There is a lot of excitement today surrounding Sony's announcement of the a7R II camera body. Sony has introduced the first backlit full frame image sensor, which comes in at 42.4mp.
About Sony's Backlit Sensor:
… the sensor’s back-illuminated structure, with an expanded circuit scale and copper wiring design, enables faster transmission speed and ensures content can be captured in high resolution without sacrificing sensitivity. Data can also be output from the sensor at an approximately 3.5x faster rate compared to the original α7R.
Many are already wondering if this is something Canon has been working? The answer is yes, we've seen Canon patents in the past that talk about back-illuminated sensors.
We haven't heard anything about this sort of technology appearing in an upcoming Canon DSLR. However, we have been told that we will see “big strides” in high ISO performance on the next generation full frame professional cameras, namely the EOS-1D X Mark II and EOS 5D Mark IV.
Kudos to Sony on what appears to be a terrific update to the A7R.