Canon develops world's largest CMOS sensor: Digital Photography Review (http://www.dpreview.com/news/1008/10083101canonlargestsensor.asp)

For it to be really useful someone will have to develop a lens whose image circle covers the area of this sensor. It would cost $$millions at least to make and the additional costs in mounting/moving logistics would be so huge only a few organizations or photographically-inclined Arab sheiks can afford it.

I think it's safe to presume they've already developed a lens to use to take test shots, and there are numerous applications I can think of where this sensor would be very useful... and where an expensive lens would be no issue whatsoever.

Personally, I was thinking nothing more than...
1. Great technology demonstrator.
2. Digital stills+video goes Large Format.

Maybe more NASA than Hollywood at the moment but we seem to be heading for a time where night exteriors could be shot with just moonlight alone! Of course the problem then becomes the cast and crew being able to see what they are doing!

The only problem with moonlight alone is that it tends to look like daylight, which mightn't exactly be the effect you're after.

For it to be really useful someone will have to develop a lens whose image circle covers the area of this sensor. It would cost $$millions at least to make and the additional costs in mounting/moving logistics would be so huge only a few organizations or photographically-inclined Arab sheiks can afford it.

ROFLMAO!

Lenses to cover 10x8 inches have been in use for nearly two centuries. Literally. Prior to around 1920 10x8 inches was considered to be "small format". Those grand photographs of the American West made in the mid 1800s were all done on glass plates well bigger than 10x8. 20x16 inches was a common size.

You can find such lenses on the used market at any time, and indeed they are still sold new. B&H sells 'em. IIRC, at least Schneider, Rodenstock, and Fuji still sell large format lenses that cover 10x8 with room for considerable movements.

I've been shooting stills with a 5x4 (inches) camera for most of the last decade. The mounting / moving logistics aren't anything like as bad as you imagine. I carry my entire kit on my back up and down the mountains on a semi-regular basis. My whole kit is around 16kg more or less (depends on what I'm trying to accomplish during the hike), including three liters of water. And there are tens of thousands like me in the USA, nearly all of whom would be shocked to hear themselves compared to "photographically-inclined Arab sheiks" just because they enjoy large format photography.

Oh, yes. Most of us LFers are using film. Not digital. Actual photographic film. Still made in 2010. But many of us would like to get our hands on a digital sensor like this, even is if is smaller than 10x8 film. The closest we have currently is the Phase One 65+ medium format back (http://www.phaseone.com/en/Digital-Backs/P65/P65-Info.aspx). Sadly, it costs well more than my car, and it's not quite as good as 5x4 film which costs me about $2.00 USD per 5x4 sheet (color negative material).

Still, I applaud Canon's efforts. I've got camera and lenses covered already. All I'm waiting on is the sensor. And a big pot o' money to buy it with. ;-)

I second what Bruce said. For years, 8x10 inches was the standard for product photography used for full-page magazine ads. And in the electronics industry, even larger formats are used to photograph circuit layouts.

Some of the early lenses (from a little over a hundred years ago) might have been designed only to handle blue light (early film was only sensative to blue), but modern process lenses are apochromats.

Ken

Still, I find the idea of a video camera in a 8 x 10 Large Format View Camera wrapper very amusing.

LOL .... Bill, I have to agree with you there.

(But keep in mind there is/was an IMAX format using 70mm film running horizonally through the movie camera to get the maximum possible frame size for 70mm film. Not 8"x10", but still pretty durn big.)

Ken

Saw this thing at Canon Expo the other day. They had 2 displays next to it showing the same night scene, one using this sensor and another that emulated what the human eye can see.

They claim this sensor can see more into the dark than what our eyes can see. Really interesting tech.

The only problem with moonlight alone is that it tends to look like daylight, which mightn't exactly be the effect you're after.

Yes, a single point light source is always a single point ligt source. Now if we could shoot by star light......

In addition to NASA, I would imagine that the various military units might be able to find some use for something like this. And they can afford it.

I want to point out there have been virtual 4X5 inch digital camera backs for view cameras since the '90s. I have friends who used to shoot products on 4X5 cameras using all the swings, tilts, and shifts. They used conventional cameras, conventional lenses but with scanning digital backs. The back consisted of a sensor bar that slid down focal plane scanning on a row by row basis. Kind of like how a copy machine scans a page of text.

Sure, the process was slow. Sure, it only worked for still subjects. Sure, the scanner back cost nearly $100,000. But they produced up to the equivalent of 100 Megapixel images. The resulting images were absolutely amazing and the photographers never had to sacrifice the limitations of conventional, non movable lenses.

Certainly there's a point of diminishing returns when it comes to modern cameras and a 4X5 digital back, even if it took the entire image at one time, it would physically be huge just to accommodate the light path and optics. I'm sure there's some trickle down benefit for such a proof of concept but I hope all the sensor makers can focus on reducing the price of 1/3 to one inch sensors for the rest of us.

Dave Burckhard

Isn't this type of imager used exclusively for large telescopes?

Warren wondered: Isn't this type of imager used exclusively for large telescopes?

Large digital sensors are used by a bunch of imaging devices and have been around since digital imaging started. Typical >35mm imagers are used in high end scanners used in the photographic print biz. Back in the early to mid '90s I saw them in action. Back then these guys cost hundreds of thousands of dollars but did the job. Of course, there was no technology to stream the data fast enough (well, there was but not cheaply and no one needed it.) for video much less store it.

Today, technology can build big sensors and relatively cheap prices. The two things that a lot of folks don't consider is that the data stream can be huge. Whereas you can come home from a day of shooting with 40-70 gigs of raw footage, a 35mm sensor and larger, even with an efficient codec is overflowing a terabyte container. This is the realm of Hollywood movie budget gear.

Then there are the lenses to project the larger image circle on the sensor. Sure, a large sensor with large photo sites is inherently more capable of low light acquisition, but you need a physically bigger lens as well. A typical 1/3 inch 14X zoom lens with a max aperture at the wide end of f/1.6 might cost a couple thousand dollars. The same specs for a 35mm sensor might cost tens of thousands of dollars.

Only when I win the lottery and can buy such a camera and hire a camera operator to handle the behemoth will I get excited about big sensor cameras.

Whereas you can come home from a day of shooting with 40-70 gigs of raw footage, a 35mm sensor and larger, even with an efficient codec is overflowing a terabyte container. This is the realm of Hollywood movie budget gear.

1 terabyte external hard drives are < $100, 2 terabytes < $150. Bare 2Tb drives are about ~$100. Even 2.5" external bus powered drives are running ~ $130 per terabyte. Hardly Hollywood budget stuff. I don't think storage is really a limiting factor here.