Houses 1.3 MP AR0134 CMOS Image sensor (Monochrome/ RAW Bayer)

Fixed Focus

Global Shutter

Plug-&-Play (UVC compliant - No drivers required)and Backward compatibility with USB 2.0 hosts with limited features and capabilities

Output format: Monochrome version - YUY2 (16bits per pixel YUV422 format) Color version - RAW Bayer (8bits per pixel Bayer RGB format)

Supported OS: Windows 10, Windows 8, Windows 7, Linux and MAC *

Read more: https://www.e-consystems.com/1MP-USB3-Globalshutter-Camera.asp

I got the "Please turn camera off and then on again" message. Doing so did not solve the issue. When i do this I hear a slight sound and can see the shutter trying to move slightly but remains like in the first photo.

In the second photo - I tried to manually open it and I saw that another part is stuck behind the outer blades.

My questions: is there a way to find out if its a hardware or software failure. Is it something that can be fixed DIY style or is the camera a paper clip? Does anybody has a official Panasonic Repair Guide/pdf by chance?

I have looked around for a replacement shutter unit (in case it is a hardware failure) and its not exactly easy finding one (comparing to canons and nikons or even gf2/3 which are abundant and cheap etc). Any suggestions and help will be greatly appreciated!

Just wondering what the general consensus is about the 180 shutter rule, how many people absolutely live by it and who likes to bend the rules and why?

I personally always find myself sticking to the rule, for example always shooting at 24fps and then setting the shutter at 1/50 and then keeping that constant either through the use of an ND filter or sticking the camera in shutter priority mode.

The global shutter pixel technology typically found on charge-coupled device (CCD) image sensors can offer significant benefits such as the elimination of rolling shutter artifacts through simultaneous image capture of the entire frame. However, the use of global shutter pixel requires the addition of a pixel-level memory – one of the barriers to widespread global shutter adoption. As CMOS image sensors have grown in popularity and as machine vision, movie production, industrial, automotive, and scanning applications increasingly place high priority on the ability to capture fast-moving objects with high image quality, image sensor vendors have worked to solve the technical challenges involved with the utilization of global shutter pixel technology on CMOS image sensors -- sensors that were instrumental in making advanced machine vision, scanning, and the filming of movies like Titanic, The Matrix and Avatar1 possible. Further, with significant CMOS processing technology advancements, transistors can be made much smaller; this, together with improved micro-lens technology, is better enabling image sensor vendors to cost-effectively integrate the memory required for a global shutter.

Today, CMOS image sensor providers are closing the performance gap between rolling and global shutter alternatives by addressing several technical challenges -- fill factor/quantum efficiency (QE), global shutter efficiency (GSE), and dark current. In overcoming these challenges, CMOS image sensor vendors are delivering global shutter pixel technology with smaller pixel size, larger fill factor, higher GSE, lower dark current ,and lower noise, better positioning CMOS image sensors to replace CCD at an accelerating rate.

Rolling Shutter Overview

Also known as focal-plane shutter, a rolling shutter utilizes two scans – reset and readout – to control the exposure time. A shutter pulse that resets a row scans the pixel array prior to readout scanning (Figure 1). The interval between the shutter and the readout pulses determines the exposure time. However, since exposure times of different rows are shifted when a rolling shutter sensor is used, still images of fast-moving objects become distorted, rendering the rolling shutter unsuitable for applications like barcode scanning, machine vision, or automated inspection systems, which require the imaging of rapidly moving objects.

Often found on some film cameras as well as digital still and video cameras using CMOS image sensors, a rolling shutter does not record each frame at a single point in time, but rather captures sequential strips of the image from a vertical or horizontal scan across the frame. The advantage of a rolling shutter method is that the image sensor can continue to gather photons during the acquisition process, thus increasing sensitivity. The disadvantages of rolling shutter - predictable distortion of fast-moving objects or flashes of light, or rolling shutter artifacts - are most noticeable when imaging in extreme conditions of motion or light. The use of rolling shutter technology can also result in other motion artifacts, such as smear, skew, wobble, and partial exposure. A shift from rolling to global shutter has been explored in the past. At the time, CMOS image sensor vendors found that adding an additional memory element would sacrifice too much of the photodiode area, negatively impacting quantum efficiency. Further, with existing semiconductor processing technology, application requirements, market demands, cost, and other considerations, it was not justified to push ahead.

Global Shutter Overview

CCD image sensors, which require analog memory for their operation, naturally lend themselves to operation with a global shutter; as a result CCD cameras with global shutter have become more prevalent. The global shutter pixel technology typically found on CCD image sensors used in video cameras eliminates the rolling shutter artifact through simultaneous image capture of the entire frame (Figure 2).

However, for CMOS image sensors, the implementation of a global shutter has the primary disadvantage of requiring the addition of a pixel-level memory, making this an expensive alternative for some applications (Figures 3 and 4). For cost-sensitive mobile applications, in particular, the need for additional pixel-level memory has historically made global shutter undesirable as these applications do not place as high a priority on image quality or the mitigation of rolling shutter artifacts as do other applications, rather for cell phones cost is paramount.

Other drawbacks associated with global shutters include the reduction in pixel fill factor, which results in a decrease in quantum efficiency. To compensate for this effect, a global shutter pixel generally has a larger size than a rolling shutter pixel, as shown in Figure 5.

Another issue of concern is dark current at the memory node. Dark current refers to the small current generated in a pixel even when the pixel is in complete darkness. Typical regions of dark current generation include depletion regions of PN junctions and silicon surfaces. Dark current is one of the main contributors to pixel noise and is more severe in a global shutter pixel than in a rolling shutter pixel.

Finally, it is important to note that, when implementing global shutter in backside illumination (BSI), quantum efficiency is higher than with its front side illumination (FSI) counterpart as there is neither metal nor transistors in the optical path. However, it is this lack of metal that leads to a significant disadvantage for a BSI global shutter. With no metal layer to protect the memory node from light, global shutter efficiency (GSE) is typically degraded. A possible solution is to deposit metal on the backside, but the problem with this is that the resulting stack height is so high that stray light would still be able to contaminate signals stored there. This issue remains an open problem though the industry is exploring it. In the absence of an electronic global shutter, a mechanical shutter can always be used. However, the addition of a mechanical shutter not only increases system cost, but it may be difficult to practically implement in some applications, such as mobile products. Another alternative approach would be to use digital correction of the rolling shutter artifacts; however, this approach would increase power consumption, cost, and may introduce reconstruction artifacts.

CMOS Image Sensors with Global Shutter Technology

In 2000-2001, it became clear to CMOS image sensor purveyors that global shutter technology could offer significant advantages, but the implementation needed to be carefully considered. The most popular approach that has resulted is “memory-in-pixel,” in which each pixel, in addition to a photodiode and readout circuitry, contains an extra memory element to temporarily store photo-generated charges. In this scheme, every row of the sensor starts an exposure at the same time. At the end of the exposure, photo-generated charges are globally transferred from photo diodes to pixellevel memories and then read out row-by-row via readout scanning. Essentially, the additional pixel-level memory allows photo-generated charge accumulation and readout operation to be performed at each individual pixel, thus eliminating the need for rolling shutter pulses. This approach is similar to that of an Interline-Transfer CCD (IT-CCD) shown in Figure 6, where a line buffer located next to each column of the pixel array serves the same purpose as the in-pixel memory. Since the exposure starts at the same instant for every row, the rolling shutter artifact is not present in this approach. Taking this one step further, by pipelining the accumulation and readout operations, the next exposure can start before finishing the current readout, enabling extremely high frame rates to be achieved.

Fill Factor and Quantum Efficiency

The addition of a memory node in a global shutter pixel causes its fill factor to always be smaller than that of its rolling shutter counterpart. To mitigate reduction in quantum efficiency, such a memory element should occupy as small an area as possible. On the other hand, its charge storage capacity has to be large enough to hold all charge transferred from the photodiode. Ideally, the storage capacity of the memory node should be engineered to be the same as that of the photodiode so that full well of the pixel is not limited by the memory node. Additionally, microlenses should be optimized such that the entire incident light will be collected by the photodiode.

Global Shutter Efficiency

GSE, an important figure-of-merit for a global shutter pixel, is a measure of how well signal charge can be stored in the memory node without being contaminated by parasitic light. GSE measures how well the memory node protects stored signal from parasitic light contamination. Various sources contribute to such a contamination. For example, incident light can never be 100 percent focused onto the photodiode in practice and some may fall onto the memory node due to mechanisms like diffraction and scattering. Figure 7 shows how photo leakage from a bright light hitting the pixel memory during the storage time can affect the stored signal, causing smear-like and shading artifacts.

As shown in Figure 8, the memory node acts as a parasitic photodiode that generates electron-hole pairs in response to incident stray light, thus contaminating the signal originally stored there. In addition, electrons generated deep inside the silicon can diffuse into the memory node and act as a second source of signal contamination. To maximize GSE, a metal light shield covering the memory node needs to be used. Additionally, the metal light shield should be as close to the memory node as possible so that the node is protected from stray light arriving at a wide angle. Doping and potential profiles inside the silicon need to be carefully engineered so that stray electrons generated inside the silicon are directed to the photodiode instead of the memory node. Additionally, lenses should be designed such that light is focused as much as possible to the photodiode instead of to the memory node.

Dark Current

With a rolling shutter pixel, charges are accumulated and stored in a low-dark current, surface-pinned photodiode until the pixel is read out. In contrast, a global shutter pixel has to store accumulated charges in a memory node commonly implemented in silicon. For example, in a 2003 study by Krymski and Tu2, the floating diffusion of a pixel was used as a memory node. Similar to a 3-T photodiode, there is a large leakage current associated with the surface even though the pixel is in complete darkness. Additionally, the fact that the floating diffusion needs to be a heavily doped junction results in a large PN junction leakage current which acts as another source of dark current. This highly undesirable dark current contaminates the signal stored in the memory node. To mitigate this, a process should be developed to passivate or pin the surface of the memory node. Instead of using a floating diffusion as a memory element, Aptina has utilized a surface-pinned storage node in the pixel to address dark current challenges. Available in its newest global shutter sensor, the MT9M031, the storage node also enables using a true correlated double sampling technique to reduce readout noise to four electrons, resulting in excellent low-light performance. The combination of the effective use of an anti-reflective metal light shield in close proximity to the memory node and careful doping and potentialprofile design results in a high GSE. Charge storage capacities of the photodiode and the memory node are also balanced, and when taken together with the use of a two-way shared pixel architecture, the impact of the memory node on fill factor and QE is minimized. The combination of all these engineering innovations is a 3.75 micron global shutter pixel that enables high performance without rolling-shutter artifacts.

Via: http://www.aptina.com/products/technology/Aptina_Global-Shutter-WhitePaper.pdf

I now own 3 cameras. The GH2, BMPCC and the GH4. For the Blackmagic I bought the BMCC Speedbooster, so I can use it on the BMPCC and the GH4, if I would buy it any time soon. And I did - today. Excited about the Speedbooster working with my Nikon Glass and getting away with no vignetting in UHD mode (crop factor 2,3 becomes 1,472 like APS-C), I just wanted to give the Custom White Balance a try, since I had to dial in the correct color temperature on the BMPCC, I wanted the luxury back, to have the right settings at the push of a button.

So I was just about to flex my finger and set Custom WB... when I remembered... my GH2 always using the mechanical Shutter, when taking the custom WB. Cause I want to use the GH4 a little longer, I dismounted the BMCC Speedbooster and took the Custom Whitebalance.

Long story is short: Even with activated Electronic Shutter, the GH4 still uses the mechanical Shutter for Custom White Balance and can be damaged with attached BMCC Speedbooster. Since the SB touches the inside of the Shutter Casing and even leaves a mark there due the pressure of the adapter, when it´s attached.

So better stay with the Blackmagic way of dialing in the color temperature or use your MFT Kit Lens - if you own one - to do the work.

By the way.... am I the only one who sets custom WB? Cause I didn´t read about this issue anywhere else. At least the BMCC Speedbooster Users don´t care much about it and stick with automatic WB ;-)

That´s it for today!

Cheers from Austria! Stefan

There seems to be no foreseeable standardisation of electricity worldwide - despite the obvious cost savings that would produce in producing everything from turbines to appliances in the one standard.

Smart switchable power supplies in domestic appliances have managed to cope with the different countries' power supplies, however we all still know how the fast-flicker of electric lighting involves adjusting shutter-speed of video shooting.

The waveform of 230 volt, 50 Hz compared with 110 V, 60 Hz.

Frame rates for TV and video have traditionally corresponded to multiples of the AC cycle and 60p is often cited as an ideal frame-rate, for smoothness - but as one of the majority who lives in a 50Hz country, I'd like to see a future standard of 100fps video one day.

http://www.quantumbalancing.com/worldelectricity/electricityif.htm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utility_frequency

• is the full 60-1/4000 shutter speed range available in electronic shutter mode or is the slowest speed limited to 1 second like on G5? ( Answered: it is limited to 1 second. )

• what are the options in built-in intervalometer? Can the interval be lower than one second? Is there a setting for unlimited number of images or is 9999 maximum it will allow?

• what is the fastest burst mode that allows automatic exposure between frames?

• what is the save delay in burst mode and can it save previous shot while taking next one? In practice, can the equivalent of 360 degrees shutter angle be achieved at any shutter speed?

The question: is out there a list of sensors readout speed rated in ms?
How fast is the Alexa readout in ms? How about Red, Sony and Canon cameras?

I'm doing a job where I need to shoot lots of time lapses with long shutter speed and GH2's mechanical shutter is annoying.

Then I noticed that I'd made a mistake: I'd set my shutter speed to 25, i.e., 1/25th of a second. I was concerned that the stuff we'd shot would be unusable, with strange blurs or occasional frame skipping or pull-down, but it looked just fine. (I've shot at 2 frames per second, and that tends to duplicate a lot of frames.)

As I said, there's no problems I need to fix here, but if someone could explain to me why this setting didn't screw up my video, I'd appreciate it.

I am hoping that I just missed a setting somewhere and that it's possible to set it up so that the red video button handles the stop/start, and the main shutter button does focus only. It wouldn't be the first time I've been confounded and confused by the settings!

Cheers and thanks in advance, Lori

I've heard, that GH3 can record in 4K 20 frames per second and memory card capable to store 95 Mb/s. Therefore if we narrow size to 16mm (10.6mm x 6mm) is it possible to record RAW video?

In video mode replace exposure numbers with rotary disc shutter angle: 1/32 = 270° (?) | 1/48 = 180° (add) | 1/50 = 172.8° | 1/60 = 144°; | 1/96 = 90° (add) | 1/120 = 72° (add)

Add Frame Line - The aspect ratio frame  1.85:1 (35mm theatrical), 2.35:1 (Cinemascope)

Google Research: .. starting from May 4, 2012, Google implemented rolling shutter removal .... The before and after videos below show the effectiveness of the new Youtube algorithms:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=627MqC6E5Yo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ATOrwKoREuQ

From

http://image-sensors-world.blogspot.com.au/2012/05/image-stabilization-and-rolling-shutter.html

I filmed passing trucks at the same speed with 1/250th shutter speed. I could not tell any difference in the angle of distortion between the two clips. A lot people think that rolling shutters only affect the video if the camera is moving. It will actually slant vertical lines if the subject is moving fast enough horizontally even if the camera is still.

I do not believe that using ETC mode over just the lens has any affect on the rolling shutter jello effect. Theoretically sensor readout speed is the only thing that could affect it. Using ETC mode should reduce the number of pixels that the camera reads. However, that does not appear to help at all. Instead it appears to read the entire sensor in the same time that it takes to read it without using ETC. Maybe it is just throwing out the data the ETC mode doesn't need?

I've taken this out of page 6 the GF2 Stable settings Thread http://personal-view.com/talks/discussion/2321/gf2-stable-settings/p6

GF2 is a strange camera in Video mode. Panasonic say in their manual that Flicker Red (Flicker reduction) when set to 1/50 >1/120 in video mode will lock the shutter. I agree from the tests i have done in bright daylight that it does, however it appears SOMETHING is changing when large amounts of light or dark is introduced quickly, it seems to have a trigger point. If you use a manual lens, set aperture, use an ND or VariND and set iso to 100, it appears you can shoot and lock shutter between 1/50 and 1/120.

In dark situations where the camera needs gain, i think the iso will follow a similar pattern, jumping at trigger points, but shutter and iso will be locked at what you set it to unless you pan the camera to a very bright or very dark area, this seems to trigger some change but not enough to correct exposure. Weird. I throw this out there for discussion, as there seems to be conflicting opinions on this and no real explanations on what the camera is doing.

EDIT: found the price; $7900

http://www.tessive.com/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=GCkO3sSm8cI

For that I focused the camera on a strong light, started recording and then I quickly panned the camera horizontally on the tripod while varying the shutter speed. Then I looked at consecutive frames and measured the light interruption (measures.jpg) and computed the fluidity normalizing it as a percentage of the average segment length.

The results are in the attachment (MotionFlow.zip) which is also shown as a screenshot (MotionFlow.PNG). They are approximations as the values can have some variation, but will clearly show you which are the good ones and the others to avoid at all cost.

The resulting videos can also be downloaded (they are very small) from here: http://www.mediafire.com/?ezz6zroqcronq28,ova2axx3qjev573,ca6o3g4cjhx46lc

As you can see, HBR 25p easily beats all other 1080p modes with no less than 5 100% FLUID motion shutter speeds, 4 of them very useful indeed. Now it's time to perform some tests to see (subjectively of course) how much we can notice it and how high can we tolerate the interruption before the motion flow stops looking natural.

(EDIT) The ideal patch GOPs should be useful in this thread. Here they are:

SS - Frequency of new frames - Ideal patch GOP

24p & 25p HBR

1/2s - 1/13 - GOP13

1/2.5 - 1/10 - GOP10

1/3.2 - 1/8 - GOP8

1/4 - 1/7 - GOP7

1/5 - 1/5 - GOP5

1/6 - 1/4 - GOP4

1/8 - 1/4 - GOP4

1/10 - 1/3 - GOP3

1/13 - 1/2 - GOP2

1/15 - 1/2 - GOP2

1/20 - 1/2 - GOP2

SS - Frequency of new frames - Ideal patch GOP

30p HBR

1/2s - 1/16 - GOP16

1/2.5 - 1/12 - GOP12

1/3.2 - 1/10 - GOP10

1/4 - 1/8 - GOP8

1/5 - 1/6 - GOP6

1/6 - 1/5 - GOP5

1/8 - 1/4 - GOP4

1/10 - 1/3 - GOP3

1/13 - 1/3 - GOP3

1/15 - 1/2 - GOP2

1/20 - 1/2 - GOP2