Canon has developed a 410-megapixel full-frame sensor

Canon announced that it has created a new 410-megapixel, 35mm full-frame CMOS sensor, “the largest number of pixels ever achieved” in a sensor of its size.

Because of the level of detail the new sensor can capture, Canon expects it to be used by”surveillance, medicine and industry,” where there’s demand for “extreme resolution.” With 410 megapixels, Canon’s sensor has a resolution of 24K, 198 times greater than HD, and 12 times greater than 8K. That makes it simple to crop and then enlarge a photo captured by the sensor without losing detail.

Typically, sky-high megapixel counts are limited to cameras with medium-format sensors. But the beauty of Canon cramming this many pixels into 35mm is that it should be able to be used “in combination with lenses for full-frame sensors.”

Canon had to make more than a few design changes to make this happen. The new sensor has a redesigned circuitry pattern and a “back-illuminated stacked formation” where “the pixel segment and signal processing segment are interlayered.” That translates to a readout speed of 3,280 megapixels per second, and video at eight frames per second. A monochrome version of the sensor can bin four pixels together at once to shoot even brighter images and capture “100-megapixel video at 24 frames per second,” Canon says.

It doesn’t sound like this kind of sensor is going to make it into a consumer camera anytime soon, but the fact this level of miniaturization is possible means one day it could, for the photography sickos who want it.