Heard from folks that have been at NAB that the DUAL ISO is gone on Spark and has been replaced by optimized ISOs ranging from 400,640, 800, 1280 and 1600. Can the Pixboom team confirm this? There is obviously a big benefit to the dual ISO sensor - namely, shifting the gamma lower at higher sensitivities (like Venice).
Curious to hear more and hear how the high ISO performs compared to the pre-production models.
Also slightly concerned about the lack of a OLPF. How is that affecting fine detail and possible moiree concerns?
Yes, I’ve been making a case for OLFP since last year (see below forum topic I made about OLPF) but they said it should be okay for most shooting conditions. Interesting about the dual iso.
That will make it unusable on LED volumes, but that’s probably a rare situation for high speed like this, plus if you can afford an LED volume you can afford a Phantom.
Plus, this is Pixboom’s first camera. It probably won’t be long before R&D begins on Spark 2 or whatever it will be called.
Yeah maybe not the LED thing. It would probably costs too much to implement! But at least maybe a physical removable OLPF that can be implemented either with this model down the line or a Spark 2 like you said.
Actually, the 5 ISO of the Spark are native ISOs. So instead of 2 (dual), you get 5. Each EI value (400, 640, 800, 1250 and 1600) are sensor-native analog switches, which carry the same dynamic range and over/under stops.
I mean… I much rather have a dual ISO sensor. More is not more, as 2x native ISOs allow me to shift my dynamic range much more precisely. Go with 1,250 to protect highlights in bright environments or go a step up to 1,600 to get more range in shadows in low light.
Having 5 native ISOs isn’t per se bad but certainly limits how you can extract the most out of a sensor!
I’m not sure I understand… A dual native ISO sensor is a sensor with 2 native ISOs. This sensor has 5 native ISOs, which is 3 more than 2. I don’t have the exact spread of stops below/above each ISOs, but the dynamic range is consistent throughout. You can do what you described above, selecting between the various value to prioritize protecting highlights over shadows.
Dual ISO sensor will often have the native values spread much farther apart (like 800 and 12800), which is obviously a great advantage - but this specific global shutter offers 400 through 1600.
The “dual ISO” early claim was chosen to avoid confusion, since people aren’t used to multiple native ISOs. We were looking at 400 and 1600, but saw no point in excluding the intermediate available native values. It’s not a feature that was removed or changed (still the same great sensor), just a clarification.