Re: Gary Adcock and his XDCAM EX?

[Don Greening] "Thanks for your feedback. I did a bit of math this morning and came to the conclusion that, going by pixel count alone, the EX will be approx. 4 times less sensitive in low light than a PD170. The thing to remember here is that I'm not taking into consideration 5 or 6 years of chip technology improvements that have most likely made today's pixels more efficient."

...and perhaps the fact that the PVW-EX1 has 1/2" sensors vs the PD170's 1/3"?

...of course the calculation in just the light sensitive area would be complicated by the fact that the pixel "fill factor" of a CMOS is less than a CCD because each pixel has its own processing circuitry that takes up more space on the wafer than the simple charge-routing traces on a CCD...

Sony specs state that the minimum illumination for the PD170 is 1 lux at F1.6 with +18dB gain and the EX is 0.14 lux at F1.9 with +18 gain and the highest frame accumulation mode (64) turned on. There is no spec for minimum with frame accumulation or gain turned off...which unfortunately renders both specs useless.

In a nutshell, I think they're difficult to compare and I think what difference there is will most likely defy any effort to calculate it as they are using two different sensor systems at two different sizes at two vastly different pixel densities with glass that probably isn't comparable (relatively) either...





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TimK,
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