Large Format 4K Cinema Camera anyone? LargeSense LS911

[12:23 Fri,20.April 2018 by Rudi Schmidts]

Arri Alexa 65? IMAX? Kids& stuff! The LargeSense LS911 is a digital large format camera that literally eclipses everything that has ever existed in the field of large film sensors.

The sensor of the LS911 should be an incredible 11x9 inch (almost 28 x 23cm, about the size of a DIN A4 sheet). With a gross resolution of 3888 x 3072 scythes, the camera actually offers the possibility to film with up to 4K resolution. For example in UHD or Downscaled HD with up to 26 fps. But also in 2x2 binning modes or HD sensor cut-outs with up to 70 fps. In addition to MP4/H.264, TIFF sequences with 16 bit, as well as DNG and CinemaDNG are available as formats. Audio ends up in a WAV file.

At 75 microns, the edge length of a sensor is ten times that of a Sony A7s, which means that the area of a sensor is a hundred times larger than that of a Sony A7s. (Nice side note: When manufacturing such a sensor, only one piece really fits on a 12-inch wafer in chip production).

The background noise on such sensing surfaces must be enormous, since the camera only has to create 11 f-stops despite the gigantic FullWell. The sensor itself does not have a Bayer color filter array, which is why the camera can only provide b/w images in video mode, even without the typical debayering errors. Here is a test shot from the camera:

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However, practical operation of the camera is just as impossible without a solid tripod construction as without a mains power supply. The giant sensor requires around 150W to operate. The following video gives a nice insight into the practical operation of the LS911:

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Our conclusion: If you are looking for a lot of Bokeh, you can&t get around the LS911, but in our opinion ProRes RAW is still missing for a further distribution. The manufacturer LargeSense wants to implement a moving sensor with the next version. The price is about 100,000 dollars which seems to us to be extremely favorable compared to the sensor size :)

more infos at bei largesense.com

deutsche Version dieser Seite: Large Format 4K-Cinema Kamera mit DIN A4 großem Sensor - LargeSense LS911