Kodak Unveils 50-Megapixel CCD Image Sensor

One of the units of measure of a digital photograph is the number of megapixels. This measurement is the number of dots (pixels) used to store the image. More dots make a picture clearer. Therefore, generally speaking, an 8-megapixel camera will take better pictures than will a 6-megapixel camera. A 10-megapixel camera should take better pictures than either of those with lower megapixel capabilities. (I am ignoring lens quality and other factors.)

For the past ten years or so, we have seen the number of pixels constantly increase in consumer-grade cameras. Long ago, two-megapixel cameras were common, then four and then five and then six and so on. Nowadays, 10- and 12-megapixel cameras are available for $100 to $150 or so. Now Kodak has announced a major step forward: a 50-megapixel sensor for use in digital cameras.

At 50 megapixels, the sensor captures digital images in astonishing detail. For instance, let’s suppose you use a 50-megapixel camera to take an aerial photo of a field 1.5 miles (about 2.5 km) across. If you enlarged this picture, you could see clearly an object about the size of a small notebook computer (1 foot by 1 foot).

The new sensor also reduces “click-to-capture” time for improved camera response, lowers power consumption for improved battery life, and improves color fidelity.

Details may be found at http://tinyurl.com/5uwcul.

The price of this 50-megapixel camera will be very high when first introduced. However, the original four- and six- and eight-megapixel sensors were also expensive when first introduced. The prices dropped quickly as manufacturing ramped up, and I suspect these 50-megapixel cameras will do the same. Look for them in the discount stores about five to ten years from now.

Comments

[John Ralls]

Umm, I guess you didn't notice that this sensor is for medium format cameras like Hasselblads (that detail is the last sentence of the fifth para in the press release). Not the sort of camera most folks tote about for vacation snaps, even when cost is no object. The cameras are huge and weigh several pounds.

The new Kodak sensor represents an improvement in manufacturing a large chip rather than smaller pixels. At 48mm x 36mm, it has only 29 thousand pixels per square mm. A 12MP point and shoot, whose sensor chip is somewhere around 5.5mm x 4mm, has about 500 thousand pixels per square mm. (Still not many compared to the hundreds of millions of transistors per square mm on a recent CPU.)

The pixel density of existing point and shoot cameras is already bumping up against a physical limitation: The individual sensor is so small that the noise generated by heat in the chip is significant compared to the signal generated by light hitting the sensor from the lens. That noise has to be filtered out by processing software in the camera (or in your computer if you save a RAW file)... and that processing ends up removing much of the detail gained by adding pixels. The result is that the end product from a new 10 or 12 MP camera often looks no better than that from the previous 6 0r 8MP model unless the photos were taken in very bright light.

I'm not going to say that there won't be 50 megapixel point-and-shoots for $200 five years from now, but I will suggest that without some profound changes in the way sensor chips are made you probably won't want one.

[tav]

Please don't do the tinyurl thing. People ought to be allowed to see where they're being sent before they agree to go there.

[Jason Presley]

For Tiny URL Previews, look here:

http://tinyurl.com/preview.php

It's highly unlikely Dick is going to send you somewhere unseemly.

[Dick Eastman]

TinyURL is a valuable tool and one that I hope to continue using often.

When displaying very long URLs, some people with older web browsers find the display on their screen becomes too wide to fit. Let's say I write a five page article and in it I list one very long URL. The older web browsers will try display THE ENTIRE ARTICLE in an extremely wide web page, far too wide to fit on any screen. Reading any of the article requires lots of scrolling horizontally.

Every time I write an article with a very long URL in it, I receive complaints from several readers. TinyURL solves the problem. It displays properly on all screen sizes in all web browsers.

- Dick Eastman

[JC]

I find the TinyURL to be a very useful tool and appreciate when others use it. Some URLs are excessively long, and TinyURL is a great solution. I wonder though if posting a little detail about the link might help inform people about where the link will take them. For example, in this entry Dick might have written something like:

Details may be found at the following Kodak News Release web page: http://tinyurl.com/5uwcul.

Just an idea.