Canon announced that it has developed a new 410-megapixel 35mm full-frame CMOS sensor, which is the “highest pixel count ever achieved” for a sensor of this size.
Because of the level of detail the new sensor can capture, Canon expects it to be used in “surveillance, medical and industrial” applications where “extreme resolution” is required. The 410-megapixel Canon sensor has a resolution of 24K, which is 198 times more than HD and 12 times more than 8K. This makes it easy to crop and enlarge photos captured by the sensor without losing detail.
Very high megapixel counts are usually limited to cameras with medium format sensors. However, the advantage of Canon packing so many pixels into a 35mm camera is that it can be used in combination with lenses for full-frame sensors.
Canon had to make quite a few design changes to achieve this. The new sensor features a redesigned circuit pattern and a “back-illuminated stacked structure” with “pixel segments and signal processing segments arranged in layers.” This means readout speeds of 3,280 megapixels per second and video at 8 frames per second. According to Canon, the monochrome version of this sensor can bin together four pixels at a time to shoot even brighter images and capture “100 megapixel video at 24 frames per second.”
While it’s unlikely that this type of sensor will find its way into consumer cameras anytime soon, the fact that this level of miniaturization is possible means it could someday become a reality for photography enthusiasts who want it. I am doing it.
