DALSA Semiconductor, a division of DALSA Corporation (TSX:DSA), an international high performance semiconductor and electronics company, announced today that it has successfully fabricated and delivered the world’s highest resolution image sensor chip to its customer, Semiconductor Technology Associates (“STA”) of San Juan Capistrano, California. The CCD device, which measures approximately four inches by four inches, has a total resolution of over 111 million pixels (10,560 pixels x 10,560 pixels at 9µm). It is the world’s first imager to break the 100 million pixel barrier.
It won’t take 111 megapixels to kill film… it’s already is on it’s way out with 5 megapixel cameras.
Most likely, film will have an enduring role but not as a common consumer item.
This will kill the market for large format black-and-white film for people will several million dollars in their pockets.
You know who will be the first buyer? The porn industry! 111 Megapixel bouncing (and other words ending in “ing”) women. That JPG is going to take a long time to download…but damn…when it gets here it will look spectacular!
Don’t you wish someone had marketed a digital insert for 35mm cameras. I’d love to keep my Pentax MX running but the attractions of digital are too much.
A 4 inch CCD might just fit into something like a Hasselblad – or how about a plate camera – all it needs is some suitable electronics.
LOL you said it prophet…
The porn industry has always been the pioneers to taking initative with new technology…
>Don’t you wish someone had marketed a digital insert for 35mm
>cameras
Somebody was 2 or 3 years ago – don’t know what happened to it.
Some larger format cameras have digital backs. Hasselblad does, but it’s more for pros with collections of very expensive glass. You can easily swap the back for the film one also. Their new H2 line looks very promising for the pros or very serious and wealthy amateurs. I believe the Hasselblad digital backs attach to external hard drives. These are of course studio cameras.
The thing that kills me about digital…and I’ve been a professional photographer now for over 30 years…is that there is no longevity in it. For instance, there is still 35mm film around and while it’s still around I can pick up a 60 year old Leica and run film through it and it will still come out looking great.
In 60 years will I still have this Canon 20D I currently use? Also, I have negs from 30 years ago…all just sitting here without any special storage or anything. I shot them and developed them once and that’s it. If I want to use them again I just re-scan them….but any digital shot I have to keep track up on a continuous basis or else they may get lost. I have to make sure that every HD is backed up….make sure that I’m not missing one little thing that may be over here….no no, it’s over there on that computer….no, it’s on CD…wait that has a limited shelf-life, so transfer your ENTIRE digital library to new media….every few years. Yet while you’re doing that, glance over at your negatives that are still ok without any extra work from you.
In fact, I have negatives taken by my great great grandfather over 100 years ago! Will my great great grandchild be able to even access my pictures 100 years from now?
Just a hair off topic, but still in the arena of new tech; is it Firefox, me or simply too high of an expectation to expect my browser to redirect back to where I was after I do the little dance with the anti-spam code?
LOL #9…
Yeah…that does get annoying…
Great, you’ll be able to see women’s nipple hair in porn now!
You guys are being ridiculous… The poster is clearly talking about 8mm movie film!!
The really interesting thing is that Kodak makes the 22-megapixel imager in the Hasselblad digital back. Everyone forgets that Kodak still makes some of the best digital image chips in the industry. (They used to make imagers for US satellites during the Cold War.)
To address the point of the post, film joined the LP as a niche enthusiast product a long time ago.
I was at the Louvre last year and, of course, went to see the Mona Lisa.
It was facinating … I was the only person there actually LOOKING at the painting.
Everybody else — a few hundred — were either taking a picture of it or having their picture taken with it. (I left my camera at home assuming cameras weren’t allowed.)
I’m not exaggerating… I took the time to look at the crowd and make sure what I say is correct. NOBODY BUT ME was actually giving the painting a good look. Everybody was taking a picture.
Are they going to go home and THEN look at the Mona Lisa on their computer screen? But why do that when you had an opportunity to see the original?