Sony showing off their replacements for the PXW-X180 and X200 cameras. The Z280 has 3 1/2" CMOS sensors, is f12@2000 59.94Hz, with 63 db s/n ratio. It also does 4K 60p in 10bit 4:2:2 with HLG HDR.

PXW-Z190 not as well equipped, but will be priced under $4000USD and better than the X180 it replaces.

https://pro.sony/ue_US/products/handheld-camcorders/pxw-z190#TextMediaVariable3-pxw-z190

https://pro.sony/ue_US/products/handheld-camcorders/pxw-z280#SATD501434StunningNewSuper35Look-pxw-z280

Saw both Z cams
The 190 is nice,balanced well,easy to handheld.
A solid camera,bout the size of ex1r.
4000.00 good price,out in fall

Z280 is great... except the lens is the exact same as the PMW-200 and PXW-X200 before it. If you had to deal with CA before on those cameras, expect to deal with that again on this camera. Really wishing they made a PMW-300 successor with this backend so that Canon and Fujinon can start making 4K optics for 1/2''.

The availability of 1/2" ENG lenses tanked...there are currently like only 2 lenses with extenders that are not "industrial" or "pro" lenses.

Also of note for the Z190, the MPEG HD420/422 Codec group is now a $500 paid upgrade. The MPEG-TS/QoS live streaming is also a separate $500 paid upgrade on top of that. The next new Sony camera will offer zebras and audio meters as a $500 paid upgrade no doubt. :-)

Paul

Well, looks like time for some custom CNC shop to look into modding the Z280 into a PMW-300. Some people out there would love that, especially those that currently own 1/2'' lenses.

Just wait for the PXWZ320...I never understood the fascination with the PMW300...it's not a handheld, and it's not a shoulder camera. Once you start tacking on a large ENG lens and Gold Mount with handle, you've created an overweight cumbersome monstrosity. I would like to see stabilization on B4 and 1/2" ENG lenses, that would be cool.

If I don't have a shoulder camera for tripod, and a handheld with ACTIVE stabilization, I feel unprepared for my job in ENG.

Paul

Just wait for the PXWZ320...I never understood the fascination with the PMW300...it's not a handheld, and it's not a shoulder camera. Once you start tacking on a large ENG lens and Gold Mount with handle, you've created an overweight cumbersome monstrosity. I would like to see stabilization on B4 and 1/2" ENG lenses, that would be cool.


Yup I'd love to see something like that come out. Although there aren't many (or any) 1/2" UHD rated B4 lenses out there at all. Chicken before the egg, but they have to talk behind the scenes and have all of these land at the same time to offer a complete system out of the gate.

Also Fujinon offers external optical shift B4 stabilizers (http://www.fujifilmusa.com/press/news/display_news?newsID=880108), but they sure look to be quite cumbersome. I'm not sure how they would implement a sensor-based (in body) stabilization system with a triple-chip/prism arrangement, so this would likely involve integrating some electronic servo-driven components, into lenses where users have traditionally valued their direct mechanical connection by design. (Similar to the kit lenses where they were able to implement autofocus, but then you get the infinite encoder ring and associated lag.)

I re-reviewed the low light footage of the Z280 and found some noticeable color noise in the blacks. This might be a camera you would not want to push the gain, but it can get really good results in proper lighting, exceeding the resolution of single chip cameras. However, this will perform poorly in low light.

What footage are you examining? Camera claims f12@2000 and 63db s/n ratio...that is far above what the PXW-X200 can do, so perhaps you are reviewing slog or such 4K clips? I've got a PXW-X320 that is super clean at 12db, nice and smooth, and it's like f11 and 60db s/n.

Paul

However, this will perform poorly in low light.

Having spent several hours with the cameras already, I can assure you that you are completely wrong. The cameras actually do very well in low light when they are setup properly, and the f/1.6 and f/1.9 lenses of the Z190 and Z280 are a big help. Making such statements about cameras you have probably never touched is premature. When you get your hands on one for testing, then maybe your opinions will have some validity, but until then, you are just throwing mud.

Doug, how is the Z190 compared to the Z280 in low light? Looks like they closed the gap a bit on the 1/3" and 1/2" as far as sensitivity and s/n ratio.

Paul

For the sake of clarity (because I had to look it up for myself):

The Z280 has half-inch chips and an f/1.9 lens.

The Z190 has third-inch chips and an f/1.6 lens.

Doug, how is the Z190 compared to the Z280 in low light? Looks like they closed the gap a bit on the 1/3" and 1/2" as far as sensitivity and s/n ratio.
Paul

Paul, although I found both cameras to be much better at low light than I expected (very low noise even with a lot of gain applied) I didn't have the opportunity to actually compare them head-to-head in a meaningful way. So It remains to be seen which one will be better at low-light, but I would be wary of just automatically assuming it would the camera with the bigger sensors.

I'm fascinated by Sony's ability to mount three RGB sensors to an optical block with 4k accuracy! I mean, they need to mount those sensors so that each RGB photosite is directly on top of each other when combined in the image processor. So the block/prism alignment and calibration is crucial.

Doing this in 1080 is hard enough. Doing it in 4k requires 4 times more accuracy!

This is quite a stunt. I'm also wondering how these cameras will survive bumps and knocks while maintaining their alignment accuracy. If one sensor moves even a tiny bit, it could potentially throw off the RGB image assembly badly. Im guessing Sony prepared for that problem somehow.

Very interesting...,

Y'know,...when I was at the Sony booth, I looked at these cameras and went: "Meh,....nothing to see here"....

Now I just sold my Sony Z150 last week and I'm looking to replace it in a few months. Now,...I'm kicking myself for not paying more attention to them!!!

On second thought, they both look more interesting than I first realized. I'm very curious how three 1/3 inch 8.3 megapixel sensors will compare to the 1inch-type 20mp sensors that we know so well today.

Having three full raster 4k sensors gives FULL 4k (UHD) resolution to each RGB channel as opposed to having 25% blue, 25% red and 50% green channel resolution. (for a typical 1:1 Bayer sensor readout)

I did some stupidly-crude math in my head and I "think" the photosites are larger on the Z190 1/3 sensors than a very dense 1 inch 20mp sensor. I suspect that this camera should at least be equal to the 1inch-type models if not a bit better. Could we expect 12+ stops of DR? I dunno yet....maybe?

I know the Z280 lens pretty well as it's been said to come from the EX1 but the Z190 is a mystery to me. 26mm to over 700mm range? (35mm terms) DAMN! That's like some seriously LONG extended optical reach!!.

Waiting for Doug to get his hands on one and share his experience with it. I might grab that Z180 if it looks as good in real life as it does on paper. (Really screwed up by not playing with it when I had the chance while standing right in front of them...uuggg)

CT

I used to have an X180, and it blew away my X70 in picture quality. The X180 and now Z190, have an f1.6-f2.4 lens, compared to the f2.8-f4.0 on the X70/Z90. The 1" sensor cameras are said to be the replacements for the 3x 1/3" HD model sensors, but there is no getting around a smaller aperture.

I would work with an X180 or Z190 on a tripod at work, but would never use a X70/Z90 for the same purpose, even at 33db f4.0 at full telephoto at night you cannot really make anything out. My 1" camera does well c,lose in wide open wide angle handheld.


paul

I

This is quite a stunt. I'm also wondering how these cameras will survive bumps and knocks while maintaining their alignment accuracy. If one sensor moves even a tiny bit, it could potentially throw off the RGB image assembly badly. Im guessing Sony prepared for that problem somehow.

Very interesting...,

Cliff

Each sensor is laser aligned and then bonded on to the optical prism block by an ultraviolet light curing process. Relative to one another the sensors cannot move unless the optical block elements of the prism are separated or broken, nearly impossible. With an old dead three chip block I tried to take apart the prism elements and sensors. I couldn't do it without destroying the prism assembly.

It is important that the arrangement of the sensors and the prism block is extremely precise. Professional camera manufacturers accomplish the mechanical mounting and adjustment to accuracies of 0.2 pixels, i.e. within the range of a µm!

Some of the reasons why three chip cameras are the chosen units for UHD broadcasting:

Advantages (over single-chip colour cameras):

Highest possible color quality and color fidelity: The sensors can be exposed and amplified individually so that a perfect image is generated. RGB signals / pixels are represented homogeneously in contrast to single-chip color cameras where there are twice as many green pixels. Therefore a uniform sensitivity is guaranteed. Shades of red can be differentiated very precisely, too. No loss of the effective resolution due to interpolation, no comb-like artifacts along the contours.

In a single color sensor camera, in addition to reducing color precision, the overlap in the color filter response also results in part of each pixel’s well capacity filling with photons from the wrong color (cross talk), and so decreasing the available well capacity. With multi-sensor cameras less color overlap from the dichroic coatings enable each channel to use the full well capacity of the pixel.

How the dichroic prism works.

A dichroic prism is coated with dichroic filter material that works on the basis of thin-film interference. Light hitting the top surface of the filters reinforces or interferes with light hitting the bottom surface of the filter. It splits the visible light beam into distinct wavelength bands and transmits the passing band so that this color can be separately detected on one of three sensor arrays.

Basically thee chip cameras require far more precision manufacturing and alignment than single sensor cameras and are generally far more expensive to make. For Sony to drop out this Z280 at the price of $6,950.00 is amazing. In PAL it can deliver F13 sensitivity which is amazing enough on HD sensors. How Sony is achieving this on UHD sensors is nothing short of amazing I think.

I will be checking it out for sure.

Chris Young

Wow....this is great stuff!

Yup,...its absolutely true that this three 4k sensor block is absolutely amazing. I bet allot of people dont realize how complex that calibration and manufacturing process needs to be. I really tip my hat to Sony for being able to pull this off. I really believe Sony should do a 1min marketing video on this manufacturing acheivement to give people a real sence of appreciation for how and why this is done.

Its nice to get away from Bayer pattern mosaicing and RGGB color averaging and processing on a camera this. Having 3 primary color channels that are full 4k raster is really cool.

The Z190 is very much on my radar and Im itching to see some more footage from it. Id say it will be my next camera but I think the new A7S-III has got to come first for me. ;-)

My very simple question is how the DOF will look compared to the current 1 inch chip...

I'm really hoping they bring out a version of this camera with a removable lens. Basically a 4k version of the PMW-300.

Z280 is great... except the lens is the exact same as the PMW-200 and PXW-X200 before it. If you had to deal with CA before on those cameras, expect to deal with that again on this camera. Really wishing they made a PMW-300 successor with this backend so that Canon and Fujinon can start making 4K optics for 1/2''.

I was at a pro video expo in the Boston area today. Sony had a Z280 on display. Was told by a Sony rep this camera's lens is not the same as the PMW200. It is a 4K lens. Lens iris does not appear to ramp when you zoom. I set the iris to 1.9 and it stayed at 1.9 throughout the zoom range. If you're looking for a shallow depth of field this is not your camera. Depth of field is that of a 1/2" sensor.

My very simple question is how the DOF will look compared to the current 1 inch chip...

Yeah, this is not a shallow depth of field camera. This is a blessing! Typically with dedicated ENG cameras shallow depth of field is a pain the butt. You dont need to fight focus with this guy even when wide open and that is the way I like it for gorilla run and gun shooting.

Speaking for me, I have 6 other cameras and three are large sensor (FF and S35) cameras so that is where I have my bokeh fun. This one will be very different, thankfully.

I was at a pro video expo in the Boston area today. Sony had a Z280 on display. Was told by a Sony rep this camera's lens is not the same as the PMW200. It is a 4K lens. Lens iris does not appear to ramp when you zoom. I set the iris to 1.9 and it stayed at 1.9 throughout the zoom range. If you're looking for a shallow depth of field this is not your camera. Depth of field is that of a 1/2" sensor.

Bill, the iris position indication on the Z280 indicates the position of the iris ring, not the effective aperture the lens is currently at. All ENG lenses that say f1.8/f1.9 in the EVF, when you zoom in and the image darkens, they still will say f1.9. If you iris down at full telephoto, there will actually be a dead zone where the image will not darken until the aperture ring closes enough to catch up to the ramped value.

And Bryce, both Canon and Fujinon have discontinued all of their BROADCAST 1/2" ENG lenses, leaving only a small sampling of low end non extender industrial models. The PXW-X320 is the only camera model to use this lens mount, so it is basically being abandoned.

I almost want to buy a Z280 just because it would be so cool to have a full raster 3 chip f12@2000 63db 4K 60p HDR camera. :-D

Paul

I'm really hoping they bring out a version of this camera with a removable lens. Basically a 4k version of the PMW-300.

I was thinking a similar thing when this camera was announced - but when I think about it I never take the lens off my PMW-300 (or indeed took it off my EX3 bought in 2008 beforehand). But what I absolutely love about both those cams is the superb viewfinder arrangement, aiding the ability to work fast in run-n-gun situations and get excellent results.

If Sony bring out a version with a detachable lens AND a similar viewfinder arrangement to my PMW-300 then that's the one I'll go for as it would be a truly worthy 4K successor to my PMW-300, bought back in 2013. For interviews/shallow DOF or Letus Helix Jr gimbal stuff, I have my FS5 and a ton of glass already. I bought the FS5 to dip my toe in the 4K puddle to see if it would become an ocean. Still (mostly) delivering in HD but more and more I'm shooting and editing in UHD.

Was told by a Sony rep this camera's lens is not the same as the PMW200. It is a 4K lens.

I don't know about the PMW-200, but the Japanese engineers at NAB (who I was working for) told me directly that the lens on the Z280 is the same one as the PXW-X200. Apparently the X200's lens was developed as a 4K lens (even though that camera is only HD) because they already knew the 4K-capable Z280 would be following soon and it was easier to have them both use the same lens.

Doug. Is the Z280's lens a constant apeture lens or does the iris ramp when zooming? If so, how much?!

I honestly cannot remember. I know that the aperture shown in the viewfinder display of at least one of the two cameras (I think it was the Z190) showed that there was about 1-stop of ramping as it zoomed in, but I couldn't actually see the change in exposure on the monitor. If the display in the viewfinder hadn't shown that it was ramping I would have swore there was no ramping. I think that was the Z190 and I can't remember what the Z280 did. It may also have ramped or maybe not, I just can't recall.

Doug, is anything in the works for Sony to get these to you for a video review? I figured you would be one of the first to do so.

I don't know either but I'm willing to bet they stop down to about f/2.8 at full tele. Which isn't much compared to many others that stop down a lot more.

Going back to the low light "incorrect" statement...

I'm assuming with proper setup, it can still be good in low light.

The issue then came from viewing HDR footage in YouTube SDR compression. It will raise the blacks too much to reveal too much noise, which is what I observed. Plus the fact the SDR conversion has absolutely no consistency on how YouTube defines said standard.

You will have to view all sample footage of this camera on a Rec. 2020 and HLG capable display. Viewing in SDR WILL give the wrong impressions of this camera.

Question for beam splitter, prism and optical block experts;

THE BASICS:

As we know, light enters the front of the optical block and is split and mirrored into three directions. It ends up hitting three image sensors with red, green or blue optical filters. The three RGB images are combined on top of each other and processed together to form a full color image.

PROS:

- High resolving power because each RGB sensor is 100% full 4k resolution. (As opposed to a heavily reduced RGGB resolution from Bayer pattern de-mosiacing. Each Bayer-pattern channel only having 25%, 25% and 50% of 4k resolution)

- Three sensors produce more accurate colors and edges. On the other hand, single Bayer RGGB patterns require color binning or averaging from adjacent pixels to assemble it's image. Three sensors produce simple and highly accurate image assembly.


CONS:

- Incoming light is divided and the prism only allows 33% of that light to each of the three sensors. So, in low light situations, each sensor needs high amounts or pre-amplification to reach a nominal output level. (Eventually ends up as 0db for the user to adjust higher as needed)

- Note; With a Bayer-pattern layout, RGGB photosites are each receiving 100% of the incoming light on a single sensor.


THE NUMBERS:

I dunno for sure but does anybody find anything wrong with these statements? (I dont pretend to be an expert on this.) Each RGB sensor is only getting 33% of the incoming light from the lens. In daylight situations, this is perfectly fine as there is more light than you need. But in indoor situations or night time where light could be scarce, these sensors potentially will need high amounts of early stage amplification to get to a decent level at 0db. I'm guessing noise reduction is going to play a BIG, key role in these cameras.

The EX1r and other 1080 cameras had 1/2 inch sensors with only 2 megapixels. These 4k sensors are 4 times more dense so we are looking at much smaller photosites. The 1/3 inch model will be even smaller.

I have high hopes for these two models but how do people feel about the light gathering ability of these cameras? (Not the noise reduction power....the light gathering ability. Actual "Light" and "gain" are two totally different things.)

Obviously nobody knows for sure yet as there is very little material to watch out there on these guys now. So we can only wait and just talk physics and science for now.

Your thoughts?

Cliff -
One thing I think you're overlooking is how the Bayer pattern gets its R,G&B
Remember, pixels are basically B&W receptors,
So in a Bayer sensor, each individual pixel basically has a colored filter over it to limit it to 'seeing' that color of light.
As you know, filters cut down on light transmission. So the amount of light received by each pixel in a bayer sensor is not 100%, but is reduced by that color's filter factor.

You are certainly right. All image sensors see RGB optically filtered light and produce a voltage reading. This amounts to a "grey-scale" voltage value for each photosite on the sensor on the read cycle.

Yes, all RGB filters intoduce resistance to light. Both, in Bayer and three sensor arrays too. This light loss is "built-in" to the idea and is unavoidable for every sensor.

Im specifically questioning the prism's light dividing roll itself. Its job is to take the lens projection and divide that into three images and present each one to it's sensors at the end of the block.

This light split-up takes 100% of the lens' projection and gives 33% of that light to each RGB sensor. This is a "burden" that a three sensor configuration must suffer.

Single Bayer sensors dont need to alter the lens light and just take it all exactly as the lens projects it. 100% light.

Anybody have more to add. Im curious just how much loss a prism/beam splitter gives. Is it worse that 1/3 light transmission?

Possibly so?

P.s......Do these optical blocks divide FULL SPECTRUM light into three full spectrum images and allow the sensor to RGB filter it. Or, does the prism take in full spectrum light and divide it into red, blue and green light and then beam that to each sensor?

Cliff ~

One cannot argue that because there are three sensors that each sensor receives only 33.333% of the incoming light. It is the cumulative value of the three sensors output that has to be measured to compare it to the output value of a single sensor.

In a three chip design each chip receives the entire image. Full-bandwidth R, G, and B signals making color processing much simpler. Each sensor can be optimized for the color it will 'see.' For example by chemical filtering to alter its spectral sensitivity. Adjusting the color balance of the overall signal is a simple matter of adjusting the gains and black levels of the three chips relative to one another.

In our hypothetical 4K three chip camera 100% of the red wavelength lands on the red chip because it is split out from the 'white' light coming in through the lens, therefore 4096 worth of red sensor photosites get evenly illuminated in red light. Subsequently 100% of the blue and green wavelengths arrive at their respective 4096 photosites with very little color wavelength cross contamination due to the efficient wavelength filtering used. From the this point each sensors gain and time constant are adjusted in real time to ensure that the clock out of the RGB signals are in time with each other and that their respective levels are correct. Importantly remember that collectively the combination of the three sensors represents 100% of the white light that came through the lens, bar prism internal reflective and refractive losses which in modern three chip cameras is within 1-2%

Now with the single chip sensor 100% 'white' light arrives at the sensor. The difference here is that with a traditional 2:1 Bayer sensor of 4096 photsites only the '2' which is 2048 photosites are going to be capturing the green wavelength. That's only 50% of the green wavelength within the white light coming through the lens. The other 50% of the green wavelength is going to be landing on photsites that are not filtered and tuned to receive green light. When it comes to the '1' of the 2:1 Bayer ratio that means only 25% of the 4096 photsites will be receptive to red and blue wavelengths respectively.

Therefore with the Bayer sensor approach the missing color data at each pixel is then interpolated, or guessed at, by various algorithms that try to use image statistics to make up for the fact that all three color planes are under-sampled, in violation of the Nyquist sampling theorem.

To sum up fairly simply:

Resolution

The mosaic filter approach lowers the spatial resolution available by roughly 30% compared to a monochrome sensor or 3 sensor approaches in which all of the photons are used for the image.

Sensitivity

With a single chip color cameras, not all of the pixels are sensitive to all colors so not all of the light contributes to sensitivity as it does with 3-chip cameras. The loss of sensitivity in a single chip 2:1 Bayer sensor due to its 50/25/25 light collecting sensitivity across the RGB photosites is considerably greater when compared to the light loss through a prism that has a transmission efficiency of around about 98-99% and that is delivering let's say minimum 98% of the total RG and B wavelengths to all three full raster RG and B sensors. Very little illumination value per wavelength lost in other words.

I have to qualify this last statement by saying that if a single and three sensor cameras had the same size sensors the single chipper would be left for dead compared to its three chip cousin. In the case of a single 4096 x 2160 Bayer sensor we have 8,847,360 photosites with the drawbacks and limitations of the mosaic design. In the case of full raster 4k three sensor cameras we have 26,542,080 photsites. All of which are being utilized to the max to capture their respective R, G and B photons. Generally speaking though three chippers have smaller sensors and which means smaller photosites which equates to them being less sensitive. Despite that the efficiencies of full raster three chippers compared to existing 2:1 Bayer mosaic sensors size for size puts the tree chipper way ahead for the time being.

As time progresses single chip sensors are becoming much more efficient and 'promises' of performance such as the likes of the Foveon sensor will doubt narrow the differences between single and three chip efficiencies. Price and efficiency will win out in the long run. It almost always does. A single Bayer type sensor design and a three RGB split prism images below.

Chris Young

THANK YOU CHRISTOPHER!!

The prism allows for 100% (almost) Red, Green and blue light transmission! It's that efficient at breaking out light frequencies?

Three sensor installations don't need RGB optical filters over each sensor. They are essentially "naked" grey-scale sensors. (with probably only optical low pass filters on top)

It's a shame that the Z450 is only a single Bayer sensor design. I suspect that a 4k optical block for 2/3 sensors will arrive soon. I can only expect that a new Z450 replacement with 3 sensor design will smoke the current Z450. (it would certainly make sense)

I wonder how far up they could go. A block for three 1 inch? (maybe that is pushing it too far on the camera size?)

This is some fantastic stuff you posted here, exactly what I was hoping we could talk about here. This does a great job showing exactly how these prisms work!

I really hope this gets allot of views here as this is a great post.

CT

Cliff

Sony already have a 2/3" three chip CMOS full raster UHD camera, the HDC-4300. It also can do HD out at the same time which is what goes to air here. We have had them being used here on the league football, Australian Open tennis etc since 2016. The 4300 is also capable of 4 x overcrank for slo-mo replay. Being UHD capable they also have different prism coatings for the wider color gamut of 2020 for live HDR broadcasting. They are only available as a studio/OB digital triax camera not a camcorder. It would be a very expensive camcorder no doubt if Sony decided to implement this tech into a camcorder. From memory the camera heads were about $40-50K plus the various software HFR packages which were about $18K per package.

https://pro.sony/en_CA/products/4k-and-hd-camera-systems/hdc-4300#TextMediaV65eduyjhariable-hdc-4300

Sony also have the S35 single sensor HDC-4800 that is capable of up to 8 x overcrank in UHD and 16 x in HD.

https://pro.sony/en_CA/products/4k-and-hd-camera-systems/hdc-4800

It's this hi-end broadcast technology that is trickling down to the likes of the Z280 for the likes of us mere mortals.

Chris Young

Chris, while watching season 2 of The Grand Tour (Top Gear 2.0) on Amazon Prime, I noticed all the studio cameras are shoulder style Sony rigs...I couldn't tell if they were the 4300's or Z450's.

And I would really love to see some effort put into 1080p/720p HD only cameras for news...your local news market will not be 4K anytime within the life expectancy of any new camera bought in the next few years. Imagine what the sensitivity and s/n ratio would be on the Z280 if it had only 2MP with the same tech applied. I am fairly sure the f12/13@2000 63db rating is for HD mode...Sony also seems to be joining the (high/low sensitivity) mode game, where thy give some ratings at 6db (high sens) and others at 0db (low sens). That is how they rated the Z190, at least they were honest about it.

Paul

*my secret dream, shooting for a 720p60 TV station, is for giant 1MP 720 sensors that can see in the dark! :-D

I found this interesting...just aired new episode of 60 Minutes on CBS...saw one of the cameras in the background...an old Panasonic HDX900 720p DVCPRO HD TAPE camera! :-D

Paul

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/558815-REG/Panasonic_AJ_HDX900_AJ_HDX900_Professional_High_Definition.html/BI/2855/KBID/3801

[QUOTE=Paul Anderegg;1944049]Chris, while watching season 2 of The Grand Tour (Top Gear 2.0) on Netflix, I noticed all the studio cameras are shoulder style Sony rigs...I couldn't tell if they were the 4300's or Z450's./QUOTE]

In studio they are the 4300's. Outside United Broadcast Facilities from the Netherlands who won the Grand Tour contract supplied all the location kit for season 2. Below is some of the kit used:

Cameras:

Arri Amira, Alexa
GoPro HERO4 (Minicams)
Panasonic GH4 (Car Interiors)
Panasonic GH5 (Drone)
Phantom Flex (slow motion scenes)
Sony HDC-4300 (Studio)

Ben Joiner was the DP on the show.
http://www.benjoiner.com/blog/the-grand-tour-season-2

Nice story on the GH4's
The Grand Tour ? The Small Camera Story ? ?HOME (http://www.definitionmagazine.com/journal/2017/3/7/the-grand-tour-the-small-camera-story)

The post production rundown:

Primarily ProRes
Color Color (ACES)
Aspect Ratio 1.78 : 1 (UHD)
Sound Mix Dolby Digital

Rushes were done on set by the DITs and were DNxHD36

Interesting Editors interview of just what is involved!
https://www.provideocoalition.com/aotc-grandtour

Chris Young

I'm curious to see how the Z190's three 1/3 sensor performance is compared to Sony single 1 inch-type sensor.

Anybody want to guess what the photosite size comparison is?

I suspect that Z190 sensors use the same stacked BSI, gapless architecture. So,...I'm guessing that three 1/3'rds at 8+ megapixels will have slightly larger photosites than the single 20mp 1inch type sensor? (especially after you consider the 16x9 crop in the 1 inch-type)...I'm not sure at all though.

Also,...we can only guess but does anybody want to to toss up ideas on dynamic range? I'll guess at 10-11 in SLog. I would be shocked if the Z190 had more than 11.

I see it has up to +18db gain and then a "turbo" mode.

I have not seen any published signal to noise ratio number on the Z190.

CT

Maybe its the same sensor that is in the AX53.

The PXW-X180 was 60db, but had some very obvious fixed patterns at 18db due to noise reduction. We can assume it is at least 60db given the specs on the Z280. I think the Z190 is probably about the same sensitivity as the X180, f9@2000 with 60db s/n ratio. The specs say it is f11@2000, but at "high sensitivity mode", which as we know, is basically +6db of gain, so the old F9@2000 of the X180 in normal mode is likely retained.

Paul

Any ideas when we'll see more info / footage on these cameras? Doug?

I've uploaded a bunch of my test footage from the Z280.

Sony PXW-Z280 test footage Part 1 on Vimeo

Incompatible batteries. My Z280V only works with the original BP-U30. When I plug in a BP-U60 from BatteryChampion, I get "Battery Error please change battery".

So far, all of the Z280 videos I have seen online suffer from massive amounts of noise reduction artifacts. Im seeing "granular" dots in the shadows (not noise but artifacts left behind by temporal noise reduction) and torn edges on moving objects. We see these on Sony cameras set on very high gain. But these artifacts appear at 0db on the Z280.

I suspect that Sony was forced to read these sensors with a very high pre-amp amount to get that 0db up to a respectable brightness level.

As we all know, the more pre-amp that is done on the sensor collection the LESS headroom we have to take 0db up to higher amounts.

I really hope this camera is not relying on massive amounts of noise reduction to compensate for a lot of pre-amp being used at collection.

Doug...can you do a side by side between your Z280 and Z90 1inch sensor camera? These results would be facinating!

CT

I turn the DNR off on my PXW-X320, because it blurs everything at high gain, loosing a lot of resolution in the process, and causing a smearing effect when you move the image. Sony makes sure they list their s/n figures with noise reduction activated. The Z190 doesn't even list it's s/n ration, probably because it is so poor.

Paul

Doug...can you do a side by side between your Z280 and Z90 1inch sensor camera? These results would be facinating!

Yes, at some point when I have time I will do that. I'll mount the Z90 on the handle of the Z280 and take them out for some real-world shooting with similar focal lengths, exposures. etc. But I have to wait until I have a non-SLOG scene file for the Z280 and I haven't even started down that road yet.

Incompatible batteries. My Z280V only works with the original BP-U30. When I plug in a BP-U60 from BatteryChampion, I get "Battery Error please change battery".

Gah, I hate it when brands try to make you stick with their proprietary batteries!

Incompatible batteries. My Z280V only works with the original BP-U30. When I plug in a BP-U60 from BatteryChampion, I get "Battery Error please change battery".

New batteries that are Z280 compatible are now out:

S-8U95 98Wh Battery for Sony BP-U series (http://swit.us/s-8u95-86whbattery-forsony.html)

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1431843-REG/swit_s_8u65_s_8u95_sony_bp_u_series.html/BI/2855/KBID/3801