George DeCamp wrote: CanadaMark wrote: RoamingScott wrote: CanadaMark wrote:If they push the RAW FPS beyond 20, that would also give more weight to the rumor that Nikon is planning a FW upgrade to give 30FPS RAW and RAW precapture to the Z8/Z9.
You don't think there will be a data throughput issue at 45mp to pull off those speeds vs 24mp on the Z6iii? I don't know enough about the theoretical memory bus ceiling in the Z8/Z9 to speculate, but I assumed that was always the culprit for no 30fps RAW/RAW precapture.
It's hard to say what the Z8/Z9 is capable of. On one hand, if it was capable, why not just have it there on launch day. On the other hand, maybe there was a technical hurdle that they finally figured out how to overcome. And far less likely, it could even be an artificial limitation imposed due to a future planned body that is no longer on the table and/or deemed no longer needing protecting. It's all just rumors and speculation at this point. 8K60P video was not a launch feature either.
In terms of data throughput, native 8K60P video is moving a hair under 2,000 MP per second and can be done in NRAW with a bitrate of 5780Mbps (722.5MB/s). I don't think it's a stretch to offer 30fps 45MP shooting which is ~1,350 MP per second of data handling. In terms of file size, they could use one of the HE RAW formats or a 12bit option like Sony does to achieve 30fps if it's not possible in one of the other formats. HE files at 30fps would be a smaller amount of data moving than the existing maximum 8K60P bitrate (30fps multiplied by roughly 22MB HE files), and they would still be 14bit RAWs preferable to a 12bit option. I'm sure it's more complicated than that, but we don't have much else to go on. Even HEIF would be a small improvement to the existing JPEG-only options.
The Z8/Z9 have a 4GB buffer, so 30fps RAW pre capture could theoretically support ~2.5s, ~4.1s, and ~6.2s loops in lossless compressed, HE*, and HE respectively. Again it's likely more complicated than that, but the buffer wouldn't appear to be a bottleneck for RAW precapture with existing file sizes. They could limit RAW pre capture to 20FPS as well, there are lots of different ways they could give it to us. The Canon R3 can shoot 195 FPS RAW for a very short period with locked AE/AF, so it can at least pull the data off the sensor at that rate albeit at a lower MP / file size.
A Z6III with 24MP could run at nearly 40fps assuming the same processing chain as the Z8/Z9 currently use, all else roughly equal. If it can do that, I can't see Nikon marketing that as a headline feature and crowing it their "high speed" body without a stacked sensor which it almost surely will not have.
My comment was based on this rumor posting that was oddly specific, hopefully meaning it's more likely to be true. Just as likely to be nothing more than clickbait, but I will remain optimistic for now
