I would like to bring everybody up to speed on what's happening in the 1/3inch 3ccd camera world. We all know these cameras, they mostly shoot on dv tapes and the newer ones use hard drives or memory cards, cameras like the Canon Xl2 and the more expensive HD cameras like the XL-H1.Right now all the 1/3inch 3ccd cameras are stepping up to HD.
But here's the catch, the still photography industry has been making larger and larger image sensors since the move to digital, with 24x36mm being the highest normal "full frame" size in the dSLR, this is also referred to as the 35mm(still) format . 1/3inch sensors have a surface area of 17.3mm while 24x36mm have a surface area of 864mm. that's a 7.21 crop factor, i.e a 100mm 24x36mm lens would behave like a 720mm lens if you attached it to a 1/3inch camera.
What does having a larger image sensor mean? two things primarily:
1.The larger format it is much easier to get very shallow depth of field in your shots.
i.e 200 dollar f1.8 50mm lens would give you the same field of view and depth of field as a 6.93mm f0.25 on a 1/3inch 3ccd digital camcorder(nowhere near this lens exists).
To even get close to that depth you need to step up to the academy format which is still only 22mm x 16mm(35mm movie) which is still a crop factor of 2.4
i.e a 200 dollar f1.8 50mm lens would give you the same field of view and depth of field as a 20.83mm f0.75 movie camera lens(a lens near these specifications would be tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars)
2.almost as important is the added sensitivity of these new 24x36mm cameras. Due to the much larger sensor size the sensor collects much more light to make the picture. still digital cameras can easily shoot iso3200 without much image noise and some can shoot upwards of iso 25600. So in combination with lens that can go as low as F1.0-1.2 you will be able to get some incredibly low light shots.
I say all this a bit prematurely. Currently the only camera that is 24x36mm and shoots 1080p video is the Canon 5d MarkII and it is primarily a still camera with video added as a bonus feature. But within the next few years you are going to see these cameras popping more and more until people move over completely. I'm not saying the 5d should make everybody change over right away since it misses crucial features like the ability to adjust frames per second(it films at 30) and the ability to manually adjust shutter speed. But get used to the way it looks, because in 10 years if you are still making movies that have that "flat" 1/3inch look everybody is going to think it looks old and cheap. viva la revolution
But here's the catch, the still photography industry has been making larger and larger image sensors since the move to digital, with 24x36mm being the highest normal "full frame" size in the dSLR, this is also referred to as the 35mm(still) format . 1/3inch sensors have a surface area of 17.3mm while 24x36mm have a surface area of 864mm. that's a 7.21 crop factor, i.e a 100mm 24x36mm lens would behave like a 720mm lens if you attached it to a 1/3inch camera.
What does having a larger image sensor mean? two things primarily:
1.The larger format it is much easier to get very shallow depth of field in your shots.
i.e 200 dollar f1.8 50mm lens would give you the same field of view and depth of field as a 6.93mm f0.25 on a 1/3inch 3ccd digital camcorder(nowhere near this lens exists).
To even get close to that depth you need to step up to the academy format which is still only 22mm x 16mm(35mm movie) which is still a crop factor of 2.4
i.e a 200 dollar f1.8 50mm lens would give you the same field of view and depth of field as a 20.83mm f0.75 movie camera lens(a lens near these specifications would be tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars)
2.almost as important is the added sensitivity of these new 24x36mm cameras. Due to the much larger sensor size the sensor collects much more light to make the picture. still digital cameras can easily shoot iso3200 without much image noise and some can shoot upwards of iso 25600. So in combination with lens that can go as low as F1.0-1.2 you will be able to get some incredibly low light shots.
I say all this a bit prematurely. Currently the only camera that is 24x36mm and shoots 1080p video is the Canon 5d MarkII and it is primarily a still camera with video added as a bonus feature. But within the next few years you are going to see these cameras popping more and more until people move over completely. I'm not saying the 5d should make everybody change over right away since it misses crucial features like the ability to adjust frames per second(it films at 30) and the ability to manually adjust shutter speed. But get used to the way it looks, because in 10 years if you are still making movies that have that "flat" 1/3inch look everybody is going to think it looks old and cheap. viva la revolution
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