Photonic Shunkan

One of the oddities produced by the dawn of the digital photography era is the multi-purpose professional camera. A typical example is the Canon 5D series (current iteration = 5D Mark IV). It can be used for a bit of sport/wildlife/action, portraiture, weddings, travel, street etc. It is a jack of all trades. In future, the multi-purpose consumer level camera will be some sort of small format mirrorless-EVF (ML-EVF) camera (eg M4/3, APS-C, 35mm small format). It will be interesting to see if it continues to remain acceptable for professionals to shoot with such devices across multiple scenarios. Such multi-purpose cameras are becoming increasingly capable eg high resolution, fast frame rate, good ergonomics/portability. They will remain popular and retain some sort of place in the market. The rise to dominance of the multi-purpose professional camera can be put down to the loss of camera differentiation caused by the mass extinction of speciality camera firms from the apocalyptic e...

It used to be that 35mm format (which we will call 135F) was a low-resolution mass consumer format. In the film era, 35mm was never touted as being an earth-shattering large "full frame" format as calling a disposable camera that would have sounded ridiculous. Today 135F is gradually becoming a commonplace mass-consumer product again It was considered acceptable for professional use in the film age only for field use in reportage, sports, and wildlife photography. That said, towards the end of the film age, the grain of film became finer, resulting in better quality images from smaller formats. The progressive evolution of 135F into a higher resolution image format has continued into the digital age. Amongst digital formats, at one point in history, it used to be the largest format utilised in civilian photography, and for that reason, the advertising moniker from around 2002 touting it as "full frame" became stuck in popular usage, despite the emergen...

This comes from the Phase One website: Notice that Phase One refer to a digital 645 format equivalent sensor as "full frame". That is probably correct given that the largest format used in standard civilian photography is a 645 format sensor. In addition to the 645 (53.7 × 40.2mm; similar to the 56 × 42mm imaging frame size of 645 format film) and 4433 (43.8 × 32.9mm) format medium format sensor, some video cameras use sensors larger than 35mm (36 × 24mm) format e.g. 54.12 × 25.59mm Arri sensor. There is also the Leica S system with its 45 × 30mm format sensor. That means there are several sensor size formats larger than 35mm format making it increasingly difficult to hail something running in fifth place the leader in the size stakes. Newer video camera sensor formats are now growing larger than 35mm format It is probably only a matter of time before even larger digital photography 670 format sensors go into production though that may not happen for another 6-12...