Canon develops world's first 120 megapixel APS-H CMOS sensor

[XG332]

Canon has announced it has developed a 120 megapixel 29.2 x 20.2mm APS-H CMOS sensor - the same size used in its EOS-1D series of professional DSLRs. The sensor, for which Canon has announced no production plans, has a pixel count nearly 7.5 times larger than the company's highest pixel count commercially available sensor. It offers full HD recording (using 1/60th of its surface area) and can deliver 9.5fps continuous shooting. This follows a 50 million pixel sensor of similar format the company developed in 2007.

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[RobDickinson]

It is though less dense than the G10's sensor.

Canon made a 50mp full frame sensor in 2007 too, and liekwise this wont see commercial use but its an intresting view on what there doing in the labs.

[Dogsey]

Why bother to make it if you're not going to market it? Are Canon so rich that they can afford to do something "just because"?

[Fezant Pluckah]

Dogsey said:

Why bother to make it if you're not going to market it? Are Canon so rich that they can afford to do something "just because"?

I am

[RDMcG]

Often these things appear five or six years later. I was at a tech conference many years ago when HP had a digital prototype camera, maybe 1 megapixel, and they let us take it out for a day. I thought, "this'll never catch on".....
If the economics permit, at some stage this sort of thing is possible.

[Dogsey]

Fezant Pluckah said:

Dogsey said:

Why bother to make it if you're not going to market it? Are Canon so rich that they can afford to do something "just because"?

I am

I know exactly what you are!

[DangerousMike]

technology and scientific advances normally start out as "just because"

[strudel]

At this stage I suspect it took a lot of effort to make one, let alone several hundred thousand.

Edited by strudel on Wednesday 25th August 16:13

[RobDickinson]

R&D is doing what R&D does. They'll have solved a lot of problems with this that will flow down to real sensors later.

For info I think the pixel pitch on this is 2000nm, the G10 is 1200nm so smaller pixels again.

Longest wavelength of light is 795nm or so, so there is a limit to where we go here.

What gets me is they say 9.5 fps, or 1bn pixels a second, I wonder if they have actualy got that or if its theoretic, or even if they have an image off the chip.