there have been a number of video discussions at the den of death on dpreview forums of late, where cinematographer John Brawley has entertained us on his ideas of video, 4/3rds, mFT and all that.
In these discussions which encompassed the utility of numerous formats, it became obvious to me that 4/3rds had universal use potential, being quite close to 35mm movie film (which is a lot smaller than 135 film), and therefore being capable of shooting the better UWA lenses that professional movie productions require. Below is an example of the 4/3rds sensor (for AG-AF100) with a 35mm movie film gate next to it, along with a collection of Olympus SHG glass and Zeiss cine lenses.
As an aside, there have also been rumours about a format known as Super 4/3rds, which I have always taken as simply a larger 4x3 sensor for 4/3rds still cameras, but now Im having second thoughts. Brawley mentioned that the movie feature The Hurt Locker was shot on 16mm film, when I looked it up it was actually Super 16 Fuji film, cheap enough to run several cameras at once, and enough DoF control to satisfy the Hurt Lockers shooting environment.
Super 16 has a film gate a wider aspect ratio of 1.67 and a camera aperture of 12.52 by 7.41 mm. The question Ive been asking myself is, is there a relationship with this form of format naming, is there then a video format in the wings, Super 4/3rds
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/16_mm_film
http://www.johnbrawley.com/
