Why couldn't somebody take a 7D/5D/GH1/D3s/etc., remove the sensor and build a camera

[morgan_moore]

Yeah I think Id be in the market for a 1080 S35 cam with canon or nikon mount in the $3k mark

I think the reason of this thread is that doesnt seem to the non techy iditot to be 'that hard' but no one seems to be trying it

Maybe that is what scarlet will be but I think the costs are not going to be around that mark especailly if I have to re-lens

(to get AF for stills)

1080 S35 brain pleeeease

S

 

[Eddy Robinson]

Im also after something that is accepted by my local broadcaster - the BBC !

Funny you mention that. I knew they nixed the 5d on account of the aliasing etc., but they just used some in prime time for the start of the World Snooker championship (which is a prestige event, so you'd think they'd be extra-fussy):
http://vimeo.com/7048513

Someone on DVXuser also mentioned this footage from a music festival he shot on the 5Dii which aired a few months back, and which they were happy with: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wBfjl6VqZyU

So it seems like if you have the opportunity to shoot good subject matter and you're not trying to pre-sell your imaging platform to a commissioning producer, it'll get judged on the merits.

 

[Eddy Robinson]

It might be interesting to consider that the Casio EX-FX1 does have quite a fast sensor.

Best-known for its novel ability to shoot at 300/600/1200 fps (but with vga -> sub-cellphone resolution, meaning it's of more interest to interest to a school science lab than for any artistic purpose), it will shoot bursts of 60 frames at up to 60fps, at 6mp resolution - JEPG only, it does shoot RAW but AFAIK this is only for single-shot. It seems like the size of a memory buffer is the limiting factor here, rather than sensor read speed...I'm surprised nobody has hacked the thing to a fat pipe yet.

Now mind, this is not a particularly good camera in terms of color fidelity or stills resolution, but it ain't chopped liver either. The camera records to SD cards, and I can't help wondering whether they'll take this technology into a camcorder format. Casio are losing money heavily due to a slump in sales of watches and phones, and since they don't have a strong photography brand they're probably not doing too well in that sphere either. But I'd love to see what they might get into an EX-FX2...300fps @ 720p for the same price (~$1000) would surely win them some fans.

 

[Pierre T.]

Canon Sensors

Canon Sensors

Sorry. Wrong. The native Canon sensor will NOT run at 24fps.

Spin it any way you want, the sensor is not fast enough.

Jim

I can believe that: translate any specification of fps in burst or whatever of any EOS camera to lps (lines per second) and you never get a value beyond the 43200 = 720*60 = 1080*40, where 1/40s is the scanning time for HD video in the 5D and 720p60 is the frame rate at reduced resolution of 7D and 1D IV. E.g., take the 1D IV spec of 10fps at full resolution, that gives you 32640 lines per second to be scanned, although the sensor has to be a bit faster than that since you cannot scan all the time with a mechanical shutter.

However, these are the specs of Cameras you can buy since a year and the electronics is used in entry level DSLRs (500D) at very low cost. Engineering has not stopped there and I bet that Canon has a working prototype of a 4K or higher resolution APS-C size CMOS video sensor with a competitive readout speed.

If they do, then the step to a Scarlet S35 competitor seems not so big for them : They can use a bunch of DIGIC processors to do intraframe H.264 RAW compression and write a decent data rate to UDMA2 CF cards, put an EOS mount in front of the sensor and produce one dedicated video lens with EF-S mount (notably motored 12x Zoom with stabilizer, of course) and add some packaging and sound assets from their former prosumer camcorder line (which is officially discontinued, hmmmm, wonder why).

Bottom line, yes, for Canon, it IS about the sensor. For Nikon, however, it looks like they have trouble with compression, otherwise I see no reason why they stick with 720p.