Sony PMW400 shoulder mounted XDCam

[Doug Jensen]

The PMW-400 will be offered with or without a lens. I predict the list price for the version with the lens will be around $20K with the body-only being about $18K.

I also predict there will be a replacement for the EX3 announced before the end of the year that will have the UDF HD422 codecs. Maybe even shipping before the end of the year. I'm calling it the PMW-300. However, it would not come as a total surprise if the PMW-320 got the HD422 facelift and the EX3 body style went away completely.

[Trell Mitchell]

Doug, In prior posts, I recall you expressing the obvious diffidence between the PMW 350, and the PMW 500/ PDW-700/800. I also noticed the difference when comparing the images of Sony's 2/3 CMOS vs Sony's 2/3 CCD; not bad, but just different. In my opinion, I favor the CCD image, it looked more robust. Anyhow, do you know if Sony will be using a new generation of 2/3 CMOS chips for the PMW 400, or will they continue to use the chips developed for the PMW-350?

[Jack Zhang]

My wish is for affordable 2/3'' or 1/2'' Global Shutter CMOS sensors with good SNR and Dynamic Range. If the S35 sensors already are starting to have Global Shutter, it's a matter of time before smaller sensor sizes have it.

[Gwynne Williams]

I've been waiting to make the change to HD for a while now, but, as an owner of a DSR450 (which is still a great camera by the way), I was looking at the PMW200 as a replacement. I'm glad I held off now as this PMW-400 camera looks like the perfect upgrade, with 2/3 chips and of course 4.2.2 50Mbs spec. Does anyone know the weight of the camera with viewfinder and supplied lens? I can't seem to find it on the spec supplied so far. August can't come soon enough for me!

[Alister Chapman]

Don't forget the PMW-F55 takes a serious sensitivity hit because of the frame image scan global shutter. I assume this suggests a memory pixel adjacent to the light sensitive pixel making the light gathering pixels smaller. This is acceptable on a larger sensor where you have more space for bigger pixels so start off with better sensitivity, but on a 2/3" sensor I'm not sure how many people would put up with a 50% reduction in sensitivity. Would people buy a PMW-450 which is only half as sensitive as the PMW-400 or a PMW-350? It would be less sensitive than an EX1, PMW-200.

It will be interesting to see how well the internal flash band compensation works. I almost never have a real world issue with skew on a proper video camera, but flash band is more of an issue.

[Jack Zhang]

Once technologies to compensate for the sensitivity (like BSI) can be perfected, the smaller sensors could get enough sensitivity to be usable.

[Shaun Roemich]

Originally Posted by Alister Chapman

Would people buy a PMW-450 which is only half as sensitive as the PMW-400 or a PMW-350? It would be less sensitive than an EX1, PMW-200.

I do think we've gotten spoiled. I wouldn't go back to the days of the BVW-507 dockable at f8 @2000 lux, that's for sure.

Is CCD technology seriously that unviable right now? CMOS always seemed like a stop-gap measure but it now looks like it is here to stay.

Unless I'm mistaken, the downside to CCD was heat and power consumption compared to CMOS. I remember a senior sales guy (it MAY have been Brian Young at Sony back in the day) telling me that CCDs were actually MORE light sensitive inherently.

Or is my memory playing tricks on me?

[David Heath]

Originally Posted by Alister Chapman

It will be interesting to see how well the internal flash band compensation works. I almost never have a real world issue with skew on a proper video camera, but flash band is more of an issue.

I'm not speaking from personal experience, but have heard tales that suggest it's most likely to work reasonably well most of the time - but on occasions get fooled by features of the image to give a false correction. (And look far worse than if no correction had been applied.)

The advice I'd heard (some Panasonic cameras have had an in-camera ability for a while) is for most work to normally leave the mode firmly switched "OFF" and do any flash-band correction in post and software - where any false detections can be ignored. Problem with doing it in-camera is that once done, that's it, the correction is burnt in and no going back.

OK, such as news may be different, with simply no possibility of doing it later (especially for a live camera! :-) ) and maybe it's considered that correction most of the time is worth the occasional mishap.

I also agree about the global shutter and sensitivity factors. For this type of camera, I strongly suspect that most users will prefer the sensitivity advantage over the global shutter. And if we ever start to see 2/3" 4k cameras, then photosite size may become even more of a factor, mean giving up sensor area to memory pixels becomes even more of an issue. But let's not look too far ahead!

[Jack Zhang]

I'm optimistic for smaller sensors that could retain sensitivity. In the pro world, my opinion states that 2/3'' 4K may be irrelevant if you could debayer a higher than 4K S35 or Full Frame sensor properly. 1/3'' 4K may soon be the realm of consumer cameras though.

[Shaun Roemich]

Originally Posted by Jack Zhang

In the pro world, my opinion states that 2/3'' 4K may be irrelevant if you could debayer a higher than 4K S35 or Full Frame sensor properly.

Hardly irrelevant until we can start making 133x parfocal zoom lenses for S35 cameras.

The whole indie cinema revolution has forgotten that you AREN'T the only players.

Broadcast television still exists and WILL exist for some time to come. Want to watch baseball, football, soccer?

Long zoom lens required.

Your Dancing With Celebrity Apprentices?

Long zoom lens required.

Sports television and entertainment television are among the drivers for high quality television programming.

And frankly, if you think you are going to find operators that can do tight follow on a ball receiver with a S35 sized sensor at full telephoto, you're kidding yourself.

Horses for courses.

2/3" is alive and well.

[Paul Cronin]

Well said Shaun. Often I miss my PMW500, now that I am using a C300.

[David Heath]

Originally Posted by Shaun Roemich

And frankly, if you think you are going to find operators that can do tight follow on a ball receiver with a S35 sized sensor at full telephoto, you're kidding yourself.

As regards most of your post, you're spot on. Comparable lenses (zoom range, max w/a etc) for s35 will inevitably be bigger, heavier and more expensive than the equivalent for 2/3" - so yes, 2/3" is likely to remain the sweet spot for much television for a while to come.

But as regards following focus, then s35 need not be any worse than 2/3" *IF* such a camera is stopped down about three stops compared to a 2/3" camera. In such a case they'd have comparable depth of field.

You may be thinking "but what about the sensitivity, stupid!?", but remember that for comparable technologies the 8x area of s35 should predict a 3 stop sensitivity gain over 2/3". In practice, the single chip nature of any feasible s35 is likely to drop at least a stop, so all else equal I'd only expect the s35 camera to be about 2 stops more sensitive than a 2/3" one. But it would mean (in theory) it could be operated 2 f stops down compared to 2/3" for equivalent light - which would get back a lot of that dof.....

[Jack Zhang]

Originally Posted by Shaun Roemich

Hardly irrelevant until we can start making 133x parfocal zoom lenses for S35 cameras.

The whole indie cinema revolution has forgotten that you AREN'T the only players.

Broadcast television still exists and WILL exist for some time to come. Want to watch baseball, football, soccer?

Long zoom lens required.

Your Dancing With Celebrity Apprentices?

Long zoom lens required.

Sports television and entertainment television are among the drivers for high quality television programming.

And frankly, if you think you are going to find operators that can do tight follow on a ball receiver with a S35 sized sensor at full telephoto, you're kidding yourself.

Horses for courses.

2/3" is alive and well.

Then why have they not made CMOS global shutters the focus of the 2/3'' realm!?! High telephoto = Skew on CMOS sensors. This is why sports is mostly CCD based still.

[David Heath]

Originally Posted by Jack Zhang

This is why sports is mostly CCD based still.

I think Shaun may have been correct when he said "....the downside to CCD was heat and power consumption compared to CMOS".

Now power consumption is mainly an issue when the equipment is battery operated, especially if extras such as camera lights, radiocam transmitters need powering as well. Move onto Outside Broadcast and studio cameras being powered down the cable and power consumption becomes far less important, and hence likewise the need to move onto CMOS.

And is it true that high telephoto automatically means worse skew? I thought skew varies with the time taken to pan across a frame width. So with a long telephoto there won't automatically be worse skew - as long as the angular rate of pan decreases to keep period taken to pan across a frame width the same?

[Shaun Roemich]

Originally Posted by David Heath

But as regards following focus, then s35 need not be any worse than 2/3" *IF* such a camera is stopped down about three stops compared to a 2/3" camera. In such a case they'd have comparable depth of field.

Of course, my bad... I'm just so used to S35 shooters forgetting there is anything BESIDES wide open...