You want a camera with a high resolution? Try 261 megapixels!

[Darin Brunin]

Red Digital announced a new megacamera system this morning...I don't know a lot about the company but from the specs it seems very very impressive. If you are willing to fork over some money of course.

http://www.engadget.com/2008/11/13/reds-digital-still-and-motion-camera-system-now-official/

Scarlet will launch in 4 choices ranging from $2,500 (and possibly less) to $12,000 with a variety of lens mounts (yes, Canon and Nikon) capable of shooting 3K @120fps on up to 6K @30fps. Epic will offer similar mounts with capabilities spanning 5K @100fps ($28k) to 9K @50fps ($45k) -- a 28K system hitting 25fps is expected in 2010 for $55k. Still image resolutions will range from 4.9 megapixels to a freakish 261 megapixels. The first Scarlet systems could come as early as Spring of 2009 while EPIC should arrive by summer. Of course, the brain is just the beginning of the costs. RED also introduced a 3D camera today in true, "one more thing" fashion.

 

[Dan Robinson]

If a 12 mp RAW image is 16-18 megs, a 261 mp image would be 380-400 mb. Time to get some new hard drives!

 

[Tony Perkins]

I like the modular ideas behind these cameras. Imagine when you can eventually buy their obsolete camera parts on Ebay and plug them into the 3D configuration on the cheap.

 

[Rob Wadsworth]

Hmmm....261Mpxl's would be approximately 10-12 feet across (if printed) and use up terabyte HDD rather quickly - even if max compression were to be used.

Just what is the primary use of this unit?
"...The brains are built upon Mysterium-X and Mysterium Monstro sensors which start at 2/3-inch and end at a whopping 6x17-cm -- when a new sensor comes out you just upgrade the brain. Scarlet will launch in 4 choices ranging from $2,500 (and possibly less) to $12,000 with a variety of lens mounts (yes, Canon and Nikon) capable of shooting 3K @120fps on up to 6K @30fps. Epic will offer similar mounts with capabilities spanning 5K @100fps ($28k) to 9K @50fps ($45k) -- a 28K system hitting 25fps is expected in 2010 for $55k..." -Quote

Yikes! A modular camera that takes into account the lens system that you prefer - and you can buy as much camera as you need! This has plenty of potential, and with the right marketing with target clients can easily turn the camera world on its ear - as we know it!
I wonder if this doesn't change the terabyte barrier in HDD into the 50-100 terabyte range? What would happen to the light -based media? They would have to lose resolution - or vastly compress it in order to make it work in its present form. SuperBlu-Ray anyone?

I wonder if it has exceptional low-light capacity? If it does, and can compress file size on-board - then present camcorders have more than met their match. The prices for various setups makes it affordable - when one considers your requirements for what you intend to film.

Nice find Darin B...
Very interesting.

 

[Robert Edmonds]

I think I mentioned this in another post, but eventually were going to get to the point of over sampling, already at high zoom you'd probably be close to oversampling given the diffraction limit with this camera... Just something to think about, not saying more megs is bad, just saying we should probably start thinking about other details when it comes to camera performance when you have such high resolution. For example lenses when it comes to photography are probably not diffraction limited...

 

[Dan Robinson]

The resolution of the human eye is around 576 MP. Amazing to think that new sensors are about halfway to that. Now only if they could come out with a sensor that had the same dynamic range as our eyes, and we'd never need another camera.

 

[Rob Wadsworth]

The resolution of the human eye is around 576 MP. Amazing to think that new sensors are about halfway to that. Now only if they could come out with a sensor that had the same dynamic range as our eyes, and we'd never need another camera.

Good point. If this camera can also mimic the dynamics of light - low intensity to high - that would be closer still.
Human sight isn't as dynamic with color, especially among males that suffer colorblindness in less than 10 percent/pop. Allthough we can do it beter thana lot of animals, while some animals can sense certain color bandwidths far more easily than we can.
Bees/insects can see UV and distinguish more of it than we can - as an example.