Digital Large Format

[Crosswind]

I know there are some few high-end digital medium format cameras, and probably Canon will produce their own MF cameras someday.

The real question is; Will we ever see a bigger sensor format for digital photography, even bigger than medium format? What's the problem with digital large format? It'd offer so much more quality for those who don't ask for the price but want the highest possible quality.

There is one interesting exception; Largesense will offer a digital large format mirrorless camera body in 2016:

Here are the features:
-The first single shot large format digital back camera for sale
-8x10 (10x8) inch high sensitivity, large pixel (fat pixel) digital sensor
-CMOS and single shot sensor
-Live view for easy focusing. No more ground glass!
-WiFi for remote viewing and control
-Large format 4k movie mode
-Video through large format lenses, such as Petzval! Plus all kinds of tilting and shifting
-Sheet film work flow is slow. Worried about getting the shot? Try taking 24 shots a second, and not letting up! (with fast external drive connection)
-Shuttered and non shuttered operation.
-Memory card and external hard drive support.
-Mirrorless - being a mirrorless camera is popular now

You guys think that Canon will be ever up to something like this?

 

[Rupp1]

You guys think that Canon will be ever up to something like this?

Absent a huge breakthrough in sensors, sounds large and heavy. Seems that digital medium format is consolidating. What would large format do? 24 fps sounds a lot like a movie camera-Canon could do that.

 

[scyrene]

There is already a thread on this: http://www.canonrumors.com/forum/index.php?topic=27041.0

 

[Mt Spokane Photography]

I know there are some few high-end digital medium format cameras, and probably Canon will produce their own MF cameras someday.

The real question is; Will we ever see a bigger sensor format for digital photography, even bigger than medium format? What's the problem with digital large format? It'd offer so much more quality for those who don't ask for the price but want the highest possible quality.

There is one interesting exception; Largesense will offer a digital large format mirrorless camera body in 2016:

Here are the features:
-The first single shot large format digital back camera for sale
-8x10 (10x8) inch high sensitivity, large pixel (fat pixel) digital sensor
-CMOS and single shot sensor
-Live view for easy focusing. No more ground glass!
-WiFi for remote viewing and control
-Large format 4k movie mode
-Video through large format lenses, such as Petzval! Plus all kinds of tilting and shifting
-Sheet film work flow is slow. Worried about getting the shot? Try taking 24 shots a second, and not letting up! (with fast external drive connection)
-Shuttered and non shuttered operation.
-Memory card and external hard drive support.
-Mirrorless - being a mirrorless camera is popular now

You guys think that Canon will be ever up to something like this?

The Article about Largesense came out a while back. I hope they can actually make the cameras they promise.

Canon will not, given the current market.

There is a simple reason. Canon's expertise is in mass production of products at a low cost. They may make R&D Technology Demo products, but they want to sell products in quantity and not in production runs of 10-100. If there were a market for 10,000 or more, and it was profitable, they might jump in.

Right now, MF companies are in a tailspin and are being sold or consolidating because the market cannot support them.

Small companies are better suited to small production runs for specialized purposes. The movie Industry has been known to purchase high priced specialized gear, but they usually have bought low numbers and then leased it out. They might buy 10 of them, for example.

 

[rfdesigner]

Canon will be able to, and may already have made a large enough sensor.. possibly... for a telescope somewhere....

the usual way make large telescope cameras is:

https://www.eso.org/public/unitedkingdom/teles-instr/surveytelescopes/vst/camera/

Basically an array of smaller sensors.

You get an image as if taken through an old window with all the mullions blocking the light. As you make images by stacking several shoter images it's quite easy to jiggle the camera from side to side and up and down so the entire area is imaged.

multi-Giga-pixel cameras are what's being built today for the top end telescopes.

Not much use for single images of course... but there's demand and budget for this stuff and fewer larger sensors is the way to go, so someone somewhere will do it.

Expect a larger mount to reduce vignetting though.

 

[PhotographyFirst]

Their 4x5 sensor is less than 10MP. LoL

Kinda defeats the whole purpose of the larger format.

I am guess these are re-purposed telescope sensors or something?

If anyone wants LF image quality, just stitch with a zoom lens and a FF camera. Same image quality, more versatility and vastly less weight and money.

 

[Famateur]

It would seem to me that sensor yield per wafer would make such large sensors ridiculously expensive. The sensor fabrication experts on the forum could probably speak to this with more detail...