As the film industry continues to transition away from traditional celluloid film to digital sensors, we are seeing major advances in digital sensor technology. Sensors are becoming higher resolution, higher sensitivity, higher dynamic range, and all the while becoming cheaper. Canon just announced a new stills sensor that they say has 250 Megapixels (250 Million pixels) that can create a staggering 19,580 x 12,600 pixel image. And while this is a stills only sensor, it just goes to show what Canon is capable of with sensors today.
Fresh off the announcement of the replacement for the very popular Canon C300, the C300 Mk2, Canon has just announced a new member to the Cinema EOS Series. Though it doesn’t have a name yet, Canon claims that this new, yet to be released, camera will have an 8k sensor. They also claim that it will be able to deliver that 8,192 x 4,320 pixel image at an impressive 60 frames per second and that it will also boast 13 stops of dynamic range. This puts Canon back into the race (and possibly ahead) against RED’s 6k Weapon, and Arri’s 6k Alexa 65. This is an interesting new development from Canon as they have traditionally been slow to make major leaps in technology. They seem to go with the “see what everyone else is doing and do it better” idea. This development isn’t all that surprising though. Now that the Canon C300 Mk2 can shoot 4k internally, this made the C500 (which can also shoot 4k, but requires an external 4k recorder in order to do so) some what obsolete. It only makes sense that Canon would come out with something higher than 4k to replace the C500. Whether this new camera will replace the C500 has yet to be determined, but it would make sense if it did.