Here’s a peek of what’s to come in the camera industry: Sony is reportedly getting ready to announce two new full-frame sensors, one of which will be capable of 60 megapixel photos, 16 channels, and 8K video recording.
According to sonyalpharumors “the info was received from a trusted source that the next two sensors will have the following specs”:
Sensor #1
- 60 megapixels
- 16 channels (“which is crazy, normally it should be 8,” writes sonyalpharumors)
- 4.6FPS @ 16-bit
- 12FPS @ 14-bit
- 8K30P @ 12-bit
- 8K60p @ 10-bit
- 4K60p @ 12-bit
- FHD300P @ 10-bit
Sensor #2
- 36 megapixels
- 10FPS @ 16-bit
- 60FPS @ 10-bit
- On-chip phase-detection autofocus (PDAF)
“On paper [the sensors] could [shoot 16-bit RAW photos],” sonyalpharumors tells PetaPixel. “But most often camera specs cripple the full sensor capabilities. What’s cool is that on paper it does 8K too!”
Reports also indicate that the sensors will have the following features:
“Weighted pixel binning: Improves the image quality when shooting videos with pixel binning. Already featured in a lot of Sony sensors.”
“A new dual-gain ADC mode: Improves the dynamic range by almost 2 stops. The sensor loses 50% speed when using it. Details not known yet. Already in X-T3’s sensor.”
“Digital Overlap HDR (DOL-HDR): It’s like bracketing, but you can shoot 2 frames almost at the same time! (The minimum time interval is only 1/6000 seconds). All the new sensors with 3.76um pixel size have this function.”
The two sensors will reportedly be available for both Sony’s own cameras as well as third-party companies that use Sony’s sensors. Even if these sensors are only sold to other companies and not used in-house, they give us a baseline indication of what the coming generation of Sony cameras may offer.
