What's all the hubbub about rolling shutter?

[Tom Hardwick]

My pov is very different from yours Vincent. The wedding day is the highlight of a couple's life and the paparazzi attention is part of what makes them feel special, above the rest.

I've had (counted them) 65 electronic flashes go off in a 5 second cake cutting, and the couple love it. Lots of compact cameras fire preflashes for focus and exposure, which adds to the blitz.

Should I want this as a slo-mo snippet in my highlights (as I invariably do) then I don't want it made obvious that quarter and third frames are lit up with ugly (CMOS) monotony. I want the overall brightening of the entire frame as CCDs supply, as this looks far nicer and more natural.

As I say, just my pov, but it sure stopped me dead in my tracks when I went to swap out the Z1 for a Z5.

tom.

[Vincent Oliver]

Originally Posted by Tom Hardwick

I want the overall brightening of the entire frame as CCDs supply, as this looks far nicer and more natural.

tom.

Maybe in an ideal world Tom, but 65 flashes in a 5 second period, I would think your entire clip would be washed out, seeing this in slo mo would be enough to give anyone an epilepsy fit.

[Vincent Oliver]

Originally Posted by John Joyner

How did that affect your footage in regards to the timeline and did this make the footage darker?

Dropping 25fps into a 50fps timeline had no effect on exposure, nor did dropping 50fps into a 25fps timeline. I use Premiere Pro CS3 together with a Matrox RX2 card.

Having said this, the wrong frame rate clip did have to be rendered in each case. I suspect that PPro CS3 adjusted the frame rate to match the timeline rate. No exposure variation though.

[John Joyner]

I hear about picture the superior picture quality of the ex1/3 and hpx300 as compared to the lower end panny's, then I see something like this from a hmc150 Panasonic HMC150 Test Footage, Hollywood Blvd! on Vimeo

It looks sharp and clear with beautiful colors.

[John Joyner]

Originally Posted by Vincent Oliver

Dropping 25fps into a 50fps timeline had no effect on exposure, nor did dropping 50fps into a 25fps timeline. I use Premiere Pro CS3 together with a Matrox RX2 card.

Having said this, the wrong frame rate clip did have to be rendered in each case. I suspect that PPro CS3 adjusted the frame rate to match the timeline rate. No exposure variation though.

That sounds very promising as a work around for the loss in detail and sharpness with camera movement.

[Perrone Ford]

Originally Posted by John Joyner

I hear about picture the superior picture quality of the ex1/3 and hpx300 as compared to the lower end panny's, then I see something like this from a hmc150 Panasonic HMC150 Test Footage, Hollywood Blvd! on Vimeo

It looks sharp and clear with beautiful colors.

Vimeo is not a 52" plasma. On Vimeo, an art student's copy of a Monet might look great too. But the HMC150 (as well as the HVX and others) can look great as well. I am sometimes still impressed with the images coming off my DVX. The differences in the cameras is not night and day, in ideal conditions. But in less than ideal conditions, the differences really start to show.

[Perrone Ford]

Originally Posted by John Joyner

I don't think a comparison of the ex1/3 to the hvx200 is a fair comparison. You need to compare the hpx300 to the ex1/3 sonys.

I don't think that's necessarily correct either. The HPX300 is an odd duck. It has a codec that is CLEARLY better than anything else under $10k. But not much out there is supporting AVC-Intra for post. On the other hand, an EX1 with a nanoflash is about the same price and has a better codec, that is better supported.

The HPX300 is also a full sized shoulder camera. That's great if that's what you want. But if you're trying to be low profile, or work pseudo-handheld, that's out. For someone who wants the EX3 to be full sized, then the Panny has some real advantages. Why they wouldn't put a 1/2" or even a 2/3" chip in it, is beyond me.

[Matt Davis]

If I may vent some CO2 around this tinderbox...

I've got two observations:

Firstly, rolling shutter is an important thing to work around if you're going to do motion tracking in post - most especially in 'solving' where a 3d software camera would be that would shoot your video. I'm only just starting out with PFHoe, which is a motion tracker with trainer wheels, but rolling shutter distortion can make things tricky for the solver to do its magic.

(IIRC, there is an expensive plug-in that can undo rolling shutter distortion effects.)

Secondly, rolling shutter may join lens flare and grain as one of those 'effects' that puts our audience hind-brain deeper into the shot. Who knows, couple of years hence, CGI plugins will include Red, 5Dm2 and EX shutter presets for their virtual cameras to remove the 'perfectness' of a render.

But then again, I still boggle at contemporary films that employ green-screen command lines, analogue noise on TV sets, rolling pictures on video feeds. Digital can futz a picture so much more excitingly!

[Matt Davis]

Originally Posted by Perrone Ford

Why they wouldn't put a 1/2" or even a 2/3" chip in it, is beyond me.

I think it's because the larger sensors need quite a bit of cooling - fine in big-body cameras, but needing fans and scary heatsinks in smaller cameras. The EX1 does get mighty hot sometimes.

[Tom Hardwick]

Originally Posted by Matt Daviss

The EX1 does get mighty hot sometimes.

And the 5D2 hotter still I gather.

[Perrone Ford]

Originally Posted by Matt Daviss

I think it's because the larger sensors need quite a bit of cooling - fine in big-body cameras, but needing fans and scary heatsinks in smaller cameras. The EX1 does get mighty hot sometimes.

If the EX1 can handle a 1/2" chip, SURELY the HPX300 can.

[Matt Davis]

Originally Posted by Perrone Ford

If the EX1 can handle a 1/2" chip, SURELY the HPX300 can.

There's a great deal of 'something' in an HPX300. Maybe it's the overall heat budget within the design of the camera. But I would defer to the Panasonic engineers as to how one would fit the cooling into it.

And again (says he, skidding onto two wheels as he half-remembers filming an engineer talking about this kind of stuff) if you can't pull the heat onto a heat sink and let it dissipate without burning anything, you have to move air around inside a box, and that can be difficult and noisy. Maybe the 'something' inside an HPX300 requires a box to put things in rather than a heat sink to build around. Liquid cooling is, IIRC, subject to its own challenges.

Maybe the EX cameras were built according to the same principles as Hotblack Desiato's stuntship: it's just one big heatsink with a lens on the front.

Well hey, the other reason for no 1/2" or 2/3" is ... Marketing.

PS: I stand corrected by the Hitch Hiker's Guide police: Hotblack Desiato's stunt ship didn't have a heatsink, but it was very black. A ship in the same garage was a little fancy number, not powerful but 'what it had was a heat sink'. I hang my head in shame. I used to be able to quote verbatim from H2G2 in my mis-spent youth.

[Matthew Hurley]

I look @ this issue, like a painter would, in his selection of brushes for a particular art project. As such, each camera has its up and down sides (From a technical point of view) . Many of us are uber camera geeks. We over analyze technical issues our client base neither see,s or cares about. Not saying their comes a time when i do come across a producer that actually can see a technical difference in footage shot with cameras from various camps. Those producers are few. We as DP,s pander to many a YES men. Those that look at our bling and the pretty pictures on our HD monitors and say, Yes thats perfect!

I personally am at the point where,whatever manufacturer comes up with a product i feel will be both financially reasonable and fulfill my clients needs, will dictate which manufacturer i will purchase from.

In the coming weeks, i will be shooting a job with 2 Canon MK2D,s and an EX1. Though i love the (Look) of the Canon MK2D, i am no fan of it as a end user. It is among other things an ergonomic nightmare. Fortunately i will only be using it for time-lapse set-ups. All hand held work will be done with the Sony EX1, which has its own ergonomic issues.

In all honesty, though i have yet to shoot with the Pan HPX300, i really do like the shoulder mounted configuration. Its is my opinion, CCD chips are the past. The CMOS has come into its own.

Whoever comes out with a shoulder mounted camera with a cmos chip, the likes of which is in the Canon MK2D, will get this guys hard earned cash.

Who will be that vendor? Only time will tell. Sony seems to have adopted the cmos chip for the time being, as has Canon. As we all know, the flavor of the moment is this so called DOF look. Within certain applications, it is a wonderful effect. Yet, 99.9% of my clients could care less about it. The look, if not part of the origin creative treatment only serves me the shooter. As artists we like to push the envelope look wise.

Funny how many of us buy a camera that shoots stunning HD images, only to dumb down that imagery via a 35MM DOF adapter.

I wonder what is going to happen to all of us once 3D becomes the next (Look) we all will have to master!

Disclaimer. These comments are the random thoughts from a coffee fueled DP who uses different cameras and formats on a daily basis. LOL.

[Perrone Ford]

Originally Posted by Matthew Hurley

Whoever comes out with a shoulder mounted camera with a cmos chip, the likes of which is in the Canon MK2D, will get this guys hard earned cash.

Who will be that vendor? Only time will tell. Sony seems to have adopted the cmos chip for the time being, as has Canon. As we all know, the flavor of the moment is this so called DOF look. Within certain applications, it is a wonderful effect.

Sony's got the chip set. They've got the shell (any of the XDCams will do), they've got the media, they've got the lenses. The question for Sony, is what to do about the codec. XDCamEX is fine for many applications, but honestly, for critical stuff, I'd prefer a much higher bit-rate or an intra-frame. Integrating something like the NanoFlash would make all the rest of this non-sense just disappear. I'm all set for cams for a while, but could you imagine Sony dropping a bomb like this at the next NAB? A shoulder cam with 1/2 or 2/3 CMOS, interchangeable lenses, and a high-bitrate codec. Give it the same controls as the EX3 (peaking, zebra, etc.) and maybe a waveform monitor like the HPX170 and you've got an instant winner.

[Craig Seeman]

Getting back to the OP and rolling shutter.
Sony's major feat with the EX series is 1/2" chips in a small camera. To do that they HAD to go to CMOS. IMHO people (regular viewers, not camera geeks) are MORE likely to appreciate the greater DOF than the very minor rolling shutter issues. People do notice the use of shallow DOF even if they can't articulate. Very subjective but I think it is one of the key elements when people talk about "film look" (again regular non geeks who can't actually articulate what they mean).

I can't fathom the reason Panasonic would use 1/3" CMOS chips (cut costs, other heat disbursement issues?).

One thing Sony EX lacks (and a MAJOR one IMHO) is lack of record cache (pre-record). I can't imagine designing a non tape based media camera without it.