6 ms·

Isn't one of the big challenges of hi-speed video how to collect enough photons in such a short time? Super-bright lights are often used to illuminate the subje

Isn't one of the big challenges of hi-speed video how to collect enough photons in such a short time? Super-bright lights are often used to illuminate the subject 'Shooting at a frame rate of 1000fps requires 5.25 times more light than at 24 or 25 fps' [http://www.lovehighspeed.com/lighting-for-high-speed/ http://www.lovehighspeed.com/lighting-for-high-speed/]

StavrosK 11y ago
They've been making some headway into low-light performance for their sensors, which undoubtedly helps here.
- saiya-jin 11y ago
  low light performance is the (one of) holy grail of all camera manufacturers, and one of prime properties evaluated when new hardware arrives (be it lens or sensor). don't expect any major breakthrough there, low hanging fruit has been covered looong time ago.
  - dagw 11y ago
    Still the current generation of Sony A7 cameras produce some pretty damn usable results at both 6400 and 12800 ISO, allowing 1/1000 - 1/2000 second shutter time in 'normal' lighting conditions.
    - arebop 11y ago
      a7s goes up to 409600 ISO, and some would say the results at 80000 ISO are pretty damn usable [http://philipbloom.net/blog/a7s/ http://philipbloom.net/blog/a7s/]!
  - deutronium 11y ago
    Canon released an ISO 4000000 camera recently http://petapixel.com/2015/07/30/canon-just-unleashed-an-iso-4000000-camera/ http://petapixel.com/2015/07/30/canon-just-unleashed-an-iso-...
bitL 11y ago
AFAIK the problem with the old sensors was that they were manufactured at 100s of nm which was really bad for low light. As Sony is now pushing sensor manufacturing down to CPU-level, the sensitivity increases significantly. Once they hit the current cutting edge 14nm process, we can expect significant low-light gains as well.
- acqq 11y ago
  Isn't it exactly the opposite? The smaller the area, the less photons land on it in the given time, so the sensors with the bigger pixels can capture more light, and the less nm features measure the more of noise and less of signal. That's why if you want good pictures in low light you need a camera with as big sensor as you can get. http://www.dpreview.com/articles/5496399487/canon-multi-purpose-me20f-sh-camera-reaches-iso-4-million http://www.dpreview.com/articles/5496399487/canon-multi-purp... "At the core of the ME20F-SH is a 2.26 megapixel CMOS sensor, originally announced in 2013, which has pixels measuring 19μm - 5.5X larger than what's found on high-end DSLRs. This allows for 1080/60p/30p/24p (and PAL equivalent) video capture in light levels as low as 0.0005 lux at a maximum gain setting of 75 Db, which is equivalent to over ISO 4,000,000." Note: the pixel is larger and therefore the sensor more sensitive. Canon made the full frame sensor with only 2 megapixels and obtained the higher sensitivity. Comparing with the cameras in phones, the area of the whole sensor in iPhone 6 is 50 times smaller than the area of the full frame sensor.
  - gliptic 11y ago
    Making the components smaller doesn't mean you have to make the sensor area smaller, you can just put more of them in.
    - acqq 11y ago
      > Making the components smaller doesn't mean you have to make the sensor area smaller, you can just put more of them in. It sounds, mildly put, different to all I know, so much that I fully doubt the validity of claim, as long as the subject are the camera sensors. My argument is exactly that making the transistors smaller benefits the CPUs but making the pixels smaller makes the sensors worse. The less pixels in the same area, the more sensitivity. So what do you mean can be "put more of" "in"? I've also linked to an example. The Canon's camera has one pixel of 19μm. The latest Intel CPUs use lithography of 14 nm, that's more than 1000 times smaller in one dimension. Which means that the difference in useful area gained by reducing the frame of the fixed-area pixel as the effect of the lower-nm lithography brings extremely little (for example, twice as thin frame (e.g. 28 nm to 14 nm step) brings just 0.2% more photons in the same area). Do you have any link?

StavrosK 11y ago

They've been making some headway into low-light performance for their sensors, which undoubtedly helps here.

saiya-jin 11y ago
low light performance is the (one of) holy grail of all camera manufacturers, and one of prime properties evaluated when new hardware arrives (be it lens or sensor). don't expect any major breakthrough there, low hanging fruit has been covered looong time ago.
- dagw 11y ago
  Still the current generation of Sony A7 cameras produce some pretty damn usable results at both 6400 and 12800 ISO, allowing 1/1000 - 1/2000 second shutter time in 'normal' lighting conditions.
  - arebop 11y ago
    a7s goes up to 409600 ISO, and some would say the results at 80000 ISO are pretty damn usable [http://philipbloom.net/blog/a7s/ http://philipbloom.net/blog/a7s/]!
- deutronium 11y ago
  Canon released an ISO 4000000 camera recently http://petapixel.com/2015/07/30/canon-just-unleashed-an-iso-4000000-camera/ http://petapixel.com/2015/07/30/canon-just-unleashed-an-iso-...

bitL 11y ago

AFAIK the problem with the old sensors was that they were manufactured at 100s of nm which was really bad for low light. As Sony is now pushing sensor manufacturing down to CPU-level, the sensitivity increases significantly. Once they hit the current cutting edge 14nm process, we can expect significant low-light gains as well.

acqq 11y ago
Isn't it exactly the opposite? The smaller the area, the less photons land on it in the given time, so the sensors with the bigger pixels can capture more light, and the less nm features measure the more of noise and less of signal. That's why if you want good pictures in low light you need a camera with as big sensor as you can get. http://www.dpreview.com/articles/5496399487/canon-multi-purpose-me20f-sh-camera-reaches-iso-4-million http://www.dpreview.com/articles/5496399487/canon-multi-purp... "At the core of the ME20F-SH is a 2.26 megapixel CMOS sensor, originally announced in 2013, which has pixels measuring 19μm - 5.5X larger than what's found on high-end DSLRs. This allows for 1080/60p/30p/24p (and PAL equivalent) video capture in light levels as low as 0.0005 lux at a maximum gain setting of 75 Db, which is equivalent to over ISO 4,000,000." Note: the pixel is larger and therefore the sensor more sensitive. Canon made the full frame sensor with only 2 megapixels and obtained the higher sensitivity. Comparing with the cameras in phones, the area of the whole sensor in iPhone 6 is 50 times smaller than the area of the full frame sensor.
- gliptic 11y ago
  Making the components smaller doesn't mean you have to make the sensor area smaller, you can just put more of them in.
  - acqq 11y ago
    > Making the components smaller doesn't mean you have to make the sensor area smaller, you can just put more of them in. It sounds, mildly put, different to all I know, so much that I fully doubt the validity of claim, as long as the subject are the camera sensors. My argument is exactly that making the transistors smaller benefits the CPUs but making the pixels smaller makes the sensors worse. The less pixels in the same area, the more sensitivity. So what do you mean can be "put more of" "in"? I've also linked to an example. The Canon's camera has one pixel of 19μm. The latest Intel CPUs use lithography of 14 nm, that's more than 1000 times smaller in one dimension. Which means that the difference in useful area gained by reducing the frame of the fixed-area pixel as the effect of the lower-nm lithography brings extremely little (for example, twice as thin frame (e.g. 28 nm to 14 nm step) brings just 0.2% more photons in the same area). Do you have any link?