Tag Archives: size

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Sensor sizes, where do the imperial sizes like 2/3″ or 4/3″ come from?

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Video sensor size measurement originates from the first tube cameras where the size designation would have related to the outside diameter of the glass tube. The area of the face of the tube used to create the actual image would have been much smaller, typically about 2/3rds of the tubes outside diameter. So a 1″ tube would give a 2/3″ diameter active area, within which you would have a 4:3 frame with a 16mm diagonal.

An old 2/3″ Tube camera would have had a 4:3 active area of about 8.8mm x 6.6mm giving an 11mm diagonal. This 4:3 11mm diagonal is the size now used to denote a modern 2/3″ sensor. A 1/2″ sensor has a 8mm diagonal and a 1″ sensor a 16mm diagonal.

Yes, it’s confusing, but the same 2/3″ lenses as designed for tube cameras in the 1950’s can still be used today on a modern 2/3″ video camera and will give the same field of view today as they did back then. So the sizes have stuck, even though they have little relationship with the physical size of a modern sensor. A modern 2/3″ sensor is nowhere near 2/3 of an inch across the diagonal.

This is why some manufacturers are now using the term “1 inch type”, as this is the active area that would be the equivalent to the active area of an old 1″ diameter Vidicon/Saticon/Plumbicon Tube from the 1950’s.

For comparison:

1/3″ = 6mm diag.
1/2″ = 8mm
2/3″ = 11mm
1″ = 16mm
4/3″ = 22mm

A camera with a Super35mm sensor would be the equivalent of approx 35-40mm
APS-C would be approx 30mm

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Micro 4/3, Super 35, DSLR and the impact on traditional Pro Camcorders.

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Micro 4/3, Super 35, DSLR and the impact on traditional Pro Camcorders.

I was asked by one of this blogs readers about my thoughts on this. It’s certainly a subject that I have spent a lot of time thinking about. Traditionally broadcast and television professionals have used large and bulky cameras that use 3 sensors arranged around a prism to capture the 3 primary colours. The 3 chip design gives excellent colour reproduction, full resolution images of the very highest quality. It’s not however without it’s problems. First its expensive matching 3 sensors and accurately placing them on a high precision prism made from very exotic glass. That prism also introduces image artefacts that have to be dealt with by careful electronic processing. The lenses that have to work with these thick prisms also require very careful design.
Single sensor colour cameras are not something new. I had a couple of old tube cameras that produced colour pictures from a single tube. Until recently, single chip designs were always regarded as inferior to multi-chip designs. However the rise of digital stills photography forced manufacturers to really improve the technologies used to generate a colour image from a single sensor. Sony’s F35 camera used to shoot movies and high end productions is a single chip design with a special RGB pixel matrix. The most common method used is by a single sensor is a bayer mask which places a colour filter array in front of the individual pixels on the sensor. Bayer sensors now rival 3 chip designs in most respects. There is still some leakage of colours between adjacent pixels and the colour separation is not as precise as with a prism, but in most applications these issues are extremely hard to spot and the stills pictures coming from DSLR’s speak for themselves.
A couple of years ago Canon really shook things up by adding video capabilities to some of their DSLR’s. Even now (at the time of writing at least) these are far from perfect as they are at the end of the day high resolution stills cameras so there are some serious compromises to the way video is done. But the Canons do show what can be done with a low cost single chip camera using interchangeable lenses. The shallow depth of field offered by the large near 35mm size sensors (video cams are normally 2/3?, 1/2? or smaller) can be very pleasing and the lack of a prism makes it easier to use a wide range of lenses. So far I have not seen a DSLR or other stills camera with video that I would swap for a current pro 3 chip camera, but I can see the appeal and the possible benefits. Indeed I have used a Canon DSLR on a couple of shoots as a B camera to get very shallow DoF footage.
Sony’s new NEX-VG10 consumer camcorder was launched a couple of weeks ago. It has the shape and ergonomics of a camcorder but with the sensor and lenses of a 4/3? stills camera. I liked it a lot, but there is no zoom rocker and for day to day pro use it’s not what I’m looking for. Panasonic and Sony both have professional large sensor cameras in the pipelines and it’s these that could really shake things up.
While shallow DoF is often desirable in narrative work, for TV news and fast action its not so desirable. When you are shooting the unexpected or something thats moving about a lot you need to have some leeway in focus. So for many applications a big sensor is not suitable. I dread to think what TV news would look like if it was all shot with DSLR’s!
Having said that a good video camera using a big sensor would be a nice piece of kit to have for those projects where controlling the DoF is beneficial.
What I am hoping is that someone will be clever enough to bring out a camera with a 35mm (or thereabouts) sized sensor that has enough resolution to allow it to be used with DSLR (or 4/3) stills camera lenses but also be windowed down and provided with an adapter to take 2/3? broadcast lenses without adding a focal length increase. This means that the sensor needs to be around 8 to 10 Mega Pixels so that when windowed down use just the center 2/3? and it still has around 3 million active pixels to give 1920×1080 resolution (you need more pixels than resolution with a bayer mask). This creates a problem though when you use the full sensor as the readout of the sensor will have to be very clever to avoid the aliasing issues that plague the current DSLR’s as you will have too much resolution when you use the full sensor. Maybe it will come with lens adapters that will have to incorporate optical low pass filters to give the correct response for each type of lens.
A camera like this would, if designed right dramatically change the industry. It would have a considerable impact on the sales of traditional pro video cameras as one camera could be used for everything from movie production to TV news. By using a single sensor (possibly a DSLR sensor) the cost of the camera should be lower than a 3 chip design. If it has a 10 MP sensor then it could also be made 3D capable through the use of a 3D lens like the 4/3? ones announced by Panasonic. These are exciting time we live in. I think the revolution is just around the corner. Having said all of this, I think it’s also fair to point out while you and I are clearly interested in the cutting edge (or bleeding edge) there are an awful lot of producers and production companies that are not, preferring traditional, tried and tested methods. It takes them years to change and adapt, just look at how long tape is hanging on! So the days of the full size 2/3? camera are not over yet, but those of us that like to ride the latest technology wave have great things to look forward to.

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Why is Sensor Size Important: Part 2, Diffraction Limiting

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Another thing that you must consider when looking at sensor size is something called “Diffraction Limiting”. For Standard Definition this is not as big a problem as it is for HD. With HD it is a big issue.

Basically the problem is that light doesn’t always travel in straight lines. When a beam of light passes over a sharp edge it gets bent, this is called diffraction. So when the light passes through the lens of a camera the light around the edge of the iris ring gets bent and this means that some of the light hitting the sensor is slightly de-focussed. The smaller you make the iris the greater the percentage of diffracted light with respect to non diffracted light. Eventually the amount of diffracted and thus de-focussed light will become large enough to start to soften the image.

With a very small sensor even a tiny amount of diffraction will bend the light enough to fall on the pixel adjacent to the one it’s supposed to be focussed on. With a bigger sensor and bigger pixels the amount of diffraction required to bend the light to the next pixel is greater. In addition the small lenses on cameras with small sensors means the iris will be smaller.

In practice, this means that an HD camera with 1/3? sensors will noticeably soften if it is more stopped down (closed) more than f5.6, 1/2? cameras more than f8 and 2/3? f11. This is one of the reasons why most pro level cameras have adjustable ND filters. The ND filter acts like a pair of sunglasses cutting down the amount of light entering the lens and as a result allowing you to use a wider iris setting. This softening happens with both HD and SD cameras, the difference is that with the low resolution of SD it was much less noticeable.

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Why Is Sensor Size Important: Part 1.

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Over the next few posts I’m going to look at why sensor size is important. In most situations larger camera sensors will out perform small sensors. Now that is an over simplified statement as there are many things that effect sensor performance, including continuing improvements in the technologies used, but if you take two current day sensors of similar resolution and one is larger than the other, the larger one will usually outperform the smaller one. Not only will the sensors themselves perform differently but other factors come in to play such as lens design and resolution, diffraction limiting and depth of field, I’ll look at those in subsequent posts, for today I’m just going to look at the actual sensor itself.

Pixel Size:

Pixel size is everything. If you have two sensors with 1920×1080 pixels and one is a 1/3? sensor and the other is a 1/2? sensor then the pixels themselves on the larger 1/2? sensor will be bigger. Bigger pixels will almost always perform better than smaller pixels. Why? Think of a pixel as a bucket that captures photons of light. If you relate that to a bucket that captures water, consider what happens if you put two buckets out in the rain. A large bucket with a large opening will capture more rain than a small bucket.

Small pixels capture less light each

Bigger pixels capture more light each.

It’s the same with the pixels on a CMOS or CCD sensor, the larger the pixel, the more light it will capture, so the more sensitive it will be. Taking that analogy a step further if the buckets are both of the same depth the large bucket will be able to hold more water before it overflows. It’s the same with pixels, a big pixel can store more charge of electrons before it overflows (photons of light get converted into electrical charge within the pixel). This increases the dynamic range of the sensor as a large pixel will be able to hold a bigger charge before overflowing than a small pixel.

Noise:

All the electronics within a sensor generate electrical noise. In a sensor with big pixels which is capturing more photons of light per pixel than a smaller sensor, the ratio of light captured to electrical noise is better, so the noise is less visible in the final image, in addition the heat generated in a sensor will increase the amount of unwanted noise. A big sensor will dissipate any heat better than a small sensor, so once again the big sensor will normally have a further noise advantage.

So as you can see, in most cases a large sensor has several electronic advantages over a smaller one. In the next post I will look at some of the optical advantages.

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Why Is Sensor Size Important: Part 1.

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Over the next few posts I’m going to look at why sensor size is important. In most situations larger camera sensors will out perform small sensors. Now that is an over simplified statement as there are many things that effect sensor performance, including continuing improvements in the technologies used, but if you take two current day sensors of similar resolution and one is larger than the other, the larger one will usually outperform the smaller one. Not only will the sensors themselves perform differently but other factors come in to play such as lens design and resolution, diffraction limiting and depth of field, I’ll look at those in subsequent posts, for today I’m just going to look at the actual sensor itself.

Pixel Size:

Pixel size is everything. If you have two sensors with 1920×1080 pixels and one is a 1/3? sensor and the other is a 1/2? sensor then the pixels themselves on the larger 1/2? sensor will be bigger. Bigger pixels will almost always perform better than smaller pixels. Why? Think of a pixel as a bucket that captures photons of light. If you relate that to a bucket that captures water, consider what happens if you put two buckets out in the rain. A large bucket with a large opening will capture more rain than a small bucket.

Small pixels capture less light each

Bigger pixels capture more light each.

It’s the same with the pixels on a CMOS or CCD sensor, the larger the pixel, the more light it will capture, so the more sensitive it will be. Taking that analogy a step further if the buckets are both of the same depth the large bucket will be able to hold more water before it overflows. It’s the same with pixels, a big pixel can store more charge of electrons before it overflows (photons of light get converted into electrical charge within the pixel). This increases the dynamic range of the sensor as a large pixel will be able to hold a bigger charge before overflowing than a small pixel.

Noise:

All the electronics within a sensor generate electrical noise. In a sensor with big pixels which is capturing more photons of light per pixel than a smaller sensor, the ratio of light captured to electrical noise is better, so the noise is less visible in the final image, in addition the heat generated in a sensor will increase the amount of unwanted noise. A big sensor will dissipate any heat better than a small sensor, so once again the big sensor will normally have a further noise advantage.

So as you can see, in most cases a large sensor has several electronic advantages over a smaller one. In the next post I will look at some of the optical advantages.

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Just how big is the 3D market?

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As you walked around the BVE show in London last week you could not help but notice that just about every stand had some kind of reference to 3D production. The impression given was that 3D is here, it is going to be huge and everyone needs to be able to shoot in 3D. But is this really the case? Certainly there has been a big increase in the number of 3D movies produced in the last 18 months and Avatar is now the largest grossing movie ever made, much of the profits coming from 3D screenings. Sky TV in the UK are starting a 3D TV channel later in the year and Discovery, ESPN and others have announced their intentions to launch stereoscopic channels. To add to all this the TV manufacturers are also bringing large ranges of 3D TV’s to market.

But before you all rush out and spend large sums of money on expensive 3D camera rigs you need to look more closely at what’s going on and consider who will actually want to watch 3D. Now I am a fan of 3D, don’t get me wrong and I do believe that 3D is here to stay, but as I see it, until display technology finds a way to eliminate the need to wear special glasses 3D is going to be reserved for special events, movies and spectaculars. Lets face it who’s going to want to have to put on a pair of glasses after a hard days work, just to watch the news or a soap. This is supported by Sky’s recent 3D seminar where they stated that they are only looking at showing 4 hours of new 3D programming every week and the only things they are looking for are movies, major sporting events, special events and one off, mega specials – “planet earth” type big budget docs. The rest of the week will be repeats and re-runs. So, in the UK it’s likely that there will be a couple of OB trucks kitted out for 3D for sports and other events filing a couple of hours a week leaving just two hours which will be split between docs, specials and movies.

Now Sky 3D won’t be the only outlet for 3D in the UK. There will be some corporate productions with budgets big enough for 3D and there will be a market for a few on-demand specialist channels and 3D BluRay’s and DVD’s but the really big market will be the 3D games market. Even so for most production companies, 3D could be an expensive mistake. Investing in expensive 3D rigs, pairs of cameras, 3D production monitors and edit systems won’t be cheap. In addition there is a whole new set of skills to be learnt, shooting 3D is very different to 2D. Perhaps (sadly) the real future of 3D TV lies not with true 3D capture and filming but with clever boxes like the JVC IF-2D3D1 2D to 3D converter which can take existing 2D material and convert it in to pretty convincing 3D for the price of a single pro camcorder. It may even be that one day all home TV’s will contain a similar converter and you will be able to watch whatever you want in Pseudo 3D at the press of a button.

So back to the original question, how big is the 3D market? Well I think it’s actually pretty small, probably best left to a few specialist production companies or 3D consultants and  facilities companies. Certainly lots of 3D TV’s will get sold to affluent techno geeks and home cinema enthusiasts, but lets face it, HD was a hard sell and you don’t need glasses for that.