The biggest Four Thirds sensor yet
 

It's not widely hailed, but Four Thirds has a new, bigger, image sensor from Panasonic and it made its debut in the new Lumix DMC-GH1. We explore its benefits.

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Re: The biggest Four Thirds sensor yet
 

This is a neat idea, and so simple you wonder why no one (as far as I know) has done it before. Of course, the thing that really interests me is how the new sensor performs in terms of dynamic range and high-ISO noise. Hopefully tests (and new Olympus cameras!) will be coming soon.

- Hal -

Re: The biggest Four Thirds sensor yet
 

Panasonic say that the GH1 sensor's low light sensitivity has been improved slightly over the G1 sensor (which is the same as in the E-30 and E-620). It's work in progress for Panasonic :)

Ian

Re: The biggest Four Thirds sensor yet
 

The slight increase in pixels for the wider formats is interesting but nothing to really get excited about. Of far more interest will be level of improvement in high ISO performance and DR with the latest generation sensor.

Re: The biggest Four Thirds sensor yet
 

Ian,

It seems that at some time in the future we are likely to get an Oly camera with selectable aspect ratios. Perhaps you could suggest to Oly that one of those ratios should be 1:1.414 - that would allow direct printing onto A4 paper (and all the other A sizes as well) without having to mess about with additional cropping in PS.

Thanks

Roger

Re: The biggest Four Thirds sensor yet
 

The E-30 and E-620 already offer a wide range of user-selctable frame aspect ratios: 4:3, 3:2, 16:9, 6:6 (square), 5:4, 7:6, 6:5, and 7:5. The lasty, 7:5 is an almost perfect match for A4.

The main problem with all these options is that they are crops of the default 4:3 frame. The Panasonic GH1 sensor enables the maximum area to be covered by these frame ratios.

Ian

Re: The biggest Four Thirds sensor yet
 

Thanks for the response.

Yes 7:5 is a good match for A4, I had not realised that this was likely to be offered. As you imply these options are not likely to be really popular until the GH1 sensor is generally available.

One final request: Could the whole sensor area be made available in RAW so that we can recover the maximum possible amount of data?


Thanks again for the information


Roger

Re: The biggest Four Thirds sensor yet
 

On the E-30/E-620, the frame selections are only recorded in JPEG form. If you record RAW simultaneously with JPEG the RAW file is always the usual 'full' 4:3 area.

On the GH1, I believe the JPEG and RAW files will be the same areas. If the whole sensor are was recorded, the extreme corners would be missing.

Ian

Re: The biggest Four Thirds sensor yet
 

I could live with that:):)

Re: The biggest Four Thirds sensor yet
 

Of course, an amazing amount of printing goes on the non-metric paper areas, even if it's few countries. The current ratios sometimes work well, sometimes not. It's less the camera companies fault than the fault of the frame and paper makers. They need to change as they did once or twice before. Seriously , how many 8 x 10's are printed in the US (a lot) compared to "letter size" or 8.5 x 11 inches? Try to find 8 x 10 non-silver paper her. Epson makes it in packs of 10 or 20 sheets and they're special order. Try to buy a precut mat with an 8.5 x 11 opening as opposed to an 8 x10. I know of exactly one source and they're very pricey. Try to buy a ready made frame with a mat opening to suit an 8.5 x 11 print. One source I think...haven't tried them. That's simply insane from a marketing viewpoint. There's a ton of every quality of 8.5 x 11 inkjet printing paper sold from so-so to the Hahnenmule and Crane and other wonders. Why on earth would anyone think that all of those prints will remain unframed forever? Or get get custom mats and frames? Even crazier. And don't bring up that old "traditional" size of 11 x 14 inches. That was the size I often printed on when I was home printing, but finding 11 x 14 inkjet paper is , uh, challenging. A couple of years a ago I bought this monster Logan mat cutting thingie, simply because I like nice photos matted, and couldn't afford custom mats. Ugh.

People not in the US may substitute metric sizes if you wish. The situation is equally inane no matter what size you use.

Steve