Sunday, April 22, 2007
Whenever you see cameras advertised, the first line is always the number of megapixels. The first line should be (in my opinion), the size of the camera's sensor since that has a much larger effect on the quality of the camera. But the megapixel wars continue and manufacturers are making ultra compact cameras at 10 and 12 megapixels now, which is totally pointless. Camera review sites are pretty honest about how ridiculous this is.
Anyway, I bring this up because in Italy I saw a store display with a bunch of digital cameras. They were advertised (like they are here) as 6, 8, 10 megapixels. Then there was a Sony video camera. Surprisingly, it said 1 megapixel. 1 megapixel? haha who would buy that? Well, 1 megapixel is actually 720 HD (1280x720) and 1080 HD is only 2 megapixels. I think it's hilarious that people get caught up buying cameras that are 10mp or more, but still get images that don't even look as good as HD TV. The difference is the sensor and the lens.
At NAB there was basically one totally breakthrough product, Red. While all the other camera manufacturers (Sony, Panasonic, JVC, Canon) are making cameras that shoot HD, sometimes not even at full resolution, and then compressing the data onto little data cards, Red is shooting at a resolution 4 times larger and storing the data fully RAW. The interesting thing here is they have developed a camera sensor that's the same size as the sensor on a 35mm camera. And they have developed a lens converter that lets you use standard Canon EOS lenses. So now imagine the quality you get from a great lens like the Canon 35mm 1.4 or the Canon 135mm 2.0, and think about getting images like that at 60 frames per second and recording them all completely RAW for video. Unbelievable.
I saw a demo movie at NAB that Peter Jackson (King Kong) shot in New Zealand with this camera. Pretty stunning. There was a 2 hour line through the conference hall to see this 15 minute movie. Luckily Apple employees could cut the line because what do you use to edit these massive files once you've shot with the Red camera? Final Cut Pro, of course.
Anyway, I bring this up because in Italy I saw a store display with a bunch of digital cameras. They were advertised (like they are here) as 6, 8, 10 megapixels. Then there was a Sony video camera. Surprisingly, it said 1 megapixel. 1 megapixel? haha who would buy that? Well, 1 megapixel is actually 720 HD (1280x720) and 1080 HD is only 2 megapixels. I think it's hilarious that people get caught up buying cameras that are 10mp or more, but still get images that don't even look as good as HD TV. The difference is the sensor and the lens.
At NAB there was basically one totally breakthrough product, Red. While all the other camera manufacturers (Sony, Panasonic, JVC, Canon) are making cameras that shoot HD, sometimes not even at full resolution, and then compressing the data onto little data cards, Red is shooting at a resolution 4 times larger and storing the data fully RAW. The interesting thing here is they have developed a camera sensor that's the same size as the sensor on a 35mm camera. And they have developed a lens converter that lets you use standard Canon EOS lenses. So now imagine the quality you get from a great lens like the Canon 35mm 1.4 or the Canon 135mm 2.0, and think about getting images like that at 60 frames per second and recording them all completely RAW for video. Unbelievable.
I saw a demo movie at NAB that Peter Jackson (King Kong) shot in New Zealand with this camera. Pretty stunning. There was a 2 hour line through the conference hall to see this 15 minute movie. Luckily Apple employees could cut the line because what do you use to edit these massive files once you've shot with the Red camera? Final Cut Pro, of course.