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

Due to the level of detail the new sensor can capture, Canon expects it to be used in “surveillance, medicine and industry,” where there is a need 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.

Usually, 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 used “in combination with lenses for full-frame sensors.”

Canon will have to make more than a few design changes to do this. 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 into 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 at a time to capture brighter images and capture “100-megapixel video at 24 frames per second,” Canon says. .

It doesn’t look like this type of sensor will make it into a consumer camera anytime soon, but the fact that this level of miniaturization is possible means that one day it will, for those photo addicts who want it. .