

Canon develops 35 mm full-frame CMOS sensor for video capture - venus
http://www.canon.com/news/2013/mar04e.html

======
davidjohnstone
For comparison, the Nikon D4 (a digital SLR) can shoot video at ISO 204,800,
and it can resolve details in the dark beyond the ability of the eye, and I
suspect this new sensor is more sensitive — or, at least, far more noise free
— than that.

EDIT: Judging by some photos I've taken of the night sky, with an f/2.8 lens
and with a shutter speed of 1/50s, you need an ISO of around 300,000 to get
enough brightness.

If only Stanley Kubrick had this to play with. Instead, he used a f/0.7 lens
to shoot some scenes in Barry Lyndon by candlelight, way back in 1975.

~~~
eksith
Didn't he use the same lenses used by NASA on the cameras for the Apollo
missions? I think the larger aperture gave better low-light exposure during
the candlelit scene (and may have inadvertantly fuelled conspiracy nuts that
think the moon landings were a hoax because they think the sunlight reflected
off the regolith was a secondary light source).

~~~
davidjohnstone
Yes, an f/0.7 aperture is a ridiculously wide aperture (thus, it lets in a lot
of light[1]), two stops brighter than f/1.4 (a "stop" means a doubling of the
amount of light; f/1.2 lenses are the fastest lenses commonly available, and
they'll cost around $2k), or four stops faster than f/2.8 (which is what the
fastest commonly available zoom lenses are, and they're expensive too). Leica
make a very rare f/0.95 lens that would set you back $11k, and it's
appropriately called Noctilux.

As for conspiracy theories, what makes it even better is that Stanley Kubrick
also made 2001: A Space Odyssey in 1968, which includes some scenes set on the
moon, and I've heard of conspiracy theories about how these were used for the
"real" moon landing too… (And yes, according to Wikipedia, Kubrick bought
three of the ten copies of this lens made, with NASA buying six and Carl Zeiss
keeping the other.)

1\. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F-number>

~~~
eksith
Holy cow! I just visited arethuza's Wikipedia link below...

I read the NASA trivia about the movie on a forum a few years back and it just
popped into my memory. I had no idea these were incredibly rare. Yes, the
irony him shooting 2001 wasn't lost on me.

Without reflections, space is pretty dark (excluding starlight) so I imagine
the new Canon lense will see a lot of space use. Provided it can be made
sufficienty RAD-hard.

~~~
coldtea
> _Without reflections, space is pretty dark (excluding starlight)_

Lots of infrared too, though.

~~~
lutusp
Distant from stars like our sun, the temperature of space is just 2.73
Kelvins. It's pretty easy to work out the temperature for any given location
in space -- just add up the effect of any nearby stars, whose radiation
decreases as the square of distance, and add the background temperature of
space itself, caused by the Big Bang afterglow.

What this means is that, unless you're close to a star, it is very, very cold.
Even at Pluto's relatively nearby location, the average temperature is only 33
Kelvins.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_microwave_background_rad...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_microwave_background_radiation)

------
vanderZwan
In a way it's kind of simple, isn't it? Having "only" Full HD on a 35 mm
sensor simply means you have much larger individual potential wells, capturing
more photons per pixel.

What I'm really wondering about is the dynamic range - wouldn't that also
drastically increase?

~~~
Gravityloss
Too bad the whole camera business wasted a huge amount of resouces over ten
years on a stupid tinier and tinier pixels race.

~~~
klodolph
1\. Noise increases as pixel size increases. So you can't just make the pixels
bigger.

2\. The 5 megapixel camera on an iPhone 4 is pretty amazing. I wouldn't call
it a waste of resources.

3\. Displacing MF from high-end camera manufacturers requires tiny pixels. You
can shoot pictures for e.g. magazines on a $2,000 D600 today, but in 2003 you
would have needed at least $4,000 MF camera plus a $10,000+ scanner. Yes, this
is just a niche of the photography market, but it's an important, high-profile
niche.

In my mind, the quality-conscious consumers were taken by digital at 6 MP, and
the studios were taken by digital at 24 MP. There are a few morons around with
more money than smarts who will buy crappy cameras because the numbers on the
box are higher, but it's clear to me that they're not driving the market right
now.

~~~
seunosewa
It is simply not true that noise increases as pixel size increases. The exact
opposite is widely known to be true. See this page, for example:
<http://firmitas.org/Sensor.html>

~~~
klodolph
I was actually just paraphrasing the linked page from Canon:

> In addition, the sensor's pixels and readout circuitry employ new
> technologies that reduce noise, which tends to increase as pixel size
> increases.

The linked page is pretty sketchy, it mentions lenses but not optics. Optical
resolution will be limited _regardless_ of whether the lenses are perfectly
polished. It's hardly irrelevant too, with modern optical resolution close to
sensor resolution. The article makes assertions but no citations or
measurements. Worthless junk.

~~~
xyzzy123
Well they're describing the sensor, not optics, so that part is forgivable.

Also, they're describing a 35mm sensor. This thing will work with existing
35mm film optics, and (apart from physical properties) that's a big part of
why the sensor size is interesting.

Would be nice if there were more technical details, but I guess that's press
releases for you.

------
zokier
I wonder what the anticipated applications are? Surveillance seems like one
obvious target (and I guess that's what the moonlight-scene was trying to
show), at least if the sensor (and thus the final products) is not
ridiculously expensive. Also the fact that it is being demoed at "SECURITY
SHOW 2013" points towards surveillance.

------
blt
Awesome. I've been waiting a long time for camera makers to do something like
this after they got tired of increasing megapixels. Really going to open up
new worlds of creativity for nighttime and low-light indoor shooting. Even
better - make a b/w version with 3x more sensitivity and better sharpness.

------
TheAnimus
I wouldn't mind a better bit of info about the sensor! For instance I'm
guessing its a bayer filtered job, to keep the sensativity (at the expense of
sharpness of say Sigma Foveon).

But I can't believe they have just had such an improvement by switching to
larger wells and more sensativity, do they have some cunning time domain based
filtering too. One advantage digital sensors have is that they can exclude
certain bits of noise by merging the image results over time, obviously this
comes at the expense of sharpness.

~~~
tomkinstinch
I wonder if they are using a bayer mask with an RGBO pattern (R, G, B filtered
wells, and an open channel in each repeating subunit).

Kodak has the patent, so they may have been able to acquire or license it at
low cost.

[http://web.archive.org/web/20070720002510/http://johncompton...](http://web.archive.org/web/20070720002510/http://johncompton.1000nerds.kodak.com/default.asp?item=624876)

------
regehr
I always find it depressing when I take a picture by moonlight and it ends up
looking very much like a picture taken by sunlight, as opposed to looking like
the scene looks to our eyes. Always have to keep in mind that a CCD != rods
and cones.

Sensitivity is nice but as far as I'm concerned, dynamic range is the main
thing that's needed in digital photography. DSLR sensors have gotten much,
much better over the last 10 years but there's still plenty of room for
improvement.

~~~
mikec3k
That's a result of how metering works - it assumes you want a brightly lit
scene. You'll either need to use manual exposure or use one of the spot
metering modes, where it measures only the brightness of a focal point rather
than the overall scene brightness and tries to compensate.

~~~
Sharlin
Or you use the exposure compensation setting.

But yes, the metering software in a camera does not know how the scene
"should" look like. It can only assume that you want a "properly" exposed
photo - such that both under- and overexposure is minimized. If you want
something else, you'll have to tell the camera what you want.

------
hop
I bet it can do some insane slowmo frame rates too in normal lighting
conditions. For all they put into this sensor, surprised Canon produced such a
crapily edited video.

~~~
Retric
I suspect that video was an internal tech demo and had nothing to do with
there marketing department.

------
topbanana
Is this a color sensor? The high end astrophotography sensors tend to be
monochromatic, with a filter wheel placed in front of the sensor. That way,
each well has 3 times as much chance of seeing a photon.

~~~
CountHackulus
All sensors are monochrome just with red, green, and blue filters over pixels
in what's called a Bayer pattern. The only real exception to this rule that I
can think of is the Foveon sensor.

~~~
topbanana
When we talk about sensors we're talking about the whole device

------
Aardwolf
I would love to see such a sensor for photos instead of video!

~~~
ominous_prime
of course we would, but photographers wouldn't be too impressed with only
capturing 1920(?)x1080 resolution.

This gains it's light gathering abilities by simply having much larger
"pixels" on the sensor, which can collect more photons. This is the same
principal used on the highest end canon eos body, the 1DX, which has slightly
lower resolution than the 5DmkIII in order to gain sensitivity.

~~~
baq
Native resolution of this baby looks to be 864 mm^2 / 19 micron^2 ~= 45MPix,
in line with the latest Nikon and with rumors of high-density FF Canon. The
innovation here is noise reduction and not the sensor itself... obviously
Canon will charge an arm an a leg for that video camera - and won't ever make
it into a DSLR to not cannibalize their profits.

~~~
ominous_prime
I'm fairly certain they meant that pixels are 19µm on a side, not in area,
since they state:

> 7.5-times the surface area of the pixels on the CMOS sensor incorporated in
> Canon's top-of-the-line EOS-1D X and other digital SLR cameras

That puts a 35mm sensor right around HD video resolution, or in the 2-2.1MP
range.

~~~
baq
This same sentence also says:

>The newly developed CMOS sensor features pixels measuring 19 microns square
in size

So there is a possibility that the pixels are merged by the image processor
after data is read off the sensor.

~~~
Sharlin
I, at least, read "19 microns square" as "19 microns times 19 microns", that
is, (19 µm)² = 361 µm².

~~~
baq
suddenly everything started to make sense...

------
kybernetyk
Wow, the full moon example is really impressive.

------
neya
This is my today's best Hackernews item, ever. As a Videographer, I've always
yearned for better DSLR's that can shoot video under (extreme) low-light
conditions. I just hope they launch a consumer/pro-sumer model with this
sensor soon! Throw in a low-light lens and you're all set for (ultra) low-
light videography!!

------
lotyrin
I love the performance of these larger sensors, and these demos blow
everything I've seen out of the water, but I'd never carry that kind of gear
around for any of my purposes (the size and weight more than the price, though
that's definitely a large factor).

~~~
raverbashing
It's still a prototype, that's why it's bulky

I suppose the actual consumer products will be lighter.

~~~
trackofalljades
It will most likely show up first in bodies that look like the C300 and C100
do today.

[http://www.usa.canon.com/cusa/professional/products/professi...](http://www.usa.canon.com/cusa/professional/products/professional_cameras/cinema_eos_cameras/eos_c300)

------
zokier
They develop this amazing new FullHD sensor and post a 640x360 video to show
it off?

------
protomyth
Let's see what codecs and outputs they record before getting too excited. The
sensor in the 5d mk III could be so much more if it recorded to something
better. Bandwidth is a killer.

~~~
wmf
Fortunately this sensor is so low-res that bandwidth isn't a problem.

------
friendcomputer
I'm curious how this performs with fast motion and if it's a general-purpose
sensor or only suitable for low light. Anyone know?

~~~
sukuriant
Are you asking if it could be used for slow motion capture? Because if you're
doing something that could be captured at normal 24/48/60 fps, then I don't
see any reason why this camera would care if there was motion or not

------
baq
this will be an _expensive_ piece of gear. that moonlit video was just insane.

~~~
thenomad
As a filmmaker, I'm more impressed by the burning incense. I don't even make
live-action video (I do animation), and I STILL desperately want a camera that
can do that.

I suspect that the results of showing that video to a room full of filmmakers
can be summed up in the phrase "Shut up and take my money."

~~~
scarecrowbob
If you're doing stop motion, can't you just do longer exposures? Or is that
impractical in a stop-motion workflow?

~~~
thenomad
To the best of my knowledge, there's no reason not to do that - although I
don't do stop-motion, I do performance capture.

(The reason I was drooling over the camera wasn't for any particularly
practical use - I wouldn't use it day-to-day. I have on occasion done live-
action filmmaking, and I know how INCREDIBLY useful uber-low-light performance
like that would be. Seeing the potential for mood and Dogme-style shooting
makes me want to pick up a Real Camera again ;) )

------
graycat
So, with all the critical details here about CCD sensors, you expert guys are
telling me that I should not rush out and spend $10 K, $20 K, or whatever for
the latest Nikon/Canon single lens reflex with a CCD sensor and a bag of
lenses and, instead, keep my old Nikon Nikormat with its bag of Nikon lenses?

Let's see, opening the bag for the first time in a while, I have a Nikkor 200
mm f4, a Nikkor 105 mm f2.5, a Nikkor 55 mm f3.5 macro (good for closeups and
general usage) with an extension tube for getting even closer, and a Nikkor 50
mm f1.4. Ah, I guess the f1.4 is for taking shots of the girlfriend in her
little cocktail dress sitting at the candle lit romantic dinner table waiting
for the rest of the evening! Or maybe I should be sitting at the table taking
the picture as she comes in with a frilly apron over her cocktail dress and
carrying a serving tray with her hand made Sachertorte mit Schlagobers
(whipped cream)?

Also in the bag is a Honeywell strobe light: It uses a 900 Volt dry cell
battery if can find one and otherwise just uses the A/C adapter. The recharge
time on the A/C adapter is fast.

I suspect I will be able to buy film such as Kodak Kodacolor for a long time,
but processing is an issue: I've had Sam's Club start with my Kodacolor 35 mm
and return to me a CD with JPG images with 1818 x 1228 pixels which seems to
be a little below the resolution of the best of the Nikon equipment. At one
time Kodak offered Kodak PhotoCD with much higher resolution.

Any suggestions? What about getting good processing and scanning to JPG of the
film? Sounds like my old Nikon equipment is still competitive with newer
single lens reflex cameras with CCD sensors and roughly 35 mm image width?

E.g., on resolution Dalsa made a CCD image sensor with 48 million pixels, a
light detection rectangle 36 x 48 mm, i.e., much like 35 mm film in my Nikon,
with each pixel a square 6 microns on a side, capturing about 55,000 electrons
per pixel, and, net, 6 K x 8 K pixels. Sounds good until notice that
apparently each pixel is for just one color, red, green, or blue, and they use
a 2 x 2 array of four such pixels, one red, one blue, and two green, for one
'color' pixel. So, in such 'color' pixels their sensor is 3 K x 4 K and, thus,
not necessarily a lot better than 35 mm film?

Where am I going wrong?

~~~
cuu508
* this sensor is for video, your Nikormat cannot do video

* practicality of digital vs analog, people will trade quality for convenience

* with Bayer filter you don't lose exactly 1/2 of resolution, the algoritms employed do a little better than that

~~~
graycat
Thanks.

I had to Google "Bayer filter" -- the Wikipedia page is good. So, yes, without
knowing it, I was describing a Bayer filter.

For video, sure, my Nikormat is only a still camera, but my guess is that the
Canon CCD sensor will also get used for still photography. Then a question is,
would that chip make a much better 35 mm 'class' still camera than my old
Nikormat with, say, just Kodacolor film? Apparently on ASA speed values, the
Canon sensor would totally blow away any film.

But on resolution, I was guessing that film such as Kodacolor in a good, old
still camera such as my Nikormat might still be close to competitive.

But I have fallen so behind in photography that I don't even know what the
camera ads mean when they say how many pixels their sensor has. For the Dalsa
sensor I described, would the ads say 48 million pixels or just 1/4th of that
many, 12 million, after the Bayer filtering?

------
IceyEC
That's absolutely amazing!

