BJL

According to Read's website at http://www.red.com/products/weapon-8k#tech-specs the sensor is 29.90 x 15.77 mm (Diagonal: 33.80 mm), and an "ANA" version at 33.60 mm x 21.60 mm (Diagonal: 39.94 mm).
So bigger than the classic 35mm movie formats like Super 35 and a bit bigger than so-called APS-C sensors, but a bit smaller than 35mm still format of 36x24mm (41.5mm diagonal), so that lenses for that format can be used.

However, multiple articles about the original announcement give the sensor size as 40.96mm x 21.6mm:
http://nofilmschool.com/2015/04/red-8k-full-frame-vista-vision-weapon-dragon-6k-price-cost-availability-nab-2015
https://www.engadget.com/2015/04/13/red-8k-weapon-camera/

Maybe Red announced one thing and then exercised its standard disclaimer "Tech specs reflect both current and projected information. Everything is subject to change." to make the sensor usable with a lot more lenses.

@WesPerry Yes there has been some H.265 support and usage since the iPhone 6, released in late 2014. See this news story
http://appleinsider.com/articles/14/09/12/apples-iphone-6-iphone-6-plus-use-h265-codec-for-facetime-over-cellular

Yes to both: HEVC and HEIF (H.265) have options for lossless compression and various bit depths up to 16. IIRC, iOS 11 will only use 8 and 10 bit depth. Lots of details at Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Efficiency_Video_Coding#Profiles

Typically, lenses longer than "normal" produce a bigger than needed image circle, as a side effect of their design, with image circle diameter not much less than their focal length. So _any_ 85mm lens design has a good chance of comfortably covering the mere 55mm image circle of the GFX, and probably even any 65mm design.

What I do not expect from these "discount" third party lens makers is wide-angle or normal lenses for larger than 36x24mm formats – those definitely need new optical designs.

@rubberdials The EF-M mount diameter is 47mm, so wider than Sony E mount (46.1mm) while both are 18mm from the sensor, so that sounds wide enough for 36x24mm format. (Nikon F mount is only 44mm wide!) But maybe you know more details.

Anyway, in the worst case, Canon could introduce a 35mm format mirrorless mount that _is_ big enough, and accommodate EF lenses via an adaptor. Likewise for Nikon.

@rubberdials, Canon already has its mirrorless system "M" system that allows EF lenses to be adaptor mounted and fairly small bodies. The same would work with a 36x24mm sensor:

With mirrorless cameras, sensor size has rather little effect on the size of the camera body — size is mostly dictated by lens size and the need for adequate controls, battery, and such.

Perhaps because:
A) The electronic shutter is a feature aimed at special needs like very high frame rates that are more important to the target market of this camera than for the A99ii.
B) This is a newer sensor than the one in the A99ii (which arrived almost two years ago in the A7Rii) and with fewer, larger photosites, which might make it easier to do the electronic shutter, and to do it with acceptably low rolling shutter effect.

@Porky89 Yes, that is exactly what I said. The higher ISO speed option is not so bad, since it roughly just cancels out the IQ advantage that the larger format typically has at equal ISO speed, but I think we agree that the IQ advantage of medium format typically comes with the trade-off of lower shutter speed; it is not for action photography!

@Dragonrider, how does your comment about DOF translate to "not much of a real IQ advantage"? Traditionally MF has been chosen over 35mm format for greater resolution, finer tonal gradations (related to dynamic range) and better lens quality through factors like achieving a giver DOF at a higher f-stop and so with less aberrations — but typically at lower shutter speeds and so with more need for a tripod (or good IS!)

DOF can always be increased by stopping down, and with apertures chosen to give equal DOF in different formats, the diffraction effects are also equal (when images are viewed at the same size.) So it is not true that larger formats are "stuck" with less DOF.

The higher f-stop needed to get a given DOF does mean that a larger format is stuck with needing to either:
- use a lower shutter speed in order to get the same DOF at the same ISO speed, or
- increase the ISO speed in order to get the same DOF at the same shutter speed,
but at worst that reduces or cancels the IQ advantages of a larger format; it does not put it at a disadvantage in IQ. (Just in price, size, and weight!)

@mr.izo Reading that Wikipedia article to the end, it appears that the current "Meyer Optik" is just reusing the name of that venerable company, which disappeared some years ago.

@Karroly Indeed, I am not saying that these lenses are not indeed German designed and made; I am only saying that this company is not at all the same one as the prestigious "Meyer Optik" of years past, so the name of the company is deliberately misleading.

Frankly, it smells like yet another KickStarter pyramid scheme.

Thanks Karroly: so this is a recently created company, recycling the brand name of a historic lens maker that disappeared some time ago. A bit like the current "Kodak" and "Polaroid" branded products, but far more expensive.

@Preternatural Stuff: actually, the article points out that in this case (and often with medium format vs 35mm format) the larger format does not give much in the way of options for less DOF, because the lenses for a format larger than 35mm tend to have higher minimum f-stops, (particularly in leaf-shutter systems like Hasselblad's.) This roughly cancels out the DOF difference in minimum DOF, which only applies if you assume equal f-stop in the different formats—or even puts 35mm ahead in that "contest".

Not that any MF or larger format user I know care much about striving for extremes of shallow DOF: they are instead mostly stopping down to get enough DOF, with "wide open" used only for composing, for accurate focusing and a bright image in the OVF.

More resolution, finer tonal gradations, and less lens abberations (related to typically using higher f-stops) are far more often the arguments I hear for using MF over 35mm.

About micro-contrast: my read is that this is the familiar fact that with a smaller format, the lenses of proportionately smaller focal length used to get the same Field Of View need proportionally higher resolution (in lines per mm); more carefully, a target like 50% MTF needs to be achieved at proportionately higher lpmm. What I have seen from the best lenses for formats from Four Thirds to 35mm to 44x33mm and up is that they often do have MTF performance that increases as the format size gets smaller; for example Four Thirds and MFT lens MTF graphs are given for 60 and 20 lpmm vs the common 30 and 10 lpmm for 35mm format. Optics tends to allow this: scaling down a lens design to the smaller focal length and image circle needed to get the same FOV coverage on a smaller sensor tends to maintain roughly the same angular resolution and so scales up the resolution—BUT the manufacturing tolerances needed to get the results that the design promises can become more challenging.

Arastoo (sorry for the typo), I agree with most of what you say. A lot of "equivalent aperture" arguments in favor of larger formats ignore that bit about needing to increase the exposure index ("ISO speed") to get the same DOF _and_the_same_shutter_speed_.
That is why I see a core advantage of formats larger than 36x24mmm being when used at base ISO speed, and therefore requiring _longer_exposure_times_ when seeking the same DOF. When a larger sensor is exposed like this, and so gets close to full well capacity in highlights, it has a good change of gathering more total photons, helping DR, SNR and/or detail. For example, the larger sensor could have:
(1) more pixels of the same size as a smaller sensor, so getting about the same photon count on average as the smaller sensor, giving more detail and similar DR and SNR, or
(2) an equal number of larger pixels, each getting more light, giving more DR, better SNR, about equal detail.

All assuming well capacity per unit area is similar!

@Aristo: the point is that more total light can be gathered, typically by longer exposure times at base ISO speed. Actually the higher f-stop needed to get the same DOF in a larger format means less intense illumination and equal total light gathering rate across the whole sensor, so longer exposure times are often essential to getting the main IQ advantage of a larger format.

Can you point me to a definition of micro-contrast and an explanation of why scaling down for a smaller format to a shorter focal length of higher resolution (in lines per mm; same in lines per picture height) reduces micro-contrast and how that makes an image "more flat, less 3D"?

I do expect that lens optics will ultimately be a natural advantage of larger formats, but I want the details!

A good article overall; my only complaint is that no current 36x24mm format camera matches both the DR and resolution of these 44x33mm format cameras. For now, the performance gap been 36x24 and 44x33 is small, but any 36x24 options does sacrifice a bit in either resolution (Nikon, Sony, Pentax) or DR (Canon).

As far as I can tell, the traditional advantages of larger formats—before the digital photography forum obsession with SNR, high ISO and "BOKEH"—have been related mostly to DR (related to handling of fine tonal gradations and scenes of high subject brightness range), detail (pixel counts and lens resolution in "lines per picture height"), along with advantages in lens performance, partly from lower aberrations and such, due to working at higher f-stops (as is the case when seeking a given DOF). As in "base-ISO and never mind the shutter speed: use a tripod or flash when IS is not enough."

This article suggests that there might be more customization than I thought, including deeper wells for more highlight tolerance (and so 1/3 stop lower base ISO speed)—though the language is rather garbled.

http://fujifilm-x.com/de/x-stories/gfx-technologies-1/