Global shutter has arrived at last.....but in the Sony A9mk3

Box Brownie

Box Brownie

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Hi all

I just saw mention of this new Sony in Park Cameras email

Global Shutter has been anticipated for some time, now arrived in Sony (who AFAIK make sensors for some other makers?)

At >£6000 body price, how many pre-orders ???
 
These days I think Sony provide sensors for pretty much every FF and APS-C cameras out there other than canon. They also design the m43 sensors in Olympus but I think Panasonic make their own.

I won't be buying one but it certainly pushes the envelope for everyone. Might also mean stacked sensors will start being more available at lower price points.
 
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nandbytes said:
These days I think Sony provide sensors for pretty much every FF and APS-C cameras out there other than canon. They also design the m43 sensors in Olympus but I think Panasonic make their own.

I won't be buying one but it certainly pushes the envelope for everyone. Might also mean stacked sensors will start being more available at lower price points.
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The info none to surprisingly mentions Sport and Wildlife genre....................so certainly opens up the tech to upgraders and newer buyers once the Global Shutter 'rolls out' (no pun intended ;) )
 
Box Brownie said:
Hi all

I just saw mention of this new Sony in Park Cameras email

Global Shutter has been anticipated for some time, now arrived in Sony (who AFAIK make sensors for some other makers?)

At >£6000 body price, how many pre-orders ???
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I think this is mainly marketed as Olympics 2024 camera for now. It doesn't look like they can even fill that many orders.

If that means stacked sensors and maybe a slower 8K globalist one trickling down the pipeline it is great news. Here is me hoping Canon R5 II will have something interesting in it, if only to create real competition and increase market pressure on Sony sensors., but not at £6k thank you very much.
 
Yeah looked at it and together with the new lens it comes in circa 12k that’s a car not hobby price
 
Can someone please help me understand the marketing talk and tell me what is a 'global shutter' - apologies for my ignorance.

PS 2 arms, legs and kidneys are overrated!!
 
nc_killie said:
Can someone please help me understand the marketing talk and tell me what is a 'global shutter' - apologies for my ignorance.

PS 2 arms, legs and kidneys are overrated!!
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In laymans terms think venetian blind

Rolling shutter, each vane opens and closes in turn down the blind - so the lower vanes open later than the top ones

Global Shutter - they all open/close at the same time
 
nc_killie said:
Can someone please help me understand the marketing talk and tell me what is a 'global shutter' - apologies for my ignorance.

PS 2 arms, legs and kidneys are overrated!!
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Mr Perceptive said:
In laymans terms think venetian blind

Rolling shutter, each vane opens and closes in turn down the blind - so the lower vanes open later than the top ones

Global Shutter - they all open/close at the same time
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And AFAIK in the case of digital.....
Current sensor designs mean the 'scan' (exposure) of the scene is progressive i.e. it sweeps across the sensor. With a global shutter there is no 'scan' the sensor readout over its whole surface is 'instantaneous'. It has by degrees been the Holy Grail of digital camera sensors.

Perhaps more akin to an iris/diaphragm shutter rather than a focal plane shutter.
 
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nc_killie said:
Can someone please help me understand the marketing talk and tell me what is a 'global shutter' - apologies for my ignorance.

PS 2 arms, legs and kidneys are overrated!!
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As mentioned, a global sensor reads the image from the entire sensor at a given point in time, while previous sensors read progressively down the lines of the sensor.

This means that if you have something moving quickly, it can become distorted - taking a picture of a golf swing is the easy example to visualise - with a global shutter, the shaft of the club will be a nice straight line (ignoring any actual flex in the shaft), but with a non-global shutter, the shaft will appear curved as it will physically be in different positions as different lines are read (the latest high end cameras have reduced this by having fast readouts, but it's still present, global shutter eliminates this).

Now we just need this technology to scale up for higher MP bodies (the higher the MP, the more data the system needs to shift in parallel), and also to become cheaper so it starts to be seen in mid range and eventually entry level cameras.
 
Faldrax said:
Now we just need this technology to scale up for higher MP bodies (the higher the MP, the more data the system needs to shift in parallel), and also to become cheaper so it starts to be seen in mid range and eventually entry level cameras.
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The technology already exists (and has been around for years in industrial machine vision cameras), the issues are the power requireda and the heat disappation
 
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Mr Perceptive said:
The techno9logy already exists (and has been around for years in industrial machine vision cameras), the issues are the power requireda nd the heat disappation
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Indeed - what we are seeing in the A9iii is the technology being scaled up for a consumer FF camera for the first time.

Sony will no doubt want to release a version of what was their flagship A1 with a global shutter sensor as soon as they have the capability, but that is a 50Mp camera, and is already almost £6k....
 
Mr Perceptive said:
The technology already exists (and has been around for years in industrial machine vision cameras), the issues are the power requireda and the heat disappation
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There are also issues around dynamic range that have meant the technology has been unsuitable for consumer cameras before now. It's very impressive, and as with almost all new technology it will become much, much cheaper over the coming years and eventually trickle down to the bottom of the market. In 10 years I wouldn't expect any cameras to have physical shutters.
 
The a9 and a9II were/are basically distortion-free for all but the most niche/extreme circumstances. Fired off somewhere in the region of 150,000 frames across two a9s, 99% of them moving subjects, all with the electronic shutter, and I've never seen any distortion or even banding with interior lighting.

Amazing tech either way, but for most of mortals it's not quite the game changer it is on paper.
 
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ukaskew said:
The a9 and a9II were/are basically distortion-free for all but the most niche/extreme circumstances. Fired off somewhere in the region of 150,000 frames across two a9s, 99% of them moving subjects, all with the electronic shutter, and I've never seen any distortion or even banding with interior lighting.

Amazing tech either way, but for most of mortals it's not quite the game changer it is on paper.
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for a little less than A9III you can actually get an A1 now which they claimed was basically free from any rolling shutter distortions.
A1 is no slouch in terms of tracking and you get 30fps.

so will be interesting so see if A9III sells over the A1.... I guess for flash users A9III looks amazing
 
But who needs 120fps In a still camera. If you need that take video and pull a still off that. I dont use 30fps that much doing sport but then I was doing sport with film and 3fps.
 
Icee said:
But who needs 120fps In a still camera. If you need that take video and pull a still off that. I dont use 30fps that much doing sport but then I was doing sport with film and 3fps.
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I agree. A lot of my friends have been messaging me about this camera as I shoot a lot of sport. But honestly, beyond 12 fps I can't really see the point.
Epic performance in a camera though and I know silent operation is a big positive for some people.
Exciting times for cameras
 
Icee said:
But who needs 120fps In a still camera. If you need that take video and pull a still off that. I dont use 30fps that much doing sport but then I was doing sport with film and 3fps.
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Bear in mind a lot of this marketing stuff to sell cameras, because they can rather than because anybody needs it. You are taking a video and pulling stills at that point. My Fuji X-T4 can do 15fps with the mechanical shutter but I find that way too fast, I have it set to 8fps which is plenty.
 
Icee said:
But who needs 120fps In a still camera. If you need that take video and pull a still off that. I dont use 30fps that much doing sport but then I was doing sport with film and 3fps.
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I suspect it will be of more use in some sports than others - anything where there are periods of very high speed movement; golf (club just striking the ball), figure skating (to get the perfect position during a spin, for example), archery (arrow just leaving the bow).

It also has the option to set a custom button to toggle the fps - so you might use 10 or 20 fps most of the time, then just hit the button for a really quick burst at a key moment.
 
The new A9 does actually do playback of images as a video, not as stills, as there would be too many stills to scroll through at 120fps.

From a sports photography perspective I can absolutely see the attractiveness of this. It becomes trivial to select one or more stills from a video sequence to ensure you get absolutely the best frame of the lot.

I can see remote editors hating it though, especially if they have a trigger-happy shooter pitchside sending gigabytes down the line.
 
Tobers said:
The new A9 does actually do playback of images as a video, not as stills, as there would be too many stills to scroll through at 120fps.

From a sports photography perspective I can absolutely see the attractiveness of this. It becomes trivial to select one or more stills from a video sequence to ensure you get absolutely the best frame of the lot.

I can see remote editors hating it though, especially if they have a trigger-happy shooter pitchside sending gigabytes down the line.
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Indeed. Having to scan thru 120 frames for the single best frame introduces far too much editorial review burden...unless the editor forces the photographer to do the culling and send only a single frame or a few frames. Then it's the photographer's time to cull to a much smaller number of subittals {rather than to simply shoot and submit 120 near-identical frames covering only 1 second of real time.}
 
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I really wouldn't worry about 120fps because you would only use it for the very very special moments only to save yourself that workload. 15-20fps is more than plenty. Probably just 10.. and you have the control. The sensor is capable of it, it is the progress, nothing to complain about.
 
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