[tabl10s]

will offer both switchable 36 AND 20/18 mp's allowing frame rates of 8.3 and 11/14.

[stevebrot]

K-cup support...don't forget the K-cup support.

[rawr]

will offer both switchable 36 AND 20/18 mp's allowing frame rates of 8.3 and 11/14.

Umm, some FF's already do that. Eg with some Nikon FF's, set the camera to crop mode, then fps increases, buffer depth increases.

But getting a 36MP FF sensor to go to 11-14 fps isn't going to happen anytime soon, even in crop mode.

[JinDesu]

K-cup support...don't forget the K-cup support.

I forgot that k-cup is the coffee cup thing, and thought you meant a bra...

[stevebrot]

I forgot that k-cup is the coffee cup thing, and thought you meant a bra...

Yeah...that would be good too.

[monochrome]

Some men like a fuller frame, but AFAIC A Pretty, Solid 'C' will do.

Ahem.

[tabl10s]

Umm, some FF's already do that. Eg with some Nikon FF's, set the camera to crop mode, then fps increases, buffer depth increases.

But getting a 36MP FF sensor to go to 11-14 fps isn't going to happen anytime soon, even in crop mode.

I don't shoot Nikon And I don't have an FF unless you want to count the LX that's somewhere in my garage.

---------- Post added 05-05-15 at 16:22 ----------

Umm, some FF's already do that. Eg with some Nikon FF's, set the camera to crop mode, then fps increases, buffer depth increases.

But getting a 36MP FF sensor to go to 11-14 fps isn't going to happen anytime soon, even in crop mode.

High FPS goes with the lower mp's.

[Fogel70]

I hope "pixel binning" will be a way to solve this in the future.

By using same pixel size as on FI iPhone 6 (8 MP) would lead to a ~400MP FF sensor. The camera might always run in pixel binning mode as 400MP is a bit excessive.
2x2 pixel binning mode would give 100 MP, and in APS-C crop mode it would be 44 MP
3x3 pixel binning mode would give 44 MP, and in APS-C crop mode it would be 20 MP
4x4 pixel binning mode would give 25 MP, and in APS-C crop mode it would be 11 MP
5x5 pixel binning mode would give 16 MP, and in APS-C crop mode it would be 7 MP
6x6 pixel binning mode would give 11 MP, and in APS-C crop mode it would be 5 MP

If they can design the sensor so that the pixel readout is faster in pixel binning mode it could give a really flexible solution.
Say the readout is about the same as on Samsung NX1 (28 MP at 15 FPS) the full 400MP image would give 1 FPS, 100 MP = 4 FPS, 44 MP = 9.5 FPS, 25 MP = 16 FPS...

Pixel binning would then also be a great way of improving video IQ on large sensor cameras. So that full sensor is used when recording video instead of line skipping.

[lister6520]

I don't think it likely thatframe rate is constrained mainly by the readout rate but by the mechanical limitations of the shutter and the possibly the mirror. With a FF there is much more mass to move and over a longer distance.

One may think that keeping the mirror up while shooting would therefore help but it would then make it impossible to see what you're shooting and also to track focus. However even so it is likely that the single action that takes longest is reloading the shutter for the next shot.

With regards the sensor readout it shouldn't really be an issue. To take an extreme example shooting 25 images per second at 100 megapixel per image image would require a 40Gbps transfer rate. It may look like a lot when thinking of a serial transfer such as an internet connection over fibre optic, but for a parralell transfer directly from sensor to ram over, say, a 256 bit parallel bus it goes down to just 155Mbps per line, quite easily achievable. 256 bit buses are also easily implemented for the short path between the sensor and the RAM so I would see the only moderately 'difficult' part would be having enough ADCs running in parallel on the sensor chip.

There is of course the issue of how much buffer RAM one can afford to put in the camera. In the example I mention you would need 5 gigabytes for every second of buffer capacity.

In any case even so, if the rate was not limited by the mechanical constraints it might still be useful to have even just two seconds of buffer at 25 FPS which would need ten Gs of memory.

[Barry Pearson]

I don't think it likely thatframe rate is constrained mainly by the readout rate but by the mechanical limitations of the shutter and the possibly the mirror. With a FF there is much more mass to move and over a longer distance.

The 1Dx has a mirror and conventional shutter, is FF, and can achieve 14 fps.

[rawr]

The 1Dx has a mirror and conventional shutter, is FF, and can achieve 14 fps.

Yes, but that camera still has to work very hard at it, even though it only has 18MP.
As I understand it, the Canon 1Dx has 2 x DIGIC 5s for the image processing, 1 x DIGIC 4 to process the AF and metering, and can still barely achieve 14fps, relying on a special JPEG mode (with the mirror locked up) to make that speed.

A better performance example may be the 28MP Samsung NX-1, which can burn along at 15 fps shooting RAW with continuous AF (!). But then again, it is mirrorless.

[Barry Pearson]

Yes, but that camera still has to work very hard at it, even though it only has 18MP.
As I understand it, the Canon 1Dx has 2 x DIGIC 5s for the image processing, 1 x DIGIC 4 to process the AF and metering, and can still barely achieve 14fps, relying on a special JPEG mode (with the mirror locked up) to make that speed.

A better performance example may be the 28MP Samsung NX-1, which can burn along at 15 fps shooting RAW with continuous AF (!). But then again, it is mirrorless.

Yes, there are (at least) 2 problems: moving the mirror and shutter; and capturing the data.

Here is a list that I built some time ago and posted elsewhere. The numbers after the camera name are in the format "FPS * MP = MP/sec", in descending order of data rate.

NX-1: 15 * 28 = 420
A77: 12 * 24 = 288
5DS: 5 * 51 = 255
1Dx: 14 * 18 = 252
A65: 10 * 24 = 240
K-3: 8.3 * 24 = 199
D810: 5 * 36 = 180
D4s: 11 * 16 = 176
D610: 6 * 24 = 144

If someone argues that a full frame mirror and shutter can't operate (say) at least 11 fps, I can point to a couple of cameras where this isn't true.
If someone says that a 36 MP camera has too much data to be captured at 11 fps (= 396 MP/second), I can point to a camera where this isn't true.

I'm not saying either of these is easy. Just that they are both possible. We are not talking "whether", but "when".

[rawr]

We are not talking "whether", but "when".

Agreed.

And that poor old mechanical mirror is going to take a real beating, I think, in future DSLRs.