tugela

10 hours ago, hyalinejim said:

 

Implying a firmware fix might be possible

Not necessarily. There is more to hardware than just the processor. There is the sensor as well as the circuits interfacing it with the processor.

Canon have a tendency of "fixing" issues like this in consumer lines through next years model (which would be the XC15), so don't hold your breath.

17 hours ago, Lamplighter55 said:

.. and from Wikipedia 'The XC10 uses a single DIGIC DV 5, while the C300 Mark II uses a dual DIGIC DV 5 implementation.' So less sampling/super-sampling no doubt. There is also now the DIGIC DV 5+ (faster by 3x - so possibly equivalent of the dual set up in the 300 MkII) - yet to find which camera platforms it's to be used for apart from the EOS 1D X ... maybe XC15?!  

The technical term for these artefacts is 'Quantisation error'. Which could also hint at a way to mitigate them by spreading the pixel values over a wider range of bits - in other words shifting the luma and contrast with more light, assuming under really low light (higher ISO settings) the quantisation is lost/masked in the higher digital noise

The Digic DV5 is the same family as the Digic 7. The Digic 5+ is the same family as the Digic DV3. The processors used in stills cameras are not exactly the same as those used in the video camera, and they don't follow the same numbering convention. The XC15 uses the same processor as the XC10.

I prefer the screens on cameras like the NK1 and the a7 series, because usually when using an articulated screen I want to hold it at waist level for improved stability, then look down at the screen to monitor what is on screen. With the full articulated design that Panasonic uses this forces you to have the screen sticking out to the side, which is awkward. I can see that if you were doing selfies the screen on the GH4 would be better, but for most other things the flip up/down type is superior IMO.

4 hours ago, Chris Oh said:

huh. that m5 has same sensor as 80D and DPAF, without the bulk. but, this on product description.

"The MP4 format’s small file size lets you fit more on a single memory card, and makes downloading and sharing quick and easy."

I believe the M5 shoots MP4 at35 mbps, in other words the same format that is used in their consumer camcorders.

The quality is pretty bad though.

"a lot of the chatter consists of posts from people who... don't even own the camera" is corporate double speak for "we are not going to do a damned thing about it"

When a CR responds like that, it is not promising.

My copy crashed in the first 10 minutes I used it, while applying curves to some footage, lol. It seemed to be OK after that though. H.265 seems somewhat smoother now.

Like I said, don't use the body stabilization when panning. Basically what it means is that it is really effective at stabilizing a shot. Unless the camera has sophisticated algorithms for predicting intended movement as opposed to unintended movement, any camera with IBIS is going to do this. It is the nature of the beast. The image stabilization in these cameras are designed primarily for stills, which means that it may not be that useful for video. So. just turn it off if you want to pan. If you don't want to pan then it is probably going to provide a really steady platform for video. If your style is to shoot a lot of panned shots, then this camera is not for you. If you don't shoot panned shots then it is probably going to have one of the best stabilization systems around.

so, basically you are complaining that the camera is too effective at stabilizing the image? Because that is what is causing that jerking motion on panning. If it is reduced, so will the overall effectiveness of stabilization. You can choose a solid image without panning, or a wobbly image that can be panned. Which is more important? The camera does not know the difference between motion you intend and motion you don't intend.

I guess you could always turn the stabilization off.

Hmm...I wonder if it is not fully clearing the sensor pixels after each exposure, so partial data from the previous exposure is still there. Something like that would be a hardware problem.

Their profits were down, apparently due to strengthening of the yen according to them. That means that they have to increase prices outside of Japan to get profits back up again.

22 hours ago, Timotheus said:

@Mattias Burling we seem to disagree, so let's explore this al little bit, because I think understanding equivalence is useful for anyone, especially when juggling camera's with different sized sensors.

• You didn't respond to what I said, i.e. you can get the same framing, same depth of field, shooting from the same spot...with different sensor-sized camera's. The key is using lenses that compensate for the differences in sensor size.
• The math concerns using crop factors for both focal length and f-stop to estimate the effects on framing and DOF. The physical f-stop obviously does not change.
• You show a screenshot from a Tony Northrup video that proves exactly these points! In the example using 100mm f5.6 on full frame yields the same framing and DOF as a 50mm f2.8 on MFT (2x crop).
• You can hear Northrup explain from 16:06...your example shows up right at 17:18 :-)
• Obviously there are limits as to what is currently possible. Getting the same framing and DOF as a fullframe 50mm F1.2 on a MFT camera would mean using a 25mm F0.6, which doesn't exist (yet!).

Different sensor sizes will give different looking images no matter what framing you use because of parallax changes. Parallax will be in direct proportion to how far you are from your subject and independent of things like aperture. It would also be affected by the size of your front objective as well. The effect will be more obvious with an object closer to you than one that is further away. So there would not be a big difference if you were shooting landscapes, but there would be a significant difference if shooting portraits, for example.

They don't have short life cycles. A product cycle is not a life cycle.

I have 9 cameras of various ages. They all work fine, if I chose to use them. But right now the only ones that see use are my NX1, P900 and RX100M3. NX1 for most photography/video, P900 for long range stills (video on it is crap), and the RX100M3 as a travel camera (I will likely replace it with a RX100M5 next year in March). Based on what has been announced so far, and what might be anticipated in 2017, I don't see the need to replace the other two in the foreseeable future

2 hours ago, Damphousse said:

Do what?!  Release half baked cameras a year late?  If that is what you want buy a Blackmagic.  FYI I own a Canon AND a Blackmagic camera.  I use them both.  They are very different.  And I understand why each company does certain things differently.

Nikon is running a multibillion dollar profitable business.  You don't just write the CEO of Nikon and say do it.  "It" what exactly?  Like I asked you before are you privy to Blackmagic's financials?  It's real easy for arm chair warriors to tell companies to do "it".  A lot harder to tell them specifically what to do and how to do it profitably while not destroying their brand.

Everyone cheered Samsung along as their camera business imploded.  The level of hubris is amazing.  The voices of reason asked people to consider for a moment it isn't that simple and easy.  They were shouted down.  Samsung listened to all the people saying how easy it is.  Where is Samsung now?  What about gopro?  I loved everyone going on and on about how Canon should innovate like GoPro.  Where is GoPro's stock now?  Really how many times do you have to watch a stock completely crater or an entire camera business get shuttered before you realize it isn't just a matter of doing "it".

It is painfully clear to me there is a finite amount of money in this hybrid camera market.  If Panasonic really pulls off IBIS with internal 4k 10 bit 4:2:2 and decent low light 4 other camera makers are going to have their lunch eaten.

Samsung's camera's did not fail because their products were lacking at the end, they failed because of poor marketing, no other reason. If a company makes no effort to sell their products, they are not going to sell a whole lot no matter how good they are. To be accurate, Samsung failed because management chose to market the cameras in the same way that they marketed their cell phones, not understanding that it can't be done that way. If Samsung had remained in the business and continued developing their camera line they would have remained at the leading edge and sooner or later that fact would have had an impact on the market.

The market for cameras going forward is going to be largely in the consumer ICL and high end fixed lens models. Low end products will become obsolete as they are replaced by cell phones. This is where the bulk of camera revenue is going to come from. Mom and pop photographing their kids/holidays etc and wanting better quality than what a cell phone can produce. And recording video at the same time. These are the people who are going to be wowed by the footage that hybrids can produce. And no, they don't give a shit about 10 bit 4:2:2 and all those other things you guys salivate over. But they do understand why they want 4K when they see it. Any manufacturer who does not get this is going to fail in this critical sector of the market, where most of the revenue from cameras is going to come from.

Right now Canon and Nikon are falling way behind. Their cameras are physically too big for this market segment and they underspecced compared to the competing mirrorless brands. Sure, they sell a lot of product right now, but this is entirely due to brand recognition. That won't last forever. We see this even now, as companies like Sony continue to ship more product, while the likes of Canon see reduction. At some point the market is going to encounter a break point, when that brand recognition advantage, the common perception of inherent quality, is going to shift to the likes of Sony, and when that happens you are going to see Canon, and especially Nikon, vanish almost overnight in this segment. And this WILL happen, unless the senior management at both companies develop vision and can come to understand where the market is heading. It is quite clear: in the consumer market (which is where the revenue is) the hybrid is going to be king, while specialist still or video cameras will be purely the domain of professionals.

3 hours ago, Damphousse said:

 

Uhh...  Do you know something about Blackmagic's financial statements that we don't?

Nikon and Canon have way too much brand equity to turn out half baked cameras a year late.  You have to be crazy to think Nikon would destroy its brand doing what Blackmagic is doing.  The fact of the matter is many companies that people have mentioned in this thread have done what they have done out of pure desperation.

The point is the fact that BM were able to do it at all means that it is doable, and you would expect a large specialist company like Nikon to be more capable. But apparently they are not. We know that they have the technical expertise, which means the lacking element is in the decision making process, specifically in senior management who call the shots.

20 hours ago, Andrew Reid said:

It's a "big problem" for Nikon only if they are designing a camera by committee, with one half of the table saying one thing and the other half saying another, which I'm afraid it looks like they are doing, at least in terms of the product feedback from pros.

All products from large companies, especially complex products like cameras, are designed by committee.

It is more likely that someone senior in the company and in a decision making position has an archaic conservative view of the imaging world, and that is why they have so much trouble keeping up with the way the market is going. Canon have the same problem, while most of the other camera companies appear to have more progressive leadership.

18 hours ago, Geoff CB said:

This. 

But an "on" button will confuse stills photographers, it is too much for them to grasp conceptually! Consequently you can't have such a button or their heads will explode.

17 hours ago, squig said:

It's all bullshit.

Of course it is bullshit. It is marketing spin to explain away their inability to produce a competitive product. To hide that fact they cripple the functionality. It is better to have a crippled implementation than a "best effort" implementation that clearly falls short of competitors performance. Their approach is "if you can't win the race then don't run in the race", and they blow it off by saying that the race is not important and that people "don't want them to run in it". It is better to appear bloody minded than it is to appear inadequate.

2 hours ago, mercer said:

It is pretty funny how myopic some people are. DSLRs aren't going anywhere anytime soon. Nikon will continue to expand at a conservative pace and will do just fine. In fact, if more camera manufacturers go under, or leave the market, Nikon will not be the next to exit and most likely will be standing way longer than the electronic companies that are only out to sell 4K TVs. 

That is what IBM said. And where are they now?

1 hour ago, Trek of Joy said:

Agreed.

Unlike Nikon, Canon has been producing professional video cameras and broadcast lenses for decades, the EOS C line is a natural extension of that lineage. The market is moving from fixed lens camcorders like the legendary EX1 to large sensor ILC camcorders like the FS7 and C100/300. Though on paper it looks like the GH5 could shake up things a bit, and IMO this is why we haven't seen a real AF100 successor. Panasonic is leaving the mid range stuff to Canon and Sony while trying to capture everything below with the GH5's heavy duty spec.

Nikon has no history in the pro video realm, venturing into pro video would be a big undertaking with lots of R&D. Good cameras by companies with far more experience than Nikon, like the JVC LS300, have been largely ignored in favor of the Canon and Sony's. Its not short sighted or stupid, its just not in their business model. Any mis-step would be very costly. Olympus is in the same boat. So is Fuji. Improving the video in their respective cameras and allowing for better output to external recorders makes more financial sense than producing an entirely new line of cameras.

Just my opinion.

If Black Magic could do it, a small operation on the far side of the world, you would think that a large company like Nikon could as well.

Their inability to do it is purely a senior management issue.

1 hour ago, UHDjohn said:

How do you know there is a firmware update in the pipeline - it would be normal commercial practice for Canon to abandon the XC10 and push sales of the XC15.

Unfortunately that is what they tend to do with products that have rapid turnover cycles. The issue is fixed, but only in next year's camera.

4 hours ago, kidzrevil said:

Hmm maybe it's how the ghosting we are seeing is some type of delay the autofocus uses to lock on to areas of high contrast. Thats how contrast AF works right ?  maybe thats why the ghosting is more prevalent on high contrast objects...

I used a heavy grade diffusion filter the other day and there was less ghosting...I think you are onto something 

It can't have anything to do with autofocus. The doubled image is the result of two exposures in the same frame. So it has to be something that the camera is doing to combine different frames. Since it is apparently ISO related I would guess that they are combining data from adjacent frames to "bump" up apparent sensitivity. That would work for a static image, but anything that moved between frames would appear doubled, hence your ghosting.

The only way to get that effect is to have a composite of multiple exposures, so it has to be something like that. This is digital media, not analog. There can't be ghosting unless the frame is a composite.

Interpolation can happen if the camera has a native frame rate and everything else is generated from that. The early HD models from Canon operated in that way, for example. The footage was shot at 60 fps as interleaved frames. All other frame rates and modes were resynthesized from that native shooting mode.

If the HDMI output is 60i, it just makes me wonder if the camera's native mode is like that as well. If that is the case, then the resynthesized image recorded internally may have that ghosting effect as a result.

It looks like it is doing multiple exposures on each frame. Are you sure you don't have a setting somewhere activated which might do that? These in camera HDR modes some cameras have might generate an effect like that I would think, if the XC10 has that capability. Any HDR mode would be bad if there is significant motion in the shot.

Maybe something like the camera is recording natively at 60 fps, but regenerating it at some different frame rate by trying to combine frames?

8 hours ago, Vladimir said:

dunno. color information? 12bit vs 8bit? stuff like that i think

 

is this information from official source? after some rough calculations i do believe more in imaging-resources which said it has 150 series for jpeg and 71 (3 secs, not exciting anymore) for raw. Im also thinkin about how fast raw cont. shooting will drain a battery)

jpegs from the RX100 are 24 bit.

what perks does HD raw (with 1/4 the data of the 4K image) have over 1/3rd compressed 4K from jpegs? the Jpegs have more data. There is more information in them, compression or no compression.

So, more frames if just jpeg then? 20 mpixel frames at ~8 MB each with 24 bits is still better than HD raw, compression or not.

If it is actual 20 mpixel images in fine jpeg at 24 fps, that is better than bmmcc raw is it not?

7 hours ago, kinoseed said:

Which parts are disabled? They both have same PPUs, OPUs, etc.
NX1 has more memory, better WiFi, etc,  but the processors are the same.

better yet - consider the max possible bitrate for both cameras - both top at the same bitrates, which should give you clear indication that the computational power is identical.

of course they will have to say it's slower processor, to have better product separation considering the price difference, but even Samsung management would not have put more money for redesign to create a slower processor, at the same production price.

It is disabled on the CPU die. You can't see it. The design of the processors is exactly the same, but not everything on the chips is working. All of the bits are there, they are just not all available to the CPU during operation. All processor families are like this. All of the components are there on the chip, but in some of them various parts are disabled. For example, the CPU in my laptop is a dual core i7. It is exactly the same design as a desktop i7, but two of the cores are disabled on the chip itself so that it stays within the laptop's thermal envelope during normal operation. If all 4 cores were operating it would fry in the compact form factor of the laptop if you ran a multi-thread app. You can get 4 core versions, but those have their clock speeds fixed at lower specs. The two core processor handles single thread apps very well because it runs at a high clock rate, but multi thread apps struggle.

The reason for doing that is to force constraints on the CPU so that it will fit within a particular thermal envelope. Otherwise the processor would just heat up and fail. The NX500 has a much tighter thermal envelope than the NX1, so they can't have the processor operating at the same rate. To ensure that it does not, some parts of the processor in the Vs are disabled on chip. That is why Samsung used the V in the NX1 and the Vs in the NX500. Same chip die, but not everything is working in the junior version.

As I said before, all the major CPU/GPU manufacturers do this. Within a particular generation of chip, they all have the same design, but various things on the chip are locked out so that the individual members of the family can fit different machine specs for different applications.

Computation is not just encoding. The same hardware encoder is used in both chips, so obviously the actual encoding would happen at the same rate. The limitation is in other parts of processing, such as debeyering, downsizing, noise reduction, etc. The more limited capabilities of the Vs means that it can't handle as much data as the V, and that is why you have the crop.