Panasonic Develops 8K Global Shutter Camera Sensor
Those of you who travel with us know, I’ve been hinting about a Panasonic super-duper camera sensor that’s been whispered about for several years. Based on a recent press release by Panasonic it seems the cat is officially out of the bag. A short backstory about why I’m so convinced Panasonic is the one to be with going into the future of creative stills and video.
When I was in Japan three years ago I went to visit the Lumix engineers in Osaka. During the early part of the day, a couple of hours before our scheduled meeting, I was chauffeured around Osaka by a very nice young man from the Lumix team. He and I were riding in a cab and I asked him, “why did Panasonic decide to go into the stills photography business?” His response was refreshingly simple, “because it’s very difficult to do.” He went on to explain how Panasonic used to be a powerhouse in the manufacturing of televisions and that the ability to make a good TV was much easier than a great camera. He mentioned something to the effect that Panasonic decided many years earlier that it needed to put it’s vast stable of world class engineers on projects that were not easy. In other words (my take on this) the Chinese and Koreans were killing them.
That was three years ago and today Panasonic announced a digital camera sensor that incorporates technology that has been thought to be almost impossible, 8K Global Shutter. From the little that I know, I’m no engineer, the global shutter is the biggest deal. You can read more about global shutter here but below is an example of the issues all digital sensors suffer from.
A comparison of Global and Rolling Shutter. Rolling shutter on left make the straight lines of a car look tipped. Global shutter on right shows line straight as they should be.
The other great news is what seems to be tremendous dynamic range. Below is an image showing the DR and detail from an 8K frame grab.
Notice the dynamic range in the shadows of the person sitting under the roof
Finally, here’s an image showing the amazing detail from this new sensor.
A comparison of different resolutions. Panasonic already has 4k and 6K Photo Mode which allows frame grabs from video clips shot at 30FPS. Now 8K is coming which will give us 36 megapixel stills from video clips.
The writing is on the wall in my humble opinion. There will always be some uses for so called Full Frame sensors but for those who want a much bigger bang for the buck, without stringing your back, Micro four Thirds is about to slam the door on those monster lenses need for the traditional old DSLR’s Kind of reminds me of the age of the dinosaur. Below is my final example of old and new technology.
Freddy is just way to confident with his baby Lumix system and Peter’s about ready to let him have a lens full. Oh, by the way, Freddy is shooting 840mm’s and Peter has 600mm’s. Cuiaba River, Pantanal, Brazil.