The Panasonic S1H has the added benefit of incorporating an optical low-pass filter into its internal design. The OLPH prevents moiré from becoming a distracting pattern in stills and video, especially in patterns like fabric and architecture.
Sadly, up until now, the S1H was the only Pansonic camera to enjoy that feature, but Kolari has designed an OLPF upgrade kit that will bring it to other Pansonic cameras as well.
The upgrade kit came as a result of a design collaboration between Kolari and cinematographer Dan Hopkins. Hopkins has been using the S1H as his daily driver for several years and recently added a Panasonic S5 IIX to his quiver as a secondary camera.
Image Credit – Panasonic
Since the S5 II X does not enjoy the OLPF feature, Hopkins has had to deal with moiré when shooting stills on his backup camera. And when shooting video, the artifacting and anti-aliasing become even worse.
“I became obsessed with trying to find a solution,” Hopkins said.
Talking with friends, the idea of approaching a company to create an upgrade kit that would introduce an OLPF into the camera interior rapidly became the ideal solution to the problem.
With six months of development, Hopkins and Kolari Vision have produced an upgrade kit that the company says does an excellent job of preventing moiré at the sensor level.
There is a downside, however, OLPFs do make the overall focusing of the image a bit software, trading off sharpness and resolution. There is also a shift in white balance that has to be taken into account.
But Hopkins has been developing a LUT that will at least compensate for the cooler white balancing issues, leaving the softer image as something that Hopkins believes is an acceptable sacrifice, since the S5 II X sensor is extremely sharp.
“There is a very subtle loss in sharpness, which is just what comes with a proper OLPF,” Hopkins said in a YouTube video. “To my surprise (the Kolari OLPH) actually removed moiré better than the S1H.”
Pricing and availability
Currently, Kolari Vision is offering the OLPF/AA Filter Upgrade kit for Panasonic Lumix mirrorless cameras including the GH6, S1, S1H, S5II, and the aforementioned S5 II X. The price is $699 and the conversion by Kolari takes about three weeks. Details can be found on the KolariVision Website.
[source: Peta Pixel]
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