So: The following "news" is highly speculative. It&s based on the fact that we keep hearing that an upcoming Alpha 7000 from Sony is going to be quite a hit when it comes to movies. To be more precise, the camera&s dynamics should beat everything that has been seen before in the APS-C/Super35 range and become really interesting for filmmakers.
For this, the sensor is supposed to use a technology that has been in the Sony magic kitchen since 2016: It is called "Digital Overlap High Dynamic Range", or DOL-HDR for short. The official Sony definition sounds old-fashioned:
DOL-HDR combines different exposure times into one image so that both bright and dark data are visible at the same time, i.e. an image is exposed once for a short and once for a long time and then the two images are combined to create an image with greater dynamics.
DOL-HDR Digital Overlap High Dynamic Range from Sony
In the past, however, moving objects or moving cameras - i.e. always when filming - did not work very well, since the subject usually changes slightly between the two exposures. But now, fresh from the neighboring rumor kitchen, a data sheet came to light for the upcoming Fujifilm GFX 100 that describes the specs of the Sony sensor used there in great detail. And there are extremely exciting details about the implemented DOL-HDR mode. This mode does not read images or lines with different exposure times one after the other, but really individual Sensels. In fact, each sensor is read out immediately twice in a row and already combined in the sensor to an HDR data line:
The time difference between the sensor readings is thus minimized and should therefore also ensure a functioning increase in dynamics for moving images.
Probably Sony wants to extend its consumer models as USP with real HDR capability. So far, all Sony consumer models only come with 8 bits. Should Sony perhaps activate a 10-bit codec in a consumer DSP for the first time in order to catch up with Panasonic and FUJI? We think, as long as the data rate remains at 100 Mbit/s, the professional sector doesn&t smell any danger. With 10-bit HDMI output, on the other hand, things could get tighter. Should there be a moving sensor, the Venice Color Science and good rolling shutter values in the basket, Sony could hit the bull&s eye here if the price were also to be well below 2,000 euros.