Canon's new 250 MPX APS-H sensor

[DLD]

http://www.theverge.com/2015/9/6/9270865/canon-announces-250-megapixel-sensor?ref=yfp

The megapixel wars broke out on a new front today as Japanese camera giant Canon announced a head-spinning new sensor. The roughly 250-megapixel (19,580 x 12,600) APS-H CMOS sensor sets a world record for resolution in its size, according to a Canon release, and is said to be able to distinguish lettering on the side of an airplane from 18 km away. APS-H is a sensor size bigger than APS-C but smaller than full-frame, and is primarily used on Canon's legacy EOS-1D line of DSLRs.

A few days ago, I was pixel counting and mentioned that, if one had multiplied the pixel density of a 1/2.3" 23 MPX Sony smartphone sensor onto a full frame, then one'd get about 276 MPX. Then I added, "Not that they would do it".

Well, I guess someone did do it. 250 MPX. And a nice readout speed too.

 

[Ebrahim Saadawi]

Quote "The sensor can be used to capture incredibly high-resolution video — about 30 times sharper than 4K — at 5fps. Canon says the technology could be used in "specialized surveillance and crime prevention tools, ultra-high-resolution measuring instruments and other industrial equipment, and the field of visual expression."

So it's for industrial/surveilance/medial uses but that 30x 4K resolution at 5fps capability it intriguing, that's a one hell of a high speed sensor.

 

[DLD]

... So it's for industrial/surveilance/medial uses but that 30x 4K resolution at 5fps capability it intriguing, that's a one hell of a high speed sensor.

Ya, it's industrial/military for now but the read-out speed basically given them enough to do 8K in ~ 38 fps or 10K in 25.

Of course, 10K out of 250 would be a pretty small center crop ... hehe ...

 

[Eric Coughlin]

Now the lens technology just needs to catch up instead of using all those low resolution "4K lenses." Are there lenses fully capable of resolving 250 megapixels?

 

[Phil vG]

Canon says the technology could be used in "specialized surveillance and crime prevention tools, ultra-high-resolution measuring instruments and other industrial equipment, and the field of visual expression."

The sort of zoom in and detail improvement (within seconds) they do on the crime tv shows, you would think it already was, and thats just on corner street cameras. :grin:

 

[Eric Coughlin]

 

[Phil vG]

^
rofl

 

[combatentropy]

still no global shutter )*:

 

[Samuel H]

A few days ago, I was pixel counting and mentioned that, if one had multiplied the pixel density of a 1/2.3" 23 MPX Sony smartphone sensor onto a full frame, then one'd get about 276 MPX. Then I added, "Not that they would do it".

Well, I guess someone did do it. 250 MPX. And a nice readout speed too.

This Canon sensor uses 1.42 um pixels. A 1/2.3" sensor is 6.30x4.72mm, and the Z5 camera is 5520x4140 (1.14 um pixels, which is state-of-the-art for small sensors). At 36x24mm that would go all the way to 31500x21000, or 661 Mpix. There's still plenty of room to go forward!! XD

On a more reasonable scale, the super-nice Sony stacked BSI sensor in the RX100 IV (1" 20 Mpix) uses 2.4um pixels, which at 36x24mm would go to 150 Mpix. Where's my a7R IV???

(to be fair, 42 Mpix RAW stills and 4K video would already be stressing my storage capabilities today)

 

[Ebrahim Saadawi]

Yes the sensors technology can go VERY far in terms providing enormous data (pixels, bit depth, colour information, etc) but it's only limited by:

-Speed (frame rate readout and transferring to processing).

-Storage. (both capacity and speed)

Look at this APS-H 250mp sensor, HUGE amount of data, but speed is just not there, only 5fps. We're not even at the point of having the required speed or storage to handle a 36mp D810 RAW at 24p for example, it would be a tethered small-car-sized camera that's water-cooled with exhaust pipes.

Not to mention, for example Pentax 645z medium format 51mp 16bit raw frames at 24p,

both the D810 and Pentax far exceed any cinema camera in existence in terms of sensor performance (even a 550D actually is Epic Dragon 6K league), thus the bottleneck now for motion picture cameras is the speed and storage that need to fit in a reasonable size and a reasonable cost.

 

[BlackWolf]

Yes the sensors technology can go VERY far in terms providing enormous data (pixels, bit depth, colour information, etc) but it's only limited by:

-Speed (frame rate readout and transferring to processing).

-Storage. (both capacity and speed)

Look at this APS-H 250mp sensor, HUGE amount of data, but speed is just not there, only 5fps. We're not even at the point of having the required speed or storage to handle a 36mp D810 RAW at 24p for example, it would be a tethered small-car-sized camera that's water-cooled with exhaust pipes.

Not to mention, for example Pentax 645z medium format 51mp 16bit raw frames at 24p,

both the D810 and Pentax far exceed any cinema camera in existence in terms of sensor performance (even a 550D actually is Epic Dragon 6K league), thus the bottleneck now for motion picture cameras is the speed and storage that need to fit in a reasonable size and a reasonable cost.

And along came Intel's Optane SSDs

http://www.pcworld.com/article/2972...xpoint-technology-hitting-ssds-next-year.html

 

[DLD]

... On a more reasonable scale, the super-nice Sony stacked BSI sensor in the RX100 IV (1" 20 Mpix) uses 2.4um pixels, which at 36x24mm would go to 150 Mpix. Where's my a7R IV??? ...

FWIW, Olympus was promising that their next generation cameras after EM5 MKII will have the capability to have their pixel-shifting technology - the same as the on-sensor image stabilization - in "real time". Whereas right now, one could shoot the landscapes or real estate only, the next camera will let you shoot portraiture too. And this pixel shifting can quadruple the resolution, as it does in the high end Medium Format Hasselblad camera (50 MPX x 4 = 200, but you still have to use sticks). Now, imagine your 661 MPX sensor quadrupling its resolution to 2,644!

And, right now, we sort of laughing, while marveling, at this new design but you darn well know that within five years, people will be walking around with these 2,500,000,000 pixel cameras as it this was no big deal. Take a shot, any shot and everything will always be in focus and fine detail ... if you want it to be.

Yes the sensors technology can go VERY far in terms providing enormous data (pixels, bit depth, colour information, etc) but it's only limited by:

-Speed (frame rate readout and transferring to processing).

-Storage. (both capacity and speed)

Look at this APS-H 250mp sensor, HUGE amount of data, but speed is just not there, only 5fps. We're not even at the point of having the required speed or storage to handle a 36mp D810 RAW at 24p for example, it would be a tethered small-car-sized camera that's water-cooled with exhaust pipes.

Not to mention, for example Pentax 645z medium format 51mp 16bit raw frames at 24p,

both the D810 and Pentax far exceed any cinema camera in existence in terms of sensor performance (even a 550D actually is Epic Dragon 6K league), thus the bottleneck now for motion picture cameras is the speed and storage that need to fit in a reasonable size and a reasonable cost.

They could obviously ramp up both if there were a market for it.

Look at Phantom - 4K at 1,000 fps (OK, it's "only" for 4 seconds) but the camera costs a fortune. Tomorrow, a product with these very specs will be at Best Buy for $599.