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Author Topic: A true 6x7 CMOS low light sensor camera, can it exist?  (Read 71886 times)

S Meyers

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Re: A true 6x7 CMOS low light sensor camera, can it exist?
« Reply #100 on: April 10, 2015, 01:57:00 am »

Price seems quite reasonable for the sensor size (and with four other smaller sensors as a bonus), but:
Weight: 65Kg
and that does not include the power supply needed for:
Power consumption: 280W
so, not so good for field use.

The $160k is just for the 250 MP sensor mounted in a separate custom camera, weight, size, and power requirements I do not know.  The link I provided shows it being used in a aerial surveillance system that probably sells for around a million.   The first attachment gives some details about the 250 MP sensor, it does exist now and shows a real dollar value to what that costs are for going big. 
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Ken R

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Re: A true 6x7 CMOS low light sensor camera, can it exist?
« Reply #101 on: April 10, 2015, 08:34:10 am »

I am sure Sony can stitch two Sony CMOS 33x44mm 50mp sensors together and make it work. A 66x88mm 100mp sensor would be amazing. With live view one can basically design and make a pretty compact camera that takes a wide range of existing 6x7 lenses. Eliminating the optical viewfinder makes camera design much more simple. Basically all the technology is out there to make this camera today.
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BJL

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Re: A true 6x7 CMOS low light sensor camera, can it exist?
« Reply #102 on: April 10, 2015, 10:32:09 am »

The $160k is just for the 250 MP sensor mounted in a separate custom camera, weight, size, and power requirements I do not know.  The link I provided shows it being used in a aerial surveillance system that probably sells for around a million.   The first attachment gives some details about the 250 MP sensor, it does exist now and shows a real dollar value to what that costs are for going big. 
Aha: a million for the whole enchilada is more in line with what I would have guessed.

Anyway, thanks for the $160K figure; it gives us some guidance, and probably an upper bound on what a 6x7 digital camera would cost.
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BJL

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I am sure Sony can stitch two Sony CMOS 33x44mm 50mp sensors together and make it work.
For what people would want in a 6x7 "artistic" medium format camera (as opposed to a scientific or technical tool) it does _not_ work to glue multiple sensors together side by side.  This "butting" is already done for other purposes, like X-rays, machine vision, telescopes and aerial photography, but there are visible join lines many pixels wide, which would ruin "artistic" photography.

The "stitching" already used to make bigger sensors like 36x24mm and 44x33mm is done during etching of the sensors onto the wafer, and is a high-cost, low-yield process, with "cost per usable sensor" rising rapidly as sensor size go up and so more pieces much be stitched.
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Ken R

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For what people would want in a 6x7 "artistic" medium format camera (as opposed to a scientific or technical tool) it does _not_ work to glue multiple sensors together side by side.  This "butting" is already done for other purposes, like X-rays, machine vision, telescopes and aerial photography, but there are visible join lines many pixels wide, which would ruin "artistic" photography.

The "stitching" already used to make bigger sensors like 36x24mm and 44x33mm is done during etching of the sensors onto the wafer, and is a high-cost, low-yield process, with "cost per usable sensor" rising rapidly as sensor size go up and so more pieces much be stitched.

I am not an engineer obviously.

Th point is the tech is out there to make it work without much trouble. Obviously it is not gonna be cheap. But a lot of people would accept twice the sensor size for four times the cost. Don't know the cost of the Sony sensor but it can't be that high given the 645z is priced at under 10k.

Takes someone like Jim Jannard to pull it off though. Someone with the vision, the will and the money to do it.
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BJL

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I am not an engineer obviously.

The point is the tech is out there to make it work without much trouble. Obviously it is not gonna be cheap.
There is no doubt that it is technologically possible to make very large sensors, up to the size that fills an entire wafer, so 200mm or even 300mm on the diagonal.  Companies like Teledyne-Dalsa offer such sensors on custom order to customers who are willing to pay the price, in both CCD and CMOS now.

But the approach that you proposed is almost certainly not suitable for an imagined 6x7 sensor for a medium format camera; it has been tried repeatedly, and works for some needs but fails for that usage.  If you disagree, please tell me why -- bearing in mind your first sentence above.
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