The Introduction of Large Sensors for Digital Cine Acquisition Cameras

35mm format digital motion picture cameras have become available and their accepted use is increasing. Most notably, the three instruments are the Arri® D20™, the Dalsa™ Origin®, and Panavision®/Sony® Genesis™. The Arri® camera is based upon complimentary-metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) integrated circuit (IC) sensor technology with a color filter matrix and the Dalsa™ and Panavision® cameras are based upon charge-coupled-device (CCD) sensor technology, the former with a color filter matrix and the latter without (separate RGB channels). These cameras are intended to greatly surpass the performance of HDTV acquisition systems and, at a minimum become a useful adjunct to film acquisition, if not replacing film altogether. — These systems are typically close to the 35mm motion picture film format of 24mm (H) x 16mm (V) and on the order of 10 mega-pixels. An important capability for these new sensors is compatibility with existing cine lens families, as opposed to custom and unique lens requirements. — Although affordable multi-mega-pixel still cameras have been available for several years, motion picture acquisition cameras demand much more performance from the sensors and ancillary electronics. For many reasons the appearance of electro-optic sensors of this size and utility for cinematography have only recently become available outside of the scientific and defense communities. Certainly sensors that operate at much higher frame rates than 24P have been available and sensors much larger than 10 mega-pixels have been available for years. Charge coupled devices have been in use for more than 30 years and CMOS IC sensors started to appear approximately 10 years ago, stemming from read-out IC (ROIC) multiplexers from the infra-red focal plane array community. It wasn't until 2000 when an experimental 12 mega-pixel CCD, 24P camera was reported³. This paper discusses the convergence of technological achievements that have made multi-mega-pixel fast framing sensors available today and what may be forthcoming for EO sensors in the future.

Published

2005-11

Content type

Original Research

DOI

10.5594/M00398

ISBN

978-1-61482-942-3