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."

Comments

That's a big sensor.

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's a pic of the sensor itself: http://www.dalsa.com/shared/content/images/STA1600 _1_1200w.jpg. (Too bad there aren't any pics from the sensor...)

Re:Film

[pla]

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

ISO100 film has a grain size of approximately 5 microns, which corresponds to a resolution of 36MP. Standard 4k scanning (12.5MP) captures all the detail in anthing short of the pro-est of the pro, and 8k scanning (54MP) all but guarantees that even future advances in scanner technology won't have the ability to extract any further detail from a 35mm negative.

You would need godlike optics, bright light, and a perfectly still subject and camera to come anywhere near that 36MP with ISO100 35mm film, but it represents a sort of upper limit at that speed. 4x5in film therefore has an effective resolution (at something comparable to ISO100) of 500MP.


So, this can effectively replace 35mm film in terms of resolution. It falls a bit short of replacing truly professional-quality film, however. But then, how often do you need to print out your personal pics at literally bilboard size?

Re:Film

[Aqua OS X]

Yup, viewing distance is important.

If you're doing something for a small print piece you want a high DPI (ie 300). If it's a poster you can use a lower DPI. If it's a Billboard you can use a significantly lower DPI.

I'm a graphic designer and I recently committed the industry's cardinal sin the other day... I had a comp printed at Kinkos. I was printing a fairly large bus shelter poster that was 150dpi. The newb behind the counter had the audacity to bitch about DPI, even though (I would imagine) it was fairly obvious that I did this for a living.

If you're developing something large in Photoshop you do -not- want to play around in 300 DPI. People read those things from a few feet away and, I don't care if you have a new dual-core dual g5, you do -not- want to wait for a 30x40in bitmap to rotate on a multilayered 300 DPI document.

That said, high res photography is important. You may only want to highlight a small piece from a large image, and you can't do that unless you have good source material.