Last Updated on 07/14/2014 by Chris Gampat
According to a new Sony patent found by Sony Alpha Rumors, the company is trying to eliminate rolling shutter completely. The company first started to talk about this when they announced the RX10: and their method was to eliminate rolling shutter and issues by outputting the entire sensor readout pixel for pixel. However, it’s easier for them to do this with a 1-inch sensor.
For the uninformed, rolling shutter is a video issue that occurs due to what’s known as line skipping. By that, when the camera reads a scene, it takes out individual lines of information. This is different from Global Shutter: which in the entire frame is used.
Sony’s new tactic in the new sensor design pictured above is to read the entire plane four lines at a time. What they’re also claiming is that high ISO noise will be reduced and dynamic range will be increased.
While this will greatly help them in the video market, many of the pros still seem to reach for Arri and Canon camcorders–and Sony is going to have to find a way to get them back. Back around 2005-2009, Sony had most of the pro market. Since the Canon 5D Mk II was released, Canon took it and continued to build on it with the 1DC, C300, C500, and the 5D Mk III. Further hacks from Magic Lantern made some of the cameras even better. But Sony has been making attempts at fighting back through the A7s and a couple of other products.
It may be too early to see this technology at Photokina just yet, but we’re sure that we’ll be hearing about it some time down the line.