EOS-1D X Mark II Claims of 15 Stops of DR [CR3]
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This claim is based on a signal after processing and noise reduction. It also appears to be dowsnampled to 1080p ie 2mpix. Then using this signal and a waveform monitor they subjectively determine the DR to be 15 stops, instead of using a mathematical criteria. Judging from this forum the last step alone introduces variations of several stops depending on who does it.
This is just pure marketing and is not saying much about the actual raw capabilities of the camera.
This is just pure marketing and is not saying much about the actual raw capabilities of the camera.
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Too bad the c300 II does not take RAW stills as well. Would be interesting to see how that would turn out.
I actually have good faith the new stills sensor will be great for low ISO DR. Seeing as how the Sony A7 cameras are around the same as the c300 for video, it might be very possible that the stills DR is about on par as well.
I actually have good faith the new stills sensor will be great for low ISO DR. Seeing as how the Sony A7 cameras are around the same as the c300 for video, it might be very possible that the stills DR is about on par as well.
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Yes, very interesting alternative to commercial applications.JMZawodny said:
I personally prefer Mathcad which I was using quite often in the past when was on R&D side.
In general I found this discussion quite useful and this even triggered couple of ideas which could drastically improve sensor performance and useful DR.
If Canon be smart enough ( or any other company) they could already have come with this idea commercially implemented.
Basically this could allow drastically reduce impact of read noise and have DR to be equal to Full Well Capacity at base ISO and keep it the same up to ISO 800 or even 1600 using current sensor manufacturing technologies.
For 1DX with FWC=90101e- this could result to up to 16.5 stop DR at base ISO and the same at ISO 800.
For Sony A7S with FWC =155557e- this could result with base ISO DR over 17 stops.
But for Sony it could be much more easy to implement than for Canon.
Basically idea is so simple and obvious and floating in the air so close to the people nose that it virtually could be just smelled. May be because it is so obvious it is overlooked by most of the big sensor players who has kind some of the thinking inertia.
Was searching Internet to see if anyone came out with the same idea and its implementation and found that sensor company named Andor has something close to this (though a bit different and only part of the whole concept and also a bit complicated) already being implementing this for their sCMOS sensors.
Maybe they already patented their solution and this is why we do not see this in Canon and Sony implementations.
My concept is more generic, wider and more universal.
And I do not know what to do with this now.
To publish it somewhere (what could be the best media ?) where free license could be declared to all manufactures or try to sell it to Canon or Sony ?
Filing patents individually is so difficult and requires so much bureaucratic work so it could be better done with companies with some dedicated staff to it.
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Neutral said:
What, exactly, is the idea? There are two options, given your mention of Andor.
I linked Andor's new low read noise high DR ccd camera on the previous page:
jrista said:Certainly, it boils down to money. I'm concerned about what is accessible to a middle class to upper middle class consumer. The price for extremely high end equipment skyrockets, tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of dollars. There already are amazing cameras on the market, like this one:
http://www.andor.com/scientific-cameras/ikon-xl-and-ikon-large-ccd-series/ikon-xl-231
That thing is a superbeast of a camera. It's got MONSTER pixels with a massive FWC, but a mere 2.1e- read noise. MASSIVE dynamic range (17.4 stops!!) with 18-bit encoding. Insane cooling (better than an emCCD) at -100C dT. I mean, that's it, right there. Basically the holy grail. But it almost costs as much as a house!
The concept is not new, really. It's been around for a long time in the form of emCCD, or electron multiplying CCD. The idea is to multiply every electron by a significant amount, thus creating a large charge from the faintest signals. Because each electron is amplified so much, there are two consequences. One, read noise becomes sub-electron relative to the final amplified signal, and thus the cameras are effectively read noise free. Two, you cannot have any dark current at all, because even one electron from leakage would be amplified like any other, and that would damage the signal. So emCCD cameras, while effectively noiseless (excluding signal shot noise), must be cooled to an excessive degree to eliminate dark current as well. That makes the concept impractical for a digital camera as it requires TE cooling with liquid cooling to remove the heat. That works for fixed installations or setups where you don't really hold the camera (astrophotography).
The sCMOS concept is better in the long run, and will undoubtedly take over in place of CCD/emCCD when it fully matures. The sCMOS design uses many of the same improvements Sony Exmor did, by moving and hyperparallelizing all the readout electronics onto the sensor die. The sCMOS design actually parallelizes the readout logic for each column, as every column has dual column amps, dual CDS, and dual ADC. So for a 2000 column sensor, there are 4000 readout units. Each unit is independently tunable with a unique gain, which eliminates banding. The high parallelism allows each unit to operate at a lower frequency, which allows lower read noise. The CDS units are apparently a more advanced design that nearly eliminate dark current, meaning you don't need to cool as much to keep dark current levels very low. The high parallelism allows very fast readout with read noise levels similar to current CCD and CMOS sensors operating at much slower readout rate.
The sensors are only in a couple sizes at the moment, and are quite small (smaller than APS-C). They also don't have the extremely high Q.E. that emCCD designs have reached...~60% for sCMOS, over 90% for emCCD. I think those limitations will ultimately be overcome, but at the moment, an emCCD design like the Andor camera I linked still delivers the cleanest results of any type of camera on the market (so for astrophotography, it's hands down the winner, because you effectively only have shot noise). An sCMOS sensor would undoubtedly deliver better IQ for a DSLR, and the design isn't that much more advanced than a Sony Exmor...although we are probably talking about much more stringent grading of the sensor quality, with defects classified similar to Grade 0, 1, and 2 CCDs (so a true scientific grade 0 sCMOS is likely to be extremely expensive.)
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I do not think I can disclose at the moment details of the idea, it might happen to become my bread and butter at some later time if happens to be feasible )jrista said:Neutral said:
What, exactly, is the idea? There are two options, given your mention of Andor.
I linked Andor's new low read noise high DR ccd camera on the previous page:
jrista said:Certainly, it boils down to money. I'm concerned about what is accessible to a middle class to upper middle class consumer. The price for extremely high end equipment skyrockets, tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of dollars. There already are amazing cameras on the market, like this one:
http://www.andor.com/scientific-cameras/ikon-xl-and-ikon-large-ccd-series/ikon-xl-231
That thing is a superbeast of a camera. It's got MONSTER pixels with a massive FWC, but a mere 2.1e- read noise. MASSIVE dynamic range (17.4 stops!!) with 18-bit encoding. Insane cooling (better than an emCCD) at -100C dT. I mean, that's it, right there. Basically the holy grail. But it almost costs as much as a house!
The concept is not new, really. It's been around for a long time in the form of emCCD, or electron multiplying CCD. The idea is to multiply every electron by a significant amount, thus creating a large charge from the faintest signals. Because each electron is amplified so much, there are two consequences. One, read noise becomes sub-electron relative to the final amplified signal, and thus the cameras are effectively read noise free. Two, you cannot have any dark current at all, because even one electron from leakage would be amplified like any other, and that would damage the signal. So emCCD cameras, while effectively noiseless (excluding signal shot noise), must be cooled to an excessive degree to eliminate dark current as well. That makes the concept impractical for a digital camera as it requires TE cooling with liquid cooling to remove the heat. That works for fixed installations or setups where you don't really hold the camera (astrophotography).
The sCMOS concept is better in the long run, and will undoubtedly take over in place of CCD/emCCD when it fully matures. The sCMOS design uses many of the same improvements Sony Exmor did, by moving and hyperparallelizing all the readout electronics onto the sensor die. The sCMOS design actually parallelizes the readout logic for each column, as every column has dual column amps, dual CDS, and dual ADC. So for a 2000 column sensor, there are 4000 readout units. Each unit is independently tunable with a unique gain, which eliminates banding. The high parallelism allows each unit to operate at a lower frequency, which allows lower read noise. The CDS units are apparently a more advanced design that nearly eliminate dark current, meaning you don't need to cool as much to keep dark current levels very low. The high parallelism allows very fast readout with read noise levels similar to current CCD and CMOS sensors operating at much slower readout rate.
The sensors are only in a couple sizes at the moment, and are quite small (smaller than APS-C). They also don't have the extremely high Q.E. that emCCD designs have reached...~60% for sCMOS, over 90% for emCCD. I think those limitations will ultimately be overcome, but at the moment, an emCCD design like the Andor camera I linked still delivers the cleanest results of any type of camera on the market (so for astrophotography, it's hands down the winner, because you effectively only have shot noise). An sCMOS sensor would undoubtedly deliver better IQ for a DSLR, and the design isn't that much more advanced than a Sony Exmor...although we are probably talking about much more stringent grading of the sensor quality, with defects classified similar to Grade 0, 1, and 2 CCDs (so a true scientific grade 0 sCMOS is likely to be extremely expensive.)
I need some spare time (which is a real problem for me now) to research it more and see if anyone did come up earlier with something similar.
Idea is not to improve single photocell performance on the sensor but how to use it most efficiently and have overall better performance and more flexibility for the sensor in a way which could be applicable to the current level of sensor technology.
Basically some changes in sensor signal processing design concept.
I mentioned Andor as I was searching if anyone already came up with the similar idea or have some elements required for this concept implementation and found that they have some pieces required for the solution implementation.
As my occupation is not related to imaging technology (photography is just expensive hobby ) I never heard of Andor before and when found them researching my idea I was really impressed with their advances and the level of sensor technology which they reached so far.
And yes , their iKon-xl-231 is truly impressive imaging device.
Dream of any astrographer.
Medium format 6x6 cm CDD sensor and every part of the sensor is an amazing piece of the state of the art technology starting from photocell and then precision 18bit ADC allowing to get most of the photocell performance.
It could provide stellar performance for space optical telescopes where you can see deep space free from airglow light pollution. And many other applications where imaging device cost is not a limiting factor.
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Neutral said:
Yes, it's definitely a drool-sucking device.
Even here on earth with dark skies, I'd love to have one. There are a couple guys I know who actually use real emCCDs in their work (I have some bookmarks at home, so I may be able to share some examples of what these things can do). With an emCCD you effectively have no read noise (it's around 0.1e- tops, so for a normal conversion, it does not actually add any noise). Because of the ultra deep cooling, you also have no dark current. That means the exposure time doesn't matter...your purely photon shot noise limited...so you can use ultra short exposures or very long, doesn't matter. I know guys who have stacked many hundreds to thousands of frames of only a few seconds (usually 5-10 seconds), and the results are mind bogglingly clean. It's pretty amazing stuff. The cameras, even second hand, were quite expensive though. One old, used emCCD this guy picked up was over $20k I think. Kind of ridiculous.
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It could be very interesting so see what could be achieved using their sensors.jrista said:Neutral said:
Yes, it's definitely a drool-sucking device.
There are a couple guys I know who actually use real emCCDs in their work (I have some bookmarks at home, so I may be able to share some examples of what these things can do). With an emCCD you effectively have no read noise (it's around 0.1e- tops, so for a normal conversion, it does not actually add any noise). Because of the ultra deep cooling, you also have no dark current. That means the exposure time doesn't matter...your purely photon shot noise limited...so you can use ultra short exposures or very long, doesn't matter. I know guys who have stacked many hundreds to thousands of frames of only a few seconds (usually 5-10 seconds), and the results are mind bogglingly clean. It's pretty amazing stuff. The cameras, even second hand, were quite expensive though. One old, used emCCD this guy picked up was over $20k I think. Kind of ridiculous.
They even have device with the single photon sensitivity.
As for price this could be compared with the Phase One digital backs which is about USD 50k for the latest 100mp one using Sony 4x6cm MF sensor.
So even if iKon-xl-231 could be about or over 100k then this just could be couple of Phase One digital backs and this looks pretty reasonable.
If I had such passion and addiction as you for astrography I might consider buying such one for myself ))) One possible option is to buy one by several people for time shared use - concept that is used sometimes to share cost of expensive property or expensive yacht.
What is interesting that iKon-xl-231 sensor is the biggest MF square 6x6cm BSI sensor that I ever seen so far.
I remember there was a lot of hype about Sony A7r2 sensor - that it is first FF BSI sensor and a lot of people were arguing about BSI benefits for FF but nobody mentioned that there was already true MF 6x6cm BSI sensors existing.
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Neutral said:It could be very interesting so see what could be achieved using their sensors.jrista said:Neutral said:
Yes, it's definitely a drool-sucking device.
There are a couple guys I know who actually use real emCCDs in their work (I have some bookmarks at home, so I may be able to share some examples of what these things can do). With an emCCD you effectively have no read noise (it's around 0.1e- tops, so for a normal conversion, it does not actually add any noise). Because of the ultra deep cooling, you also have no dark current. That means the exposure time doesn't matter...your purely photon shot noise limited...so you can use ultra short exposures or very long, doesn't matter. I know guys who have stacked many hundreds to thousands of frames of only a few seconds (usually 5-10 seconds), and the results are mind bogglingly clean. It's pretty amazing stuff. The cameras, even second hand, were quite expensive though. One old, used emCCD this guy picked up was over $20k I think. Kind of ridiculous.
They even have device with the single photon sensitivity.
As for price this could be compared with the Phase One digital backs which is about USD 50k for the latest 100mp one using Sony 4x6cm MF sensor.
So even if iKon-xl-231 could be about or over 100k then this just could be couple of Phase One digital backs and this looks pretty reasonable.
If I had such passion and addiction as you for astrography I might consider buying such one for myself ))) One possible option is to buy one by several people for time shared use - concept that is used sometimes to share cost of expensive property or expensive yacht.
What is interesting that iKon-xl-231 sensor is the biggest MF square 6x6cm BSI sensor that I ever seen so far.
I remember there was a lot of hype about Sony A7r2 sensor - that it is first FF BSI sensor and a lot of people were arguing about BSI benefits for FF but nobody mentioned that there was already true MF 6x6cm BSI sensors existing.
From what I've heard, an iKon XL is around $200,000. Guess making a BSI that large really does cost.
It's got over 95% Q.E., which basically means it's a photon counter. Most emCCD cameras are also photon counters.The difficulty with these cameras is finding a scope with a large enough image circle. Most don't have a circle larger than 44-45mm. Some have image circles up to 65mm, and even fewer have larger image circles. Most of the scopes that could handle an 84mm sensor diagonal are pretty expensive. In the $30,000 and up range, with the exception of maybe a couple of Tak's and maybe the TEC140 which are between $5000 and $10,000.
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jrista said:From what I've heard, an iKon XL is around $200,000. Guess making a BSI that large really does cost.
The difficulty with these cameras is finding a scope with a large enough image circle. Most don't have a circle larger than 44-45mm. Some have image circles up to 65mm, and even fewer have larger image circles. Most of the scopes that could handle an 84mm sensor diagonal are pretty expensive. In the $30,000 and up range, with the exception of maybe a couple of Tak's and maybe the TEC140 which are between $5000 and $10,000.
This is getting fairly off-topic of the original subject, but what the heck.
If the sensor you're getting it $200K, isn't a scop for $30K kinda 'small change'?
WRT the PhaseOne XF100MP, if I understood right, the $50K is not just for the back - that includes the XF modular camera 'body'.
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kaihp said:jrista said:From what I've heard, an iKon XL is around $200,000. Guess making a BSI that large really does cost.
The difficulty with these cameras is finding a scope with a large enough image circle. Most don't have a circle larger than 44-45mm. Some have image circles up to 65mm, and even fewer have larger image circles. Most of the scopes that could handle an 84mm sensor diagonal are pretty expensive. In the $30,000 and up range, with the exception of maybe a couple of Tak's and maybe the TEC140 which are between $5000 and $10,000.
This is getting fairly off-topic of the original subject, but what the heck.
If the sensor you're getting it $200K, isn't a scop for $30K kinda 'small change'?
WRT the PhaseOne XF100MP, if I understood right, the $50K is not just for the back - that includes the XF modular camera 'body'.
The cheapest high quality reflecting scope (which are usually used for scientific and research applications because of the lack of glass optics) is ~$35k (i.e. a PlaneWave...and actually, I'm not even sure the smaller ones have a large enough image circle, which would mean the cheapest scope might be around $50k or so), but they can top a million bucks if you go for one of the larger institutional grade scopes.
Anyway. No one outside of an institution of some kind is going to be using an iKon. It's just kind of the pinnacle of CCD technology, showing what can be done.
Interestingly, the PhaseOne cameras, or any MF camera for that matter, has the same problem as the iKon. It's got a huge sensor, with a diagonal larger than 44mm. That means it is limited to the same scopes...so if you spend $50k on a PhaseOne XF100MP, then you'll need either a Tak FSQ106 (which costs about $5500 for the base scope, but you also have to buy a bunch of accessories for it as well, which usually puts the cost around $8000-$10,000), or one of the larger reflectors (so another $50k or more.)
Using large sensors for astrophotography is basically limited to institutions and the independently wealthy.
That's one of the reasons using full frame DSLRs is so popular these days. It's by far the cheapest way to get a big sensor frame that works with a lot more scopes. My $1000 AstroTech 8" Ritchey-Cretien, a decent scope, actually works with FF DSLR sensors (with a bit of vignetting). There are a good deal of refractors out there that support FF, and there are plenty of reflecting scopes that do as well. They don't perform as well as a proper monochrome camera, but they are significantly more cost effective. The most popular FF DSLR option on the market these days is the 6D, because it's price is so low. It performs ok, but I suspect if the 6D II has similar low dark current as the 7D II, then the 6D II might become the FF DSLR of choice for those looking for a big frame. The best FF DSLR option on the market at the moment is the D810a, and the images from that are just stunning.
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jrista said:kaihp said:jrista said:From what I've heard, an iKon XL is around $200,000. Guess making a BSI that large really does cost.
The difficulty with these cameras is finding a scope with a large enough image circle. Most don't have a circle larger than 44-45mm. Some have image circles up to 65mm, and even fewer have larger image circles. Most of the scopes that could handle an 84mm sensor diagonal are pretty expensive. In the $30,000 and up range, with the exception of maybe a couple of Tak's and maybe the TEC140 which are between $5000 and $10,000.
This is getting fairly off-topic of the original subject, but what the heck.
If the sensor you're getting it $200K, isn't a scop for $30K kinda 'small change'?
WRT the PhaseOne XF100MP, if I understood right, the $50K is not just for the back - that includes the XF modular camera 'body'.
The cheapest high quality reflecting scope (which are usually used for scientific and research applications because of the lack of glass optics) is ~$35k (i.e. a PlaneWave...and actually, I'm not even sure the smaller ones have a large enough image circle, which would mean the cheapest scope might be around $50k or so), but they can top a million bucks if you go for one of the larger institutional grade scopes.
Anyway. No one outside of an institution of some kind is going to be using an iKon. It's just kind of the pinnacle of CCD technology, showing what can be done.
Interestingly, the PhaseOne cameras, or any MF camera for that matter, has the same problem as the iKon. It's got a huge sensor, with a diagonal larger than 44mm. That means it is limited to the same scopes...so if you spend $50k on a PhaseOne XF100MP, then you'll need either a Tak FSQ106 (which costs about $5500 for the base scope, but you also have to buy a bunch of accessories for it as well, which usually puts the cost around $8000-$10,000), or one of the larger reflectors (so another $50k or more.)
Using large sensors for astrophotography is basically limited to institutions and the independently wealthy.
That's one of the reasons using full frame DSLRs is so popular these days. It's by far the cheapest way to get a big sensor frame that works with a lot more scopes. My $1000 AstroTech 8" Ritchey-Cretien, a decent scope, actually works with FF DSLR sensors (with a bit of vignetting). There are a good deal of refractors out there that support FF, and there are plenty of reflecting scopes that do as well. They don't perform as well as a proper monochrome camera, but they are significantly more cost effective. The most popular FF DSLR option on the market these days is the 6D, because it's price is so low. It performs ok, but I suspect if the 6D II has similar low dark current as the 7D II, then the 6D II might become the FF DSLR of choice for those looking for a big frame. The best FF DSLR option on the market at the moment is the D810a, and the images from that are just stunning.
Get on the the list for an AP Honders.
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Sorry, but 15 stops of DR is bull****... that would mean everything between for example 1/8000 and 4" exposure would be perfectly exposed. I doubt that very much... shoot into the sun on a summer day and have no burned white and still see details in shadows that would compare to a 4" exposure... haha ;D
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