
Canon 250MP APS-H CMOS Sensor Demo - davidbarker
http://photorumors.com/2015/10/16/canon-250mp-aps-h-size-cmos-sensor-demo-video/
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Paul_S
I think the demo proves that the sensor and lens combination does not resolve
any more detail than a sub 1000 pound SLR. It produces more pixels but all the
extra information is just optical distortions. It gets even worse with the
telephoto lens when all you see is the heat rising through the air.

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baudehlo
You can't beat haze no matter what the lens is.

Except maybe in space.

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ChuckMcM
Nice demo, folks who've looked at wall sized Gigapixel image prints have had
fun with this for a while. What is depressing of course is that a few of these
in blimp hovering at 79,000' would make for "easy" real time surveillance of a
large city. And make the DARPA ISIS project[1] much more cost effective.

[1] [http://www.gizmag.com/go/6236/](http://www.gizmag.com/go/6236/)

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jacquesm
Hasselblad has had sensors like these for a while (though outrageously
expensive, ~100K US, needs fancy cooling), I'd assume that the tech available
to the various spy agencies is substantially better than what you can buy in a
relatively normal way.

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jrockway
Are those APS-H sensors? I thought Hasselblad specialized in medium format (6
cm x 4.5 cm sensors), and for their compact cameras, just rebadged other
manufacturers' equipment.

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jacquesm
No, I wasn't referring to the sensor size, merely the resolution of the total
array.

This was a very large camera back (16x9 or something to that effect which had
to do with the application it was put to work for) at a company I visited
several years ago, the thing had at that time 14K x 8K resolution (so ~125 MP)
and they were working on getting an even larger one. It was a custom job, not
something 'off the shelf' but if you wanted them badly enough more could be
procured.

The lens was something to behold as well.

Anyway, clearly the size of the Canon sensor is extremely impressive, I did
not intend to belittle their achievement, just that I'd fully expect various
nation states to have access to gear with resolutions well in excess of this.

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svckr
I think it's amazing they even manage to handle that insane amount of data.
Say the sensor produces (only) 32bits per pixel, we still get 1GB per frame or
5GB per second for the claimed 5fps video. That would still max out a
Thunderbolt 3 connection, and you'd need 10 times the speed of a modern SSD to
store it (if you were to record raw video that is). And then they have their
signal processing chips to compress that stuff in (near) realtime…

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Apofis
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10404974](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10404974)

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rodgerd
Canon's tech demos make the rate at which they dribble technologies into their
cameras all the more frustrating. Hopefully the attention Sony are getting
will light a fire under them.

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georgemcbay
I used to be a nearly 100% Canon shooter (as a pretty serious hobbyist
photographer) and switched over to Sony when the A7 came out (have since
bought about a dozen FE lenses, an A7ii and an A6000, so a complete system
change) and it was entirely because of Canon's obvious self-gating; way too
many camera bodies released that were basically last year's model with some
tweak to the autofocus that they have been sitting on for years, etc.

I don't doubt every manufacturer does to this to a degree, but Canon is absurd
and unsubtle about it. The whole thing left such a bad taste in my mouth that
it would be almost impossible for them to get me back as a "fan" at this
point, even if they stopped doing this.

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StavrosK
How does it compare? I've only seen a Sony camera (it was a high-end one,
although I'm not sure if it was an A7) and I couldn't shake the "cheap"
feeling of a point and shoot because of the mirrorless design, although I
admit that it's completely psychological.

How do you like it?

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sib
I'm not who you asked, but I've recently been experimenting with a Sony A7Rii
(I primarily use a Nikon D810 & various f/2.8 pro-grade Nikkor zooms, from
14mm through 400mm). The Sony is really very good; feels good in hand, the
sensor and image rendering is great, and the glass (55mm f/1.8 and 16-35mm
f/4) are also very high quality. They also seem quite solid. The thing where
the camera still misses a bit - for me - is in the ergonomics. The D810 has
all the right buttons, dials, and switches, so I rarely need to go into a menu
for things that change frequently. I find the Sony to be not quite there yet.
They do seem to be evolving a lot quicker than the traditional DSLR makers.

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StavrosK
Let's hope Canon and Nikon get some competition. They seem to be avoiding
adding easy software features so they can add them to later models.

Digital cameras still don't have detailed intervalometers (or even a timer
that goes over 30 seconds)? Why don't we have burst modes that can
average/median multiple images into one so we get fake long exposures? I can
find tens of features I could very easily code, and which firmwares like Magic
Lantern have, but that Canon still has not added.

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sib
Agreed! But, just like the traditional car companies being taken on by Tesla,
Nikon and Canon are being chased by software. So much more innovation in
mobile phone photography...

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analog31
That's pretty cool.

A lens that can resolve 16k elements in each direction must be a pretty
impressive engineering feat by itself. I do a little bit of optical design,
not enough to know whether or not such a lens is possible at the state of the
art today.

When can I get one in my phone? ;-)

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userbinator
I wonder how many of those pixels are dead, since that is a _huge_ IC and the
yields are likely to be very low otherwise. Even a few thousand dead pixels
scattered randomly throughout wouldn't be particularly noticeable though, as
interpolation is used to mask them out.

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chillingeffect
I like that the prototype camera is simply a metal box with a lens and a
handle :) Reminds me of Neal Stephensons' _Hole Hawg_ [ 1 ]

[ 1 ] [http://www.team.net/mjb/hawg.html](http://www.team.net/mjb/hawg.html)

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jacquesm
Thanks for that link!

That's an excellent tool from an excellent company. I had one of their
circular saws (the hand operated variety, not the table model) and
accidentally dropped it down a 39' roof. I fully expected it to be a goner but
to my surprise it worked just as well as before the drop, the saw body had a
little scratch from the impact but that was about the extent of the damage.

The Hole Hawg sounds interesting, I've never seen one but it is - like any
other tool - judging by the story a tool to respect. I like tools like that,
the ones that just do what you tell them to without any fuss.

The biggest drill I have here is a Bosch contractor version, it's 'only' 1150
watts, spins really slow but makes drilling holes in just about anything
deceptively easy. I'm always very conscious of my position relative to the
tool and I'm very careful making sure that if it would seize that I can
release the trigger. The day I bought it I wore out my previous drill on a
hole in a concrete floor, it just died and gave up the ghost. The blue monster
took care of that hole in about 1 second, doing it's lazy and surprisingly
quiet spin.

The contractors motto: don't force it, use a larger hammer :)

