it actually holds it's own with the DVX100a and Xl2. Once I get some hosting space I will post samples.

3 CCDs cameras are not needed right now or in the future. In the world of high-end High Definition, the Arriflex D-20 hybrid camera is a reality. It can record film or video. It only uses a single 6 megapixel CMOS sensor. It can shoot in 35mm, super 35 or High Definition.

So the fact that high end cameras are already using only ONE CHIP is a reality right now.

Not only this, but this advanced camera is also made future proof. Arriflex designed this camera to never get obsolete so fast. When a more advanced CMOS chip is available, let's say a 25 MP, with more resolution, better chrominance, more latitude, etc., you do not need to upgrade the camera. Just remove the old chip and insert the new one. Fantastico !!!

Read more here:

http://www.arri.com/prod/cam/d_20/d_20.htm




When Canon came out with the EOS-D30, I said "Whatever, a digital still camera will never look good because it has a single CCD -- or maybe it will look good when it has 20 million pixels which can be downsampled to look good."

Well, look where we are now with digital still cameras. The EOS 10D, 20D, etc -- look amazing with their single-CMOS. Would we not be happy if it captured motion at 60 frames per second? Would we complain the color is bad, or the noise is too high? No way! But 5 years ago I would not have thought this possible.

I predict we will soon see a single CCD camcorder, perhaps from Canon, which has a single CCD and produces EOS quality images. So if you hear of such an annoucenment and it is from Canon, don't be too quick to snob it like people did to the JVC.