Phase one builds first 80 MP Medium Format camera design for RC helicopters or drones!
(They may even shrink one of the 100MP to fit a drone!)

If you haven't heard of Phase One you're not a Photographer. Everyone's heard of Nikon and Canon but these pale in comparison. Nikon's highest resolution camera is the D800/810 @36.8 MP and uses what we call a Full Frame sensor. Phase one is one of the leading Medium format camera manufactures. Medium format is a much larger sensor in the digital world (they started out as film but copanies quickly started manufacturing digital upgrade backs for these cameras). Anyhow, I think the Phase One starts out at 40 MP and goes up to 100MP!  Now these are serious cameras, a 40MP can run as high as a used car around $7,000-10,000 while a 80MP can run $50,000 new! These cameras don't have a machanical shutter from my understanding and will live a good while, so used prices are pretty steep as well.

Phase One hasn't set a price on their new drone line up but they mentioned a possible $60,000 for their 80mp drone cam. You know someone will be crying if that drone flys away lol Anyhow, this is more for you serious commercial applications and not so much the hobbyist. But I still thought it was cool.

http://www.gizmag.com/phase-one- ... drone-camera/36834/

Stand by for more and better...
Memory cards and processing power will need to leap accordingly (probably are)

250 MP Canon APS-H sensor BTW APS-H is smaller than a full frame 35mm SLR!

Care for a 1.8 GigaPixel (Yes, Giga) drone camera? then you need the ARGUS-IS

Besides the cost, since these weigh almost as a Phantom, they're not going to be much use to anyone flying a Phantom or Inspire.

I would think that the actual need for a camera of that resolution in the air is very small. I can't see them selling many of them.

mike.wildlight Posted at 2016-2-22 04:58
Stand by for more and better...
Memory cards and processing power will need to leap accordingly (pro ...

We already have better memory cards available, their just not needed or utilized. The standard Phase one uses CF cards zero issues. Of course their not shooting video. If they need something faster, Sacndisk makes a 250 MB card and Sony makes a 350 MB card.

labroides@yahoo Posted at 2016-2-22 09:00
Besides the cost, since these weigh almost as a Phantom, they're not going to be much use to anyone  ...

But, But, it's cool.

And besides, the camera weighs 2lbs and a Phantom can pick up 2.5lbs

SVTRay Posted at 2016-2-22 12:04
But, But, it's cool.

And besides, the camera weighs 2lbs and a Phantom can pick up 2.5lbs

Agreed, cool and interesting!

First DSLR I ever used was 1.5MP, cost over $20,000, and weighed nearly 1.7 kg without a lens. Prices and weights change.

There's a lot more to sensor performance and usefulness than just Mega Pixels, but all other things being equal I can't imagine a photographer that would actually say "no thanks, I don't need any more resolution". (When did "need" become a factor-damn-it I want it)

All these cutting edge developments eventually filter down to consumer markets, otherwise we wouldn't be flying around these teeny, tiny 12MP 4k cameras with High Definition downlinks and satellite navigation.

Thanks for sharing SVTRay!

SVTRay Posted at 2016-2-22 13:04
But, But, it's cool.

And besides, the camera weighs 2lbs and a Phantom can pick up 2.5lbs

There's a slight difference between "can pick up" and can fly safely and perform well.
Testing by Dronexpert suggested that that sort of weight would eat 14 minutes of the Phantom's normal flight time and as the video shows, it would fly like an overloaded pig.

Plus ... you'd more than double the weight of the camera by the time you added a lens and gimbal.
Interesting camera .. but not for a Phantom

labroides@yahoo Posted at 2016-2-22 11:41
There's a slight difference between "can pick up" and can fly safely and perform well.
Testing by D ...

You think? I bet you're a blast at parties lol

It was meant as a joke. I already stated this was for more serious commercial applications. This could help pressure DJI and other drone manufactures to create a higher resolution camera system.

Faster memory cards are't a huge deal as most medium format camera have a  pretty slow frame rate, and they don't generally get used for sport/action type stuff. There very specialized cameras, mainly used for portrait/editorial type stuff, and mostly for the "medium format" look more then anything (extra thin depth of field). Another use for them is due to leaf shutter lenses (shutter is in the lens) they can have very high flash sync speeds, making outdoor light even in full sunlight very easy. Medium format camera often have 1/1600 of faster flash sync speeds, my 1Dx for example, has canons fastest flash sync speed of 1/250sec.

There very good cameras for certain applications, but really bad for others. There high resolution could defiantly have applications in aerial surveying.

Riley-NZL Posted at 2016-2-22 16:05
Faster memory cards are't a huge deal as most medium format camera have a  pretty slow frame rate, a ...

These cameras are still cameras, so the speed of the card is not a big issue, as the camera can take its time to write the file.

Geebax Posted at 2016-2-22 19:13
These cameras are still cameras, so the speed of the card is not a big issue, as the camera can ta ...

The APS-H sensor from Canon would require some pretty special storage
"Video footage captured by the camera outfitted with the approximately 250-megapixel CMOS sensor achieved a level of resolution that was approximately 125 times that of Full HD (1,920 x 1,080 pixels) video and approximately 30 times that of 4K (3,840 x 2,160 pixels) video. The exceptionally high definition made possible by the sensor lets users crop and magnify video images without sacrificing image resolution and clarity."

mike.wildlight Posted at 2016-2-23 17:30
The APS-H sensor from Canon would require some pretty special storage
"Video footage captured by  ...

True, and as far as I know, there are almost no cards on the market that could deal with that. Even multiple SSDs would have trouble. They would have to use mathematical compression to start with to get the file size down.

Geebax Posted at 2016-2-23 19:47
True, and as far as I know, there are almost no cards on the market that could deal with that. Even  ...

Yep Cool huh
There's no mention in the article of how they did it in their test but perhaps the test length was measured in  frames rather than seconds or minutes.

Geebax Posted at 2016-2-23 17:47
True, and as far as I know, there are almost no cards on the market that could deal with that. Even  ...

350 MB XQD cards?

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/ ... s=REG&A=details

SVTRay Posted at 2016-2-24 05:26
350 MB XQD cards?

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?O=&sku=1086278&gclid=CjwKEAiAo7 ...

Yes, they should do the job.

Just on that subject, I did see a clip somewhere on the 'net showing a small section of video from a Phase One camera and it was very impressive. But what can you do with that sort of resolution, you cannot distribute it, so it would have to be downscaled to 1080 to make it useful then you lose much of the value of an $60K camera.

Geebax Posted at 2016-2-24 06:24
Yes, they should do the job.

Just on that subject, I did see a clip somewhere on the 'net showing ...

This isn't a youtube camera, this is "I'm making the next Fast & Furious" movie camera!

Just think of the print size, our 12mp cameras barely produce a decent 30"X20" wall prints. My 36.8mp can make a high resolution print around 36X24 and a decent 40X30. An 80mp can produce fantastic high resolution 60X40 print. The record for the highest sold photo is over 6 million and it was shot using a Phase One 80mp camera.

Anyhow, it's cool to me. Hopefully the Phantom 4 will come with a higher resolution camera.

SVTRay Posted at 2016-2-24 07:52
This isn't a youtube camera, this is "I'm making the next Fast & Furious" movie camera!

Just thin ...

Definitely needs higher resolution lens.
Also, I'm guessing it was jsut an anaolgy, but I don't think there are any Medium format cameras that can shoot video yet.

Riley-NZL Posted at 2016-2-24 09:10
Definitely needs higher resolution lens.
Also, I'm guessing it was jsut an anaolgy, but I don't thi ...

Ya, it was an analogy.

I'm pretty sure this is for stills only. I'm not sure what it's market is going to be though, It's a bit expensive for 3D mapping. You can get a fixed wing autonomous drone with a 24.6mp for 2-3k. (company in my area has started making them in this range). You can get 60-120 minute flight times with a fixed wing while a quad large enough to carry this camera is looking a what 20-45 minutes tops?

I cant find the link...
I recall a guy winning a DARPA contest by using a few hundred 12mpx relatively cheap phone camera sensors and turning it into 1 FAT camera. A lot of processing was required but he proved that you can use domestic tech to do military grade spying. If DJI squashed 4x4 (16 x 12mpx) camera lens into 1 lens and used POST processing on a PC, I think you would be half there...

quanthonytrang Posted at 2016-2-24 09:39
I cant find the link...
I recall a guy winning a DARPA contest by using a few hundred 12mpx relative ...

Pentax, phaseone and similar brands that use sensor based image stabilization are doing the same things as well, take 4-5 pictures in a row and move the sensor slightly, then merge the images to create one high res image. I think phaseones 50MP back uses this technique to output 250MP files.

There is a growing need to take high quality aerial photos for producing Google Maps photos, but I don't see drones doing this work. In order to get undistorted, highly accurate shots, you need a very precise lens, and this makes for a quite heavy and bulky camera. Added to that, they need to be taken from high altitudes to get the best results, and this would be above the flight levels that drones would be allowed.

SVTRay Posted at 2016-2-21 18:04
But, But, it's cool.

And besides, the camera weighs 2lbs and a Phantom can pick up 2.5lbs

Thanks!  I was wondering how large of a water balloon the P3 could lift.  Working on plans to mount a self contained (own battery) servo on my P3P and use a cheap RC car remote to move the servo arm and drop a water balloon on target (neighbor, friend, whomever needs cooling off).

Pretty crazy specs.

Buy Low Posted at 2016-2-24 12:18
Thanks!  I was wondering how large of a water balloon the P3 could lift.  Working on plans to moun ...

Not sure if serious...but it sounds fun anyhow lol All I ask is that you point the camera down and post the video

Buy Low Posted at 2016-2-24 15:18
Thanks!  I was wondering how large of a water balloon the P3 could lift.  Working on plans to moun ...

Perhaps you could post this as a separate thread, it has nothing to do with the current topic of Phase One cameras.

For $46 The UAV Bits 3 glass Filter Pack includes:

one ND4 filter, 2-stop
one ND8 filter, 3-stop
one circular polarized filter
Free Shipping in the Continental U.S.