Canon unveils 120-megapixel camera sensor

[Kwan Khan]

I wouldn't mind having that in a camera. But the sensor doesn’t appear destined for products.
http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/360568/canon-unveils-120-megapixel-camera-sensor

 

[Stefan Scherperel]

That sounds great and exciting and all, but where are you going to find 35mm glass to resolve a 120mpx image?

 

[Kalani Prince]

That sounds great and exciting and all, but where are you going to find 35mm glass to resolve a 120mpx image?

On an 8X10 Linhof : )

 

[Matt W.]

On an 8X10 Linhof : )

Not really, the best large format lenses resolve 60-80 lines/mm (and without very good contrast)*. It's just that they have tons of space to fill so the overall resolution is enormous. And Linhof lenses are just rebranded Schneider and Rodenstock. Not that a Linhof isn't my dream camera, of course, because it is!

By contrast, point and shoot digital cameras can theoretically resolve around 440 lines per mm. (The Canon G12 shoots 4416 horizontal pixels, taking bayer interpolation into account maybe 3200 "real" pixels, and that would be 1600 lines, divided by 7.2mm is around 440 lines per millimeter (220 line pairs).

With an APS-H sensor at 120 megapixels, you wouldn't even need that. So with the best primes at ideal apertures, the extra megapixels would be useful. Of course, you would need incredible technique and a very sturdy tripod and even then 120 megapixels would require insane perfect focus.

If a camera like this is released it will be interesting to see if landscape photographers ditch their large format cameras en masse for dSLRs with huge pixel counts and then the highest-end prime lenses.

*It's also possible the article that cites this number confuses lines with line pairs, as is way too easy to do. In which case large format would have twice the performance cited.

 

[Matt W.]

To put things in perspective, one millimeter square crops from popular cameras:

Sharp medium format scanned for max resolution:

Nikon D90 Sample Image:

Canon G12 Sample Image:

To put those images in perspective, how many mm^2 each sensor has:

Medium format=3926mm^2
d90=376mm^2
g12=38mm^2

Nevertheless, it's SCARY how close those three cameras are when each is performing at its peak. Canon's proposed sensor would blow them all away, though. (Oh, and ULF 8X10 has a surface area of over 50,000mm^2.)

 

[Bill Anderson]

Yeah, most large format glass is gray compared to 35mm glass - just cut a 35mm portion out of your 8X10 neg and enlarge that bad boy. Ho Ho Ho.

This is what my old film brain tells me, perhaps I'm missing something.
A 128MP sensor gives you a whopping 184.5 X 127.5 inch image @72 PPI- compare that to 1080's 15 inches. So, even if a lens fails to resolve for the big fella, the smaller enlargement ratio will still provide for an incredible image, and will help retain a lot of the resolution one might expect lost at cinema's vast enlargements. i.e. even if a lens can easily resolve for a1080 image, where does that get us when that 1080 image is hugely enlarged? There goes our "resolving power" due to small pixel count. If lenses can resolve for Imax on current media, then what should we expect to lose using the same optics with 128 MP? ????

 

[Matt W.]

The problem is that dSLRs are general purpose cameras and no one wants to sacrifice anything for anything else. With film you had 35mm for photojournalists and amateurs, medium format for portraits and studio photography, large format for "art" and landscapes, etc. And then you had portrait film, slide film, many brands of black and white--each ideal for its own purpose. With dSLRs you have...dSLRs.

You could design a dSLR with incredible dynamic range and low light capabilities by putting fewer megapixels on the chip (look at the Arri Alexa, designed as such for cinema, which has the lowest resolution needs and greatest need for dynamic range of any photographic medium). But for a general purpose camera, no one wants to make this sacrifice.

Photojournalism is kind of the sweet spot dSLRs are designed for (though they are truly all-purpose cameras); resolution is important but not THAT important for photojournalists (and snap-shooters, the REAL market everyone wants to corner). Having images that are reasonably easy to manage (i.e. not a gigabyte each) and having a fast sensor with low noise is important for this market, however, so is fast autofocus, etc.

So like....you could design a 120 megapixel high pixel density dSLR with a chip like this, but almost no one would benefit from the additional resolution, though the few who would (landscape photographers, "artists") wouldn't mind the noise/dr tradeoffs, since slide film has about five stops of dr and is 100ISO or slower and grainy for the good stuff...digital can easily exceed that even with tiny photosites, as my images above illustrate. But that's a tiny market to fab that many custom chips for.

Anyhow, a true "modern" camera would skip the optical finder assembly and ditch retrofocus lenses for true wide angle lenses and in-camera falloff compensation... It will be interesting to see if we get this; the Leica M9 seems to be the closest thing yet. It will also be interesting to see what happens to tilt/shit/rise/fall if large format is "killed" by digital.

 

[Bill Anderson]

Matt, I've used 8X10 for years, and I'm currently frame blending as many as
20 X 12MP frames for moderate sized fine art print output. And I can tell you that I definitely "benefit" from doing so. I can easily imagine having this sort of power in a single take. It might be ten or more years off??? But I'm all over it.
Anyway, that's stills, I'm talking about the pros and cons of huge MP counts in cinema, where enlargement ratio of larger sensors, and larger pixel counts on traditional size sensors, come into play. I was using the 128 MP as an extreme, of course, and am a bit uncertain as to the pros and cons of overreaching the lenses ability, but having a much lesser degree of enlargement. Maybe I'm missing something obvious (likely) but using the typically poorer quality of optics available to large format, (8X10 contact print) will still destroy a 35mm enlargement using superior optics. I think I'd like to see the results of testing, before dismissing very large MP sensors with the best of current lenses. And it might not be too long before optics improve to suit.

 

[Matt W.]

I think large format looks so much better than 35mm primarily because the huge surface area more than makes up for inferior optics--but also because film is so grainy that you need a huge piece of film to get great image quality. Here's a 1mmX1mm 35mm film crop (handheld with ancient but pretty good optics):

It's bit sharper than medium format but the film grain, more than the lens resolution, is the limiting factor for enlargements with both. And if the sample from the canon point and shoot is any indication, the sensor doesn't have to be a limiting factor for digital in quite the same way... But I agree large format quality on a dSLR would take better lenses than are currently available...and a tripod, and good technique...

For cinema it will be a long time before huge resolutions catch on. First of all, the average film print is "about 720p" and audiences are okay with that and secondly, on a huge production, working with big files is taxing. 4k already taxes modern hardware and looks more than good enough. 24fps is so blurry in motion that only static shots (rare on modern blockbusters) benefit from tremendous resolution. 4k may become the standard eventually, but 2k will remain viable and huge resolutions are the realm of IMAX type documentary stuff.

How many megapixels would you say 8X10 approximates, by the way? I'm still stuck with 6X7 though the large format prints I've seen make me want to switch...

 

[Chris Gold]

I think they could use this chip to make one incredible 30 megapixel image by effectively having 4 seperate bayer layouts that differ slightly in their RGB layout & iso level capturing 4 seperate 30 MP images simultaneaously , and then combine & denoise in processing to get one very clean image with a huge dynamic range and more color information at each pixel.

 

[Matt W.]

Why would you want that? Digital already has around four stops more dynamic range and infinitely cleaner images than slide film, the old gold standard, and it's infinitely cleaner. If you need that clean an image and that much dr it's because your technique is poor.

Furthermore, canon's issues with shadow noise are primarily due to noisy circuitry, not the sensor itself (from what I've been lead to believe...).

 

[Chris Gold]

I never said I needed it, I just think that would be a better use of the sensor then simply taking a standard 120 Megapixel image.

And I don't think there is anything wrong with making digital cameras perform better then film, it is their job after all.

 

[Petr Dvorak]

"The company unveiled a 50-megapixel CMOS sensor in 2007, but that has yet to arrive in a DSLR."

 

[nageswara rao s]

it is technically informative and nice post too.

 

[nageswara rao s]

.. For cinema it will be a long time before huge resolutions catch on. First of all, the average film print is "about 720p" and audiences are okay with that and secondly, on a huge production, working with big files is taxing. 4k already taxes modern hardware and looks more than good enough. 24fps is so blurry in motion that only static shots (rare on modern blockbusters) benefit from tremendous resolution. 4k may become the standard eventually, but 2k will remain viable and huge resolutions are the realm of IMAX type documentary stuff.

"First of all, the average film print is "about 720p" and audiences are okay with that" is that mean that any 2/3" camera with 720P or 1080P like panasonic 500 series is better for indie film making. am i right? am i thinking in the same manner? Matt W can you elaborate more on this to me please.
thank you seniors.

 

[Stuart English]

Imaging resolution.

Imaging resolution.

No that's going from one extreme to another. Shooting 720p and filming out will look like ... well don't do that

As a rule, aim to shoot your source footage at a higher resolution than your final presentation display medium...

 

[Matt W.]

I would agree. The more resolution the better until it starts to really slow down your workflow. 1080p is very nice if your computer and monitors can handle it. I'm sure 2k and 4k are even better, but much slower and harder to monitor on set and in post on an indie budget.

Other image characteristics (lenses available, dynamic range, light sensitivity, etc.) are even more important than resolution, but I think if you shoot less than 1080p and go out to film you'll really feel the reduction in resolution. Film prints being around 720p is due to the abuse they take and focus issues, etc. It's not a good thing or something to emulate. Most films are printed from 2k DIs or 1080p when shot on video, so I think that's the happy medium right now if you can afford it. That said, 720p is still worlds better than SD and Panasonic has nice cameras and a great workflow.

 

[nageswara rao s]

As a rule, aim to shoot your source footage at a higher resolution than your final presentation display medium...

I would agree. The more resolution the better until it starts to really slow down your workflow. 1080p is very nice if your computer and monitors can handle it. I'm sure 2k and 4k are even better, but much slower and harder to monitor on set and in post on an indie budget.

thank you stuart and Matt w for your suggestions. IN Recon forum's thread thoughts and tips also Jim Jannard mentioned that don't downscale your final resolution, so you may lose so much of resolution. like shoot in 4k and downscale to 2k we will though away 80% of resolution at all so don't do that at all. like that if my systems permit and have time and budget too, i go for 3k resolution and go for final print with that too. if budget is too tight so i take 1080p and manage that for final print to get excellent quality in that budget and don't downscale it to 720p. thank you guys. and matt w suggest me systems requirement for even 1080p for editing and others for film out without hassle free.

 

[Ryan Sparks]

As much as I love L glass I doubt it could handle a 50 megapixels, much less 120. Besides what are the practical uses of a 120 megapixel censor?

 

[Ryan Sparks]

1080p is on it's way out

1080p is on it's way out

I would agree. The more resolution the better until it starts to really slow down your workflow. 1080p is very nice if your computer and monitors can handle it. I'm sure 2k and 4k are even better, but much slower and harder to monitor on set and in post on an indie budget.

Other image characteristics (lenses available, dynamic range, light sensitivity, etc.) are even more important than resolution, but I think if you shoot less than 1080p and go out to film you'll really feel the reduction in resolution. Film prints being around 720p is due to the abuse they take and focus issues, etc. It's not a good thing or something to emulate. Most films are printed from 2k DIs or 1080p when shot on video, so I think that's the happy medium right now if you can afford it. That said, 720p is still worlds better than SD and Panasonic has nice cameras and a great workflow.

28 days later was shot on a canon xl1, it is a great movie but really depressing to think about what it could have looked like if they shot 1080p or higher. Just because you can shoot something at a lower res doesn't mean you should. Besides your statement about computational power needed for higher resolution video is a bit short sighted. I can very easily edit and render 1080p and maybe even 4k on my macbook pro, my mac pro handles 1080p like it was 320 by 240 video. You have to think about Moore's law, computing power doubles every 18 months, 3 years or so down the road I bet you will be able to edit 4k on a mac mini with out a hitch.