Well, I tested the heck out of the RAW recording this weekend and I am very impressed with the quality gains. So much so that H.264 seems to be an easy way to destroy your image information. I believe there should be a way of improving the h.264 output to offer better de-bayering even at the cost of encoding speed. If DSLRs and Mirrorless cameras can offer h.264 free of most Bayer artifacts the Chronos should be able to do so as well. You will still have less dynamic range and much less color information but at least the color border artifacts should be gone.
I ran into problems with file size as well so the 4GB limit warning was good but it came up even when the file to be saved was just 1.8GB So there is no way of telling. Your best bet is to have ample card speed and do attempts. My average RAW file size was 1.67GB by just saving a small part of the action which is always trying to capture what is best. I had to fill 2 32GB cards in my tests. Sadly I read that the 12 bit compact RAW is not yet supported but will be so I'll have to wait for that to materialize to see the output. I also recorded an h.264 version of most clips so I could see the gains in quality.
Much to my surprise H.264 in camera is a horrible conversion compared to the RAW data debayer in Camera RAW, much more so than I expected based on the Krontech frames that were shared. Noise is still a problem for the RAW files but the extra information and ability to reduce color and luminance noise in Camera RAW before developing is very nice. The Amount of detail preserved is night and day. Dynamic range is also fantastic by comparison, no contest... the ability to white balance after the fact can also not be understated. The DNG Converter does a great job with no quality degradation well-done team!
Things that can improve:
1) Ability to save H.264 and RAW at the same time so you can leave the camera unattended as it takes sometimes 10+min to save a RAW file. Always good to have the H.264 just in case.
2) Ability to eject the SD Card from the save clip dialogue as I ran out of space before saving one time, it would be nice to be able to swap from the saving dialogue box without corruption possibility if force ejected.
3) Camera locked up when card filled and had to do a hard reset. There was a dialogue that said something about card space and I said ok and camera locked up. Abort button did not respond.
4) When shooting in 720p or lower resolution it would be great to have the button / scrollbar interface on the bottom to amplify the screen real estate and see a larger preview. Only full sensor size seems to require interface to the right. A simple orientation switch would be great.
5) Of course DNG direct from camera which is coming but also a chance to take a second look at H.264 and try to improve the output, the encoder is not doing a proper job of preserving detail and could really be a near RAW detail image without all of these artifacts on edges jumping out. Most cameras from big manufacturers can do extremely clean H.264 requiring RAW only in specialized situations. Even if the speed on saving is sacrificed H.264 high-quality encoding should be on the timeline for a software update. Fingers Crossed X
I am including a frame from RAW and H.264 from one of the videos side by side. Look at the detail and water patterns for artifacts on the H.264, it is night and day difference. Chronos 1.4 comes alive with RAW.
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