Dang....I never knew that high altitudes and gamma rays affect our cameras in this way. It makes a whole lotta sense though. Cool video.

I'm not so sure how accurate the high altitude segment is. This isn't an issue I have ever heard about until this video was released and most of the consensus I've heard that camera sensors are fine on airplanes.

no. I've been working with 3D at my internship. Lots of footage of a 5Dmkii side-by-side, using Cineform. 3D will be a cinema novelty for a long time to come. Here are my reasons for this:

1. Narrative film is a language (think Hollywood style as one "language"). Viewers have learned this language well. They understand cuts and scenes and jumps in time, music/sound cues, etc. Filmmaking is a "shorthand" language. it jumps and abbreviates, almost ridiculously so. But with 3D, this doesn't work so well. Jumping from shot to shot requires the viewer to literally refocus on something different with their eyes, and what's more, shallow DOF simply looks strange because its like stuff is there, but you just can't see it. Until a new "3D friendly" editing cadence is learned by viewers, 3D will feel awkward.

2. Two words: SCREEN SIZE. Guess what? 3D requires two cameras to be placed in two different viewing positions, and the position changes based on various factors (closest object, farthest object, etc.) One of these factors (SURPRISE!) is the size of the screen it is intended to be played on. So you know The Hobbit? Peter Jackson is shooting that on paired RED cameras in 3D . . . and for every shot, the cameras are being set to either a specific separation or a specific toe-in, and no doubt this setting is being optimized for a whopping huge cinema screen. Guess what? if he wanted it to look good on your plasma when you buy it on Blu-Ray, the cameras would need to be set differently. So what? Don't but a 3D TV to watch 3D movies.

My guess is that sports and TV in general is more likely to move to 3D and work out okay. Screen sizes for TV are all reasonably similar, and TV involves less cutting from shot to shot.

P.S. I got the pieces of my self-designed mirror rig back from the anodizer today, and it was like Christmas! (Too bad it belongs to the boss at my internship, not me, or I'd get a 2nd GH2 and shoot HDR stuff.)

Plus Cinerama didn't cut nearly as much as "traditional" narrative cinema. Often shots and scenes played out in masters (see HOW THE WEST WAS WON for examples).

At 82, a my dear photographer friend who'd always used film said to me, "With these digital cameras I see a line around everything which nobody wants to talk about." I explained what I thought was chromatic aberration - from the sensor. He was happy to have found someone who'd seen it, too.
Now, Robert, we have someone who's explained it.
[Robert's Eulogy:] http://www.smh.com.au/news/arts/absence-of-art-in-homes-gave-rise-to-a-passion/2007/03/18/1174152875824.html

http://www.personal-view.com/talks/categories/3d

Can anyone find anything that confirms Hummel's information on gamma rays and sensors? I could not find anything that supported it; just people saying CMOS sensors are not affected by airport scanners. It seems a bit unlikely; there are low levels of background gamma radiation all around us anyway.

I hope its not true; GH2 has been on two flights now!

@Roberto

I read a few of the papers you pointed to. Most of them talk about space applications. The difference in gamma rays between sea level and, say, 10000M isn't all that big. The difference in space, however, is.

One interesting thing mentioned in some of the papers, though. It seems that CMOS sensors are considerably less sensitive to this than CCD's. I've taken lots of CMOS sensor cameras on airplanes multiple times - I've never gotten any new dead pixels.

Chris

I liked the video too. I ran into the angle issue when using shift and tilt lenses - depending on the angle the light hits the sensor, you get color shifts across the frame. You can correct this - but it's a real pain in the ass.

One difference between "digital" lenses and older lenses is that the newer ones are designed so that light hits the sensor at a right-angle. Because film is essentially two dimensional, this was not a consideration when designing older lenses. That means you can get more CA and color shifting with some older designs. In fact, some lenses famous for being extremely sharp with film are rather soft around the edges with digital sensors.

Interesting article, I guess radiation increases at a higher rate than I thought. I live at 2200M - I guess that means I'll be seeing dead pixels before long.

Chris

Well, if you think about it video lenses are only designed to be sharp at video resolutions, which is 2 megapixels for HD and 1/3 megapixel for SD. I wouldn't expect too much from any video ENG lens in the sharpness department. Film lenses, on the other hand, are designed to be sharp at much higher resolutions - 20 megapixels and above. If a film lens is soft with video, that's a big degradation in performance!

Chris