Epic sensor size.

[Art Chong]

So I saw the new Red.com site and noticed one thing about the Epic page. It says the sensor size is 30mm x 15mm, which is swell, except that it actually appears to be significantly wider than the standard 4-perf Super 35 size of 24.89mm. Even wider than Canon 1D-mkIV's APS-H of 27.9mm and approaching full frame 35mm. Is this going to cause issues with PL lenses designed to cover Super 35?

Am I getting this completely wrong? Realizing that not all PL lenses project an image circle EXACTLY the size to cover S35, just wondering if the wider than normal frame is a concern at all? If you crop 5K 30mm wide down to 25mm wide, that's a loss of 16%, or about 1.7k. Meaning we're back down to 4.3K or so. Somehow, that doesn't seem right to me.

[Jeff Kilgroe]

The sensor itself is 30x15mm. Largest recordable area is 5120x2700 and with photosites/pixels that are 5.4 microns (0.0054mm) in size, that translates to 27.65x14.58mm as the largest recordable area.

So it's essentially the same width as the Canon APS-H format. But the aspect ratio is not the same -- roughly 1.9:1. This gives it a diagonal measurement (and coverage circle) of 31.25mm.

Most Super35mm and APS-C format lenses are designed to cover at least a 30mm diagonal. Covering 5K is not going to be much of an issue. We may start to see some more falloff in the corners on wider focal length lenses, but I don't see much of a reason to concern ourselves here.

If you're shooting 16:9, that's a maximum of 4800x2700 or 25.92mm width. That gives a diagonal just over 29mm. Fitting just fine within typical S35 parameters.