Re: Canon 4K DSLR Pics
Policar said:
Not quite. Super35 is 24.9mm wide.
The original Red has a 24.4mm wide chip, but it crops 16:9 video to 22.2mm wide.
Canon's version of APS-C is 22.3mm wide. So Red and the 7D have the same FoV for a given lens, and both can use cinema lenses and EF-S lenses.
The C300 gets it right with a 24.6mm sensor. The Alexa has a 23.8mm sensor. These cameras do it right.
The Red Epic and apparently this new dSLR have APS-H sensors for video, between 28mm and 30mm wide, the worst of both worlds--too wide for many cinema lenses (and, crucially important for Canon, too wide for APS-C lenses--the 17-55mm IS being nice for video) and too small to take advantage of big fast still primes. A bizarre no man's land. I get that this is just a modified 1dx, but that puts the price (likely) at half a c300. This is a very weird product. There are advantages to full frame video (the availability of lenses like the 24mm f1.4 for much less than cinema primes allowing you to go fast and wide) and advantages to APS-C (works with cinema lenses and EF-S, including the very nice 17-55mm IS) but this is an awkward sensor size. Not a deal breaker, but strange.
It seems like, based on what Canon's people have said about this camera, that it shoots stills at 24x36, but windows to APS-H when shooting video. I'm sure we'll know soon enough.
As for using APS-C lenses with IS, the IS system makes quite a bit of noise if you're recording audio with the camera. If you're using a sound guy with a shotgun mic and he can grab his audio from someplace where he won't pick up the grinding of the IS then you're golden. Speaking of noise generating devices, though, Canon's motorized iris control is extremely noisy for in-camera audio, as well. And of course non-cinema zoom lenses generally have problems holding focus through a zoom and distort more than you'd really want to see in video where you notice when someone's head bends as they move across the frame, something less obvious in stills.
While it's true that the APS-H image circle prohibits the use of some very fine cinema optics, there are plenty of good options. One of the really great options IMO is Duclos lenses cinema mod for Zeiss ZE lenses. It's less expensive than buying Zeiss cinema lenses, but provides a very nice alternative, IMO. They take a ZE lens and declick the aperture so you can smoothly and silently adjust the aperture on the fly. Then they add a follow focus gear so you can operate the lens with a follow focus rig. And finally they put an adapter on the lens so it will take 80mm lens caps and 77mm filters allowing you to accumulate 77mm filters and use them on all your ZE lenses.
And finally, you can "take advantage of big fast still primes" with an APS-H sensor, but the problem with all fast lenses is uneven sharpness across the frame. Again, that's something you don't notice as much in still lenses, but when someone goes out of focus as they near the edges of the frame you notice in video. My take on it is that you can never go wrong with macro lenses. And if you need shallow DOF you just increase the focal length until you get the isolation you need.
-Rob
