111-Megapixel CCD Chip Ships

georgewilliamherbert writes "EETimes is reporting that Dalsa has shipped a record-breaking 111-megapixel CCD image sensor to customer Semiconductor Technology Associates. The chip was paid for by a U.S. Navy SBIR project. At four inches across, a bit big for camera phones, but the 10560x10560 format will probably get professional digital camera users drooling."

Link to "printable" stories

[Anonymous Coward]

I wish submitters would start linking to the "printable" versions of the stories: http://www.eetimes.com/news/semi/showArticle.jhtml ?articleID=189500300&printable=true [eetimes.com]

Re:Film

[gid13]

Call me a noob, but does anyone have any idea how much resolution the human eye can detect (per some unit of area, of course)?

Please note that I am not calling these devices worthless. Even if the human eye can't detect that much resolution on a poster there could still be applications for enlargements etc. I would think.

Re:Not for pros

[Nico3d3]

It may be at its limit for the number of megapixels but, there's still a lot of things to improve like the maximum color range a digital camera can record. With 16 bits color channel, we would be able to record a lot more informations so we wouldn't be limited as much when we try to capture a high dynamic range picture. There's tools like in Photoshop CS2 to give you the abilities to have high dynamic range but it would be a lot better to have it directly in the camera.

There's more than just pixel count . . .

[Orange Crush]

For actual consumer devices, higher pixel count doesn't always mean better pictures. Color quality, optics, processing, etc. can make a huge difference. We're limited largely by what our eyes can perceive and our display devices actually represent. I guess such huge resolutions might be helpful for "zooming" without needing the lens assemblies . . . but there's still atmospheric distortion to contend with . . . It's a shame TFA doesn't mention what this CCD is actually supposed to be used for.

Capture rate.

[Kaenneth]

Is this only for still images, or can it be used for moving images? (over time, like a movie, not emotionally, like a childs tear)

Obviously you'd need a heck of a data transfer rate for motion, but how fast could this pump data out, clear, and capture the next image?

Resolution ain't everything

[brownsteve]

the 10560x10560 format will probably get professional digital camera users drooling.

Megapixels are nice, but I would trade high-res for a high-quality lens any day of the week. For example, NASA's Spirit rover took those stunning photos (that we all drooled over) with only a one-megapixel image sensor. [space.com]

Consumer version already available, kinda

[RobertB-DC]

Well sure sounds like that'll BLOW AWAY 35mm film and definitely be about comprable to 4x5 film.

I was actually looking for a funny link, but this guy [kenrockwell.com] makes a great point -- a good scanner and a roll of that 4x5 film [kenrockwell.com] -- yes, four inches by five inches, absolutely huge compared to a 35mm roll -- will get you 100 megapixels of resolution for a couple thousand bucks.

It reminds me of a story I saw (on PBS or Discovery Channel) about modern medicine in developing countries. People will pay extra for a "digital X-Ray", even though the cheap equipment produces a digital image that has far less resolution than a plain old film X-Ray. But it's "digital", so it must be better.

And don't even get me started about overpriced digital stereo cable [sears.com]!

Re:Film

[Cowclops]

Well, resolution of the human eye would be detected in angles (degrees/minutes/seconds), not area, but nonetheless I think I can give the approximate answer you're looking for based on some general rules for selecting screen size for high definition. For a 720p screen, you generally want the screen size to be about half as wide as the distance you're sitting from it, such that a 1280x720 image is considered more or less fully resolved about 10' away from a 60" (width, not diagonal as TVs are usually quoted) screen, or 5' away from a 30" screen, or any combination you wanna calculate.

I guess to turn that into angles, the width of a pixel in a 1280 line wide image on a 60" wide screen is about .047". If you're sitting 120 inches away from a .047" pixel, the angular width of that pixel is arctan(.047/120) or about 1.3 arc minutes (1.3 sixtieths of a degree).

To establish an upper limit for overall resolution, figure that viewers tend to find distance to width ratios of less than 1.3 or so for movies uncomfortable. So, to establish an upper limit on useful resolution for movie watching (not that anyone has yet implied that movies were involved) you can pretty much multiply 720 by 1.5 and, astoundingly, come to the conclusion that fully sharp 1080p is all you really need for the optimum movie experience. Going to resolutions beyond that would be a waste for video.

Nonetheless, most of that is just a hypothetical excercise as the REAL point of sensors that high in resolution (as others have pointed out) are things like satellite imaging and other scientific uses.

CCD sensors this size have been around for a while

[LordByronStyrofoam]

They're used in the larger optical telescopes. Very expensive, and often only greyscale, they offer huge dynamic range.

Re:Not for pros

[ScottLindner]

That's not entirely true. I have an uncle that shoots large format and pays $50 a scan for images about this size. The CCD size in this article is about the same size as his large frame film. So it's really not out of the question. Although highly unlikely and rare need for sure. So in general I completely agree with you, but there are a sick few that would actually use it and be able to justify it for the work they do.

I don't expect to see anything remotely close to this in a large format camera any time soon. Although we might see it in frame cameras. Hmm... I totally see it showing up there. Although the CCD and resolution would need to get a lot large to support the needs for frame cameras. But it would probably be too expensive. Hmm.. nevermind.. already found one that exists: http://www.vexcel.com/products/photogram/ultracam/ index.html [vexcel.com] Guess the demand is there already.

Re:Great...

[MoxFulder]

the 10560x10560 format will probably get professional digital camera users drooling. ... I imagine the memory card vendors, hard drive vendors, backpack vendors, and chiropractors will be drooling at this as well :-)

Re:Film

[ScottLindner]

I have used a film scanner to scan all film I have ever shot in my life. I now use a Digital SLR for all of my photography. I can tell you a few things that I have observed. First, my film scanner has a scan resolution of 2700DPI. For a 35mm film frame, that is roughly 51MB for an uncompressed 16bit color channel frame. I believe in terms of megapixels it's just over 10Megapixels. One thing I noticed is even my 100 speed film has very observable film grain at this dot pitch. My Digital SLR has some distortion when I look at the raw high res image but it's not nearly the same. So my conclusion is that even older DSLRs CCDs have better grain resolution than traditional film. As a note, I used relatively cheap color film. More expensive, black and white, or slide film may be so much better than SLRs of today. I once thought of shooting all slide film for better color depth and resolution, but felt it was too much of a PITA to scan it all by hand.

Next note. The are odd color aberations with SLRs that I still see today that do not exist even in the crappiest of color film that I scanned. There's a look that all digitals have that a trained eye can see. I haven't received any shots taken from truly high end professional DSLRs to see if they have solved this problem but even D30s have it.

Final comment is regarding color depth, undersaturation, and over saturation. Since they are all related/same. Film is still by far superior in this regard. DSLRs still undersaturate long before standard color film. Oversaturation is still a problem. Look at the full res pixels of anything shiny. It stands out pretty bad. Skin tones have always been a huge problem. I have no clue why since skin tones are typically in the mid range. Color depth and saturation/undersaturation still has a lot of room for improvement with DSLRs.

So I guess all I really needed to say is that I've observed that grain seems to be mostly solved with DLSRs.. but none of the other issues have yet.

Oh yah.. film speed is another big one. When I crank up my DSLR to 1600ISO it really sucks. Much worse than 1600ISO film. Maybe this is where the film grain comment comes from?

Re:Film

[Anonymous Coward]

Current digital sensors in high end DSLRs have better usable dynamic range than slide or print film. The difference is that digital sensors are linear capture devices while film is a logrithmatic capture medium. What this means is that when you exceed the upper bounds of a digital sensor, you are finished. There is no way to regain any of that data once the sensor has been overloaded. With film, you can saturate the crystals, but it is much harder to do as film rolls off before it reaches its saturation point. This produces more pleasing highlights, but not more usable dynamic range. And as has been said, Adobe Photoshop CS2's HDR 32bit/channel image merge and a tripod can give you more dynamic range and lower shadow noise than you can even come close to producing with film.

In terms of pixel density with low noise, the Canon 1DsMkII is already pushing the limit of most wide angle lenses edge resolution abilities. While Canon's super teles (which are some of the finest lenses ever produced) have more resolution than can be capture by even the 1Ds, lenses are quickly becoming a bigger problem than sensors at the high end.

Also, I take it you never shot high ISO film. Even my 5 year+ old 1D performs better at ISO1600 than any ISO1600 film does, and the MarkII offers about 1-2 stops better high ISO performance.

SBIG

[mattr]

They say a very rough estimate is $0.01 per pixel. At that rate, 111 mpx would be 1 million bucks and that's just the sensor!

reference [pacificsites.com]

Re:Film

[dk-software-engineer]

they are saying that when viewing such a screen at 20", the human eye can detect *each* of the rgb pixels??

Yes, of course we can. Make one pixel stand out (white on black, or black on white) and it is very clearly visible.

It must also be one of the reasons why so many people don't like to read on a screen: The very low resolution. The letters just has so much more detail on print.

I also often notice the pattern in singlecolored areas on a screen. I'm not claiming I can see red, green and blue dots, but I can see that it's not just a flat color, without moving too close to the monitor.

Re:Film

[toonworld]

....Click!!

Oh wait, hang on while I change my 1Gig card because it's already full after 1 shot.... ok... click!!

wash and repeat