Engineer Wenting Zhang has designed a permissively-licensed FPGA-powered open source full-frame E-mount digital camera named the “Sitina 1“. Hackster reports:
The impressively compact camera is built around an AMD-Xilinx Zynq 7010 system-on-chip, which combines a pair of Arm Cortex-A9 CPU cores running at 667MHz with an FPGA featuring 28k logic cells. There’s 512MB of DDR3 RAM, an Analog Devices AD9990 signal processor and analog front-end connected to a Kodak/ON Semi KAI-11002CM color or KAI-11002M monochrome image sensor, with a 3.4″ 480×480 ISP panel at the rear for a user interface controlled via a grip to the right of the sensor.
The sensor delivers up to 10.7 megapixel full-frame images, with lower-resolution crop options available down to 5.6 megapixel APS-C square-format shots. Images are output as losslessly-compressed raw DNG files and JPEG images, while the display at the rear runs at 28 frames per second for the the live-view mode.
In other words Zhang has designed a perfectly decent camera, but with a twist: everything about the design is open, with the firmware and gateware released under the permissive MIT license and the hardware under the permissive version of the CERN Open Hardware License Version 2. Anyone suitably skilled can take those sources and build their own.
You can find the full repository and some image samples on Gitlab (Click here). And here are the detailed specs:
The following are possible with hardware, but not necessarily supported by the current software.
Sensor Type: 35mm Interline CCD sensor
Sensor Size: 36.0 x 24.0 mm
Effective Pixels: 10.7MP
Lens Mount: Active E mount
Still Resolutions:
4008×2672 10.7MP 3:2
3563×2672 9.5MP 4:3 1.08X crop
2672×2672 7.1MP 1:1 1.27X crop
2782×1856 5.2MP 3:2 APS-C crop
2676×2007 5.4MP 4:3 APS-C crop
2365×2365 5.6MP 1:1 APS-C crop
Still Format:
DNG (10/12/14-bit lossless compressed RAW)
JPEG
Readout Speed:
4008×2672 up to 5FPS
4008×480 at 28FPS (line skipping live view, rescaled to 480×320 for output)
Video recording is not supported
ISO: 100 to 6400 (color version)
I would love to see more of those open source E-mount projects! But I wonder if Sony really keep permitting the use of their mount if this would become popular. Just recently Sony asked Freefly to no more use their E-mount :(
Because their website crashed Topaz extended the deal til October 7. Enable auto-renew to save on your next 12 months of upgrades, plus get 15% off upgrades forever:
The Amazon Prime Day Deal page is online with some early deals (Click here). The big event will happen next week on October 8/9. Ahead of the event you can enjoy those
This is purely speculation and what I think might be in the new Sony A7V. I want to be pretty optimistic about this camera as the A7 IV is my most used camera I own. It is the daily driver and what I use to create my youtube and instagram videos specially with the talking head portions. You will see footage of it on my channel as the main Behind The Scenes camera. What are your thoughts on what the Sony A7 V might have?
A few weeks ago, I told you that the Sony A7V will probably be unveiled in the first half of 2025. There are no solid rumors about the possible specifications yet, so you can all dream freely about the new features of the camera :)
ProGrade announced new fast 2/4/8TB external SSD storage for creators. You can reorder it now at BHphoto. Press text via Explora:
Designed for photographers, videographers, and digital imagining technicians, the 2TB PG10 USB4 External SSD from ProGrade Digital delivers maximum read speeds of 2500 MB/s, maximum write speeds of 2500 MB/s, and sustained write speeds of 1500 MB/s. It connects to your host system using a USB-C interface that is compatible with the 40 Gb/s USB4 standard, but remains compatible with Thunderbolt 4, Thunderbolt 3, and other USB-C standards. Driven by 15W of bus power, an integrated LED indicator lets you know if system power is falls below its required value. The PG10 is also Refresh Pro ready, which lets users monitor its health, restore lost performance, or update its firmware.
