James T Mather
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IMHO - nonsense to all this optical finder twaddle - worry about the what's in front of the camera.
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"mirrorless" with optical viewfinder
- Thread starter hunterrichards
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Isn't that the job of the lens -- to focus the image?
Why would a transparent sensor have any more of a focusing problem than an opaque one?
Just because the tech may not exist yet doesn't mean it's impossible...
Alan Fletcher
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The only problem is :
RED EVF Price: $2,950.00
Nikon D700 Body : $2,999.99
I hope you can do everything else for $49.99 :holloween:
Pietro Impagliazzo
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Way to go Mr.
Just shut up those nostalgic pricks with some new kick ass EVF.
:red_bandana:
EVFs seem to work acceptably for video. I haven't found that to be the case with stills.
An SLR TTL viewfinder produces a visual resolution of approximately 1800x1200, has zero latency, uses no power, and costs ~$100.
While an electronic system can't ever reach those specs, it may not have to. I would suggest that a practical EVF for stills would be acceptable with a resolution of 1280x848, a maximum latency of 20ms in EV0 (very dark) conditions, a maximum latency of <5ms in >EV8 conditions, a power usage of ~2W (including sensor and processing) to not impact battery usage too severely, and a cost of ~$500.
As far as I can tell, your current system needs a roughly 5x improvement in latency, 10x improvement in power consumption, and 5x improvement in cost to meet those specs.
As for low-light performance, I can tell you that I can see better with my SLR through an f15 optical train than I can with my EVF through an f4 optical train. This is mostly a function of the sensor and larger sensors can close that gap, but the reason EVFs have the odd reputation of working better in low-light is because they can increase their integration times. The Mallincam is famous for this in the astro community, but it uses integration times of up to 56 seconds. Obviously, this approach is not acceptable for stills, and I don't believe EVFs have any current advantage when low-latency is maintained as mentioned above, which will be required by still shooters used to using OVFs in dark conditions.
Finally, there's the issue of autofocus. A mirror enables phase-detection autofocus, which in my experience is at least two orders of magnitude faster, more sensitive to small subjects, and better at tracking than even the best contrast-detection autofocus. This may be the largest barrier to a mirrorless still camera intended to compete with SLRs, unless CD AF can be improved by a couple of orders of magnitude or a way can be found to do TTL PD AF without a mirror.
Hope that helps, and I wish you the best in your development efforts. I'll be interested to see what you come up with and what practical benefits it might bring to those of us that shoot stills in difficult conditions.
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Yeah, I'll likely stick with my Canon DSLRs either way, so don't go by me...
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BTW, I'm curious... how many of your company's primarily-for-professional-still-image-capture cameras have you sold in the last year and a half?
There's a BIG difference between pro still work and pro movie work. Even if the camera handles both very well, that doesn't mean its users will...
There is a LOT of potential in what you are doing here, and I wish you well... it is likely to be a long time before I personally consider replacing my Canons for stills, but if/when I do, I seriously doubt I'll even think about anything without an optical viewfinder.
Again, that's me... others will vary of course!
Jannard
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Having shot stills for over 30 years (Hasselblad, Nikon, Canon, Olympus, Linhof, Mamiya, Pentax, Fuji... and a whole bunch more) I agree that shooting stills is somewhat different than shooting motion. But having heard that there was no substitute for an optical finder in motion less than 2 years ago... I hope you will be open minded that the possibility exists that there just might be another solution here as well.
As for how many "primarily-for-professional-still-image-capture cameras" we have sold in the last year and change... just as many as we did motion cameras two years ago...
Jim
Joseph Ward
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Its only first generation for motion in DSLR's? I trust Red will make it a standard!:calm:
Sure, but it's going to have to match or exceed the focusing performance of existing phase-detection systems, and at least come close to the latency, resolution, low-power, and low-cost of optical viewfinders, or else it will be non-competitive with existing SLRs.
I hope you can do it, but it's a tall order.
Jannard
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I'll disagree with your wording... it is a bit more complicated/interesting than that but will wait to explain until after we announce.
Jim
Fair enough. I'm not sure what you're considering, but one thing I can think of is a fast frame-rate with presampling like the Casio F1 or FH-20. Be aware that that approach doesn't solve the latency issue. As for the rest (AF, power, cost), I guess we'll just have to wait and see what you announce. Looking forward to it!
Matthew Duclos
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nope.
I think it can exceed the performance of phase-detection systems because they can create a scene recognition system(Computer Vision) that recognises faces, colour, objects, motion and does tracking. Nikon is moving towards this by using a 1005-pixel RGB sensor as a scene recognition system. AF points are also not restricted to a particular position and can be set to any position or customised by the user.
The lack of a mirror will result in no viewfinder blackout and lower latency. With a mirror, the camera has to allow for the mirror to swing clear before making an image. The camera can continue to perform AF in between making images at a very high frame rate without requiring the mirror to be reset to perform AF.
Performance wont be a problem with a high fps and read-reset sensor coupled with a fast processor. So it'll just need algorithms and high speed processors.
An EVF also means a sophisticated viewfinder is possible. E.g. live RGB histogram, display of clipped highlights in the viewfinder, white balance preview etc.
Jim, please make the industrial design really sexy and classy. :turned:
Ken
The problem with CD is that it takes many samples to determine the correct focus point, and those many samples have to be read from the main sensor. With PD, you only need one sample for that purpose (two for determining velocity, three for acceleration), and those can be read with a dedicated sensor with linear arrays, which enables faster reads by far. So, it's many reads at 60fps versus a few at 300fps.
That's not the latency I was referring to. I was referring to the time between when the photons enter the lens and when they appear at the view finder. That's a major issue if you are trying to track fast and erratic objects with tight framing.
And a lot of power. My existing cameras have ~10Wh of battery energy available, which is sufficient for 8 hours of shooting and ~1500 shots. With an EVF, this would not be possible.
I'll be interested to see if those are of any practical use. They haven't been on my consumer EVF camera.
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liquidigital
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I have to say, the other day I wandered into Best Buy and saw a D700. I picked it up and looked through the back and it was for lack of a better word incredible compared to my Canon 40d. Whatever you have in store, I hope it is bigger, brighter and clearer than anything on the market. Looking forward to your product, Jim.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7gfQHRP6r2s
Here's a video of the Lumix G1 for those who wonder what an EVF and contrast detect AF might be like.
I think the sneak peek by Jim with the focal plane mark indicates that a still camera is coming
)
Here's a video of the Lumix G1 for those who wonder what an EVF and contrast detect AF might be like.
I think the sneak peek by Jim with the focal plane mark indicates that a still camera is coming
)
Jeff Coatney
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Analog optical path for viewfinders on a digital camera? I see only disadvantages to this. While many shooters like the Thru The Lens view for "critical focus", having an optical path that bypasses the sensor is limiting, for focus, composition, unit cost, form factor size and factory quality assurance.
1. Focus. Since the critical relationship of lens to sensor plane is the primary determiner of focus, why introduce a physical mechanism that disrupts the pathway that light needs to travel to hit the picture plane?
You are only introducing opportunities for the lens/sensor relationship to be compromised. Mirrors, spinning, fixed or otherwise moving will introduce vibration, possible loss of registration over time (heavy usage) or cause refractive artifacting that will affect image quality (fixed mirror/ beam splitter).
2. Precision. In manufacturing on a mass scale, maintaining critical tolerances between assemblies is expensive. It can eat up hundreds of man-hours and result in lots of waste. On a camera, the rear element of the lens and the sensor plane is the critical tolerance that must be maintained. On a digital camera, the lens/sensor relationship is measured in thousands of an inch, or in microns.
However, with a digital camera, depending on the design, you typically only have one such critical measurement to maintain from camera to camera during assembly. Unless you add an optical pathway that has to match the frameview of the sensor. Then you have two (or three) critical tolerances to maintain, and that only measuring the one axis: the lightpath. Congratulations, you just doubled the number of critical tolerances that you have to maintain throughout your assembly line. You also just doubled your tooling budget, quadrupled your failure rate, added 20% to you assembly process and tripled your retail price.
What did you gain? You gained a means of focusing your camera that completely bypasses the sensor. How do you know the shot is in focus? You can't know for certain because you just eliminated the instant feedback loop that a digital sensor provides you. It is the sensor that records the image, not your eye. If you use a moving mirror mechanism to measure focus, then over time, as the material that the mechanism is made from begins to wear, you will have microscopic particles loose in your camera and the loss of structural material will affect the tolerances of your optical path to viewfinder to sensor relationship. So the more you use your camera, the less precise your focus will be, if you are using only an optical viewfinder to judge it by.
If we know for certain that an analog optical pathway to viewfinder will ultimately fail, why even bother to design it in? Why add the cost? Why needlessly bulk up the camera? Why would you intentionally shut off the instant feedback loop that the sensor provides you in order to judge focus, when that is the only critical focus information that means anything?
Let's use a film analogy: If you could tell if the image is focused by looking at the emulsion of the film, why would you bother looking through the viewfinder?
I'm not even going to list the enormous amount of information and software enhancements that having an electronic viewfinder gives you, that's the killer app.
1. Focus. Since the critical relationship of lens to sensor plane is the primary determiner of focus, why introduce a physical mechanism that disrupts the pathway that light needs to travel to hit the picture plane?
You are only introducing opportunities for the lens/sensor relationship to be compromised. Mirrors, spinning, fixed or otherwise moving will introduce vibration, possible loss of registration over time (heavy usage) or cause refractive artifacting that will affect image quality (fixed mirror/ beam splitter).
2. Precision. In manufacturing on a mass scale, maintaining critical tolerances between assemblies is expensive. It can eat up hundreds of man-hours and result in lots of waste. On a camera, the rear element of the lens and the sensor plane is the critical tolerance that must be maintained. On a digital camera, the lens/sensor relationship is measured in thousands of an inch, or in microns.
However, with a digital camera, depending on the design, you typically only have one such critical measurement to maintain from camera to camera during assembly. Unless you add an optical pathway that has to match the frameview of the sensor. Then you have two (or three) critical tolerances to maintain, and that only measuring the one axis: the lightpath. Congratulations, you just doubled the number of critical tolerances that you have to maintain throughout your assembly line. You also just doubled your tooling budget, quadrupled your failure rate, added 20% to you assembly process and tripled your retail price.
What did you gain? You gained a means of focusing your camera that completely bypasses the sensor. How do you know the shot is in focus? You can't know for certain because you just eliminated the instant feedback loop that a digital sensor provides you. It is the sensor that records the image, not your eye. If you use a moving mirror mechanism to measure focus, then over time, as the material that the mechanism is made from begins to wear, you will have microscopic particles loose in your camera and the loss of structural material will affect the tolerances of your optical path to viewfinder to sensor relationship. So the more you use your camera, the less precise your focus will be, if you are using only an optical viewfinder to judge it by.
If we know for certain that an analog optical pathway to viewfinder will ultimately fail, why even bother to design it in? Why add the cost? Why needlessly bulk up the camera? Why would you intentionally shut off the instant feedback loop that the sensor provides you in order to judge focus, when that is the only critical focus information that means anything?
Let's use a film analogy: If you could tell if the image is focused by looking at the emulsion of the film, why would you bother looking through the viewfinder?
I'm not even going to list the enormous amount of information and software enhancements that having an electronic viewfinder gives you, that's the killer app.
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Pawel Achtel
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Good post Jeff. Totally agree.
Here is my 2 South Pacific Peso (a.k.a. Australian cents at current exchange rate):
It is quite common that users, instead of giving Requirements, try to give Solutions. That's not productive because they usually have NFI about technology, physics or inner works of the camera.
An optical viewfiner is a Solution. It's not up to you to provide one. Instead, you should formulate your Problem or Requirement.
Red is not interested in Solutions. They have far better experts and capability than an average film maker.
What they like to hear are Requirements: the actual problems that you are trying to fix. For example:
I would like to be able to focus accurately to a single pixel using naked eye at 1 lux of ilumination.
or
It is mandatory that I be able to focus without power.
Then, of course, there is a matter of prioritising requirements and sorting valid onece from invalid or poorly defined.
Here is my 2 South Pacific Peso (a.k.a. Australian cents at current exchange rate):
It is quite common that users, instead of giving Requirements, try to give Solutions. That's not productive because they usually have NFI about technology, physics or inner works of the camera.
An optical viewfiner is a Solution. It's not up to you to provide one. Instead, you should formulate your Problem or Requirement.
Red is not interested in Solutions. They have far better experts and capability than an average film maker.
What they like to hear are Requirements: the actual problems that you are trying to fix. For example:
I would like to be able to focus accurately to a single pixel using naked eye at 1 lux of ilumination.
or
It is mandatory that I be able to focus without power.
Then, of course, there is a matter of prioritising requirements and sorting valid onece from invalid or poorly defined.
Because phase-detection autofocus is so vastly superior to contrast-detection autofocus. And PD requires a mirror. That's why.
Indeed, that's the price to be paid for autofocus that actually gets the job done.
Because it's not needless. The zero latency, zero power usage, high resolution, and enabling of PD AF make it well worthwhile. You're exaggerating the difficulty here too - we now have a zillion *very* inexpensive dSLRs that have a mirror, an OVF, a secondary mirror and a PD AF system included in a camera that also has a pretty big sensor and all processing technology. If that system was so expensive, bulky, and difficult to produce, we would not have $500 camera bodies that include it. But we do.
Lee Jay