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

Film

[Cowclops]

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

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:Film

[the eric conspiracy]

The problems that prevent digital sensors from blowing away film are that pixel densities that approach film resolution are too noisy, and digital sensors don't have the ability to handle as wide a range of light intensities as film does.

Re:Film

[binkzz]

Some estimates put it at 300-500 megapixels, but it's really relative; the brain doesn't process all the eye sees.

Re:Film

[Lord Crc]

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)?

I found this page interesting. Here's a quote:

Consider a 20 x 13.3-inch print viewed at 20 inches. The Print subtends an angle of 53 x 35.3 degrees, thus requiring 53*60/.3 = 10600 x 35*60/.3 = 7000 pixels, for a total of ~74 megapixels to show detail at the limits of human visual acuity.

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

[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

[kfg]

His post refers to the resolution of the eye itself . . .Which may not answer the original question. . .

"Per unit area." I believe, although he didn't express it quite right, that what he's interested in is how many dots per inch at a given viewing distance on the print before the human eye cannot tell the difference.

He wants to know how much camera is actually overkill when all he wants is a picture of his girlfriend for his desk.

The answer, of course, is "it depends." I haven't seen his girlfriend so I don't know what the appropriate resolution would be.

KFG

Re:Film

[severoon]

It's not a noob question, but it does try to liken things that are not alike. Unfortunately, the human eye and cameras are different beasts that tend to frustrate nearly every attempt at comparison. This is in large part due to the fact that when most people say "the human eye" they actually mean the "eye-brain system," which is far more complicated than just the eye, which is itself already complex enough to do plenty of the frustratin'.

In any case, the issue with throwing the brain into the mix is that it does a lot of "post-processing" on the images that stream in from the eye and give us a mental picture much different from what the eye itself is actually able to pick up. Also, the eye has different kinds of vision--in the center of the field of view, in a very narrow range in fact, we see with acuity. Outside that very narrow range, our brain fills in a lot of the details that we think we see from moment to moment, but is actually not being "seen" in the same sense as what's in the center of view. (Of course, this comment will inevitably beget the philosophical discussion: what does it mean to "see," exactly?) If you doubt that your eyes only see with acuity in a fairly tight circle around the direct center of your field of vision, try this experiment: pick up a book, open it to a random page, and fixate your eyes on a word somewhere in the center. Now, see how many words you can read around that word without moving your eyes to look directly at those words. The words you can make out fall in your acute vision field. (You'll find that if you move the book farther away, you can read more words because they fall within the same angle--this works up until it gets so far away the overall level of acuity you enjoy isn't high enough to make out any of the words at all.) The rest of your field of view is in your non-central field (I'm callng it). Your peripheral vision is comprised of the part of your field of view for which your brain does not bother filling in any detail--you're only vaguely aware of it in the visual sense provided it's not moving.

What our non-central vision lacks in acuity it makes up for in motion detection. That's why hunters often say when you first spot prey in the distance that's fairly well camoflauged with its surroundings as it moves about, don't look directly at it, but look slightly to the side. That way, when it starts moving again you'll see it and you can put it in center vision again, but once it stops, look off to the side again. Stargazers often use this trick as well--if you look directly at a faint star, after a couple of seconds you'll question whether it's actually where it was just a moment before. But if you look slightly off to the side, your eyeball moves around and twitches enough that it creates apparent "motion" of the faint star you're trying to see and you can pick it up again. (Incidentally--this is the reason why our eyes in are constant motion...if you've ever tried to make your eyes exactly still you know how difficult it is to keep from twitching them constantly. It's because our brain requires that motion to keep the motion detecting parts of your eyeballs feeding the detail your visual cortex craves. You'll also find that if you are able to keep your eyes at all from twitching for an extended period, 10 or 15 seconds, you'll find that the level of detail in your non-central vision starts to fall off, sometimes even fading to black...this isn't very noticable until you start twitching again and suddenly see color and detail spring back.)

Anyway, the point is, no matter what one says about the eye in relation to a camera, someone will be bound to argue (and, in some sense, almost certainly be right). It's kind of a useless endeavor to try to get a megapixel rating for the eye, or figure out what it's dynamic range is, etc. A more fair comparison would be hooking a camera up to a computer, then periodically having the camera move slightly and snap a shot, then the computer takes it and stitches it into a composite of the entire scene comprised of s

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.

Great...

[MudButt]

I can't wait to get 10560x10560 resolution family photos named IMG_1000.jpg as attachments in my inbox...

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...)

Obligatory tongue twister

[Anonymous Coward]

if a cheap ship ships cheap chips, how much cheap chips shall the cheap ship ship?

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.

And how many bad pixels?

[dlleigh]

How many bad pixels before the unit is considered faulty and can be returned?

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?

It's spinal tap all over again....

[dmjones500]

You can imagine the developers on the phone to their competition...

What?? That camera's rubbish.... ours goes up to one-hundred and eleven!!

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.

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 makes a great point -- a good scanner and a roll of that 4x5 film -- 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!

Re:Consumer version already available, kinda

[dabraun]

Digital X-Rays involve several orders of magnitude less radiation exposure than film X-Rays. That, and the instant development allowing you to know right away if you need to take another shot, are what make digital X-Rays worthwhile. The resolution is more than adequate for either digital or film X-Rays.

Wow your family is smart...

[nacs]

... My family sends IMG_1000.BMP to my inbox. I think they like the lossless (non-)compression.

Re:Not for pros

[spaceyhackerlady]

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.

The CCD cameras used by astronomers routinely produce 16 bits per pixel. Most of these are monochrome devices: to shoot a colour picture you must shoot pictures through red, green and blue filters, then combine them.

The key advantages for astronomy are zero reciprocity failure (film loses sensitivity in long exposures; CCDs don't), high quantum efficiency (almost all the photons intercepted by the sensor are noticed) and excellent linearity (you can digitally subtract extraneous light, like city lights).

However, even in astronomy, there is a hard core who still do film. There are many reasons: some people just like the look, others enjoy the craft of wet darkroom work, and so on.

My favourite camera is a 4x5 press camera, a Crown Graphic. It takes perfect 1950s newspaper photographer pictures. And I develop and print them myself.

...laura

what's really exciting about this

[spirit_fingers]

The best part about this announcement isn't the 100 megapixel size. Photographers can already buy large format digital backs for view cameras with 300 megapixel resolution (albeit for a hefty price). But they use multiple CCDs and require external power supplies and HDDs. This new chip opens up intruiging possibilities for a self-contained high resolution camera that requires much less power to operate. Still, a CCD of that resolution will generate raw image files of about 350 megabytes each, so portability will necessarily be compromised to a degree by storage requirements.

Astronomy?

[Michael Woodhams]

The fine article appears slashdotted, so I don't know if they cover this. The application which leaps to my mind for this detector is astronomy. Astronomers will pay big money for a better detector - I've seen a US$200k chip (2k x 2k pixels in about 1990, for use in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey camera.) Even at these prices, it is cheaper to get the same quality upgrade by improving your detector than by building a bigger telescope.

Astronomers run their CCDs at liquid nitrogen temperatures (to reduce thermal noise), and for UV astronomy they use "thinned" chips (etch/grind away the back of the chip so you can illuminate it from that side - otherwise too many photons are lost before reaching the light sensitive volume.) I'm not sure what other features astronomical CCDs require which might not be present in this chip. Pixel size shouldn't matter too much (except in its effect on noise) as you can design your camera to scale the image to suit the detector.