A 250 megapixel sensor developed by Canon

Japanese camera manufacturer giant Canon announced today about the new sensor it has developed. According to the reports from the Verge, it is a 250 megapixel 19,580 x 12,600 APs-H CMOS sensor. This new sensor has set the world record for having such a great resolution with such a small size. The company boasts that the sensor is capable of distinguishing what’s written on the side of a plan from a distance of 18 km i.e., 11.1 miles. It is next in the line of APS-H sensors which are slightly bigger that the APS-C sensors. However, they are still smaller than the full – frame sensors. APS-H sensors are commonly used on the legacy EOS-1D DSLRs of Canon.

The new sensor has very good signal readout speed i.e., 1.25 billion pixels per second – which is very fast. Canon claims in spite of the huge pixel count the sensor’s noise performance is good. Videos at incredibly high resolution can be captured using the sensor and the videos will be 30 times sharper than those produced at 5 frames/ second and with a resolution of 4K. Canon says this new technology could be used in applications such as crime prevention tools, specialized surveillance, UH resolution measuring instruments, field of visual expression and other industrial instruments. However the sensor won’t find its way in to smartphones and digital cameras.

Canon said it had to cross many technical hurdles to get it working. Initially there were problems concerning signal and timing while retrieving data from the pixels. After solving the problems data could be read at a rate of 1.25 billion pixels/ second. The sensor has dimensions 1.15 x 0.79 inches which is smaller when compared to sensors used in 35mm digital cameras. The pixels are placed at a gap of 1.5 microns. This is the same size as the one found in usual cameras. Dr. Konstantin stefanov, Senior researcher at Open University’s Centre for Electronic Imaging says, “Sensors can be made bigger, but the question is why you would want them to be bigger, because as they get bigger you have more and more problems. Their large size means you can only read them once every few seconds, so they are only good for specialised applications such as astronomy or surveillance.” Canon says the sensor presently is capable of shooting 5 frames per second which is not sufficient for making a movie. However, whatever it captures is 125 times much denser than those shot by other cameras and also 30 times better than a 4K video. Dr. Stefanov added that building bigger sensors is possible and they can be used even in applications such as X – ray machines where the sensor is used in place of photographic plate for capturing an image. However, since the other elements of the imaging system have been improved which reduced the requirement of large sensors. The need for bigger sensors can be avoided using better optics