Credit: Canon/BBC
Something like this has long seemed to me to be the future of photography — large pixel-count sensor combined with digital zoom.
Two times digital zoom on a 250 megapixel sensor yields a 62.5 mp image. Or 15 mp with a 4x digital zoom. If 4x zoom isn’t enough, add a moderate optical zoom, say 3x, for a 12x combined digital plus optical zoom, yielding the same 15 mp image.
Pixel counts, pixel density, processing speed & storage capacity continue to increase, while cost continues to fall.
Don’t expect to buy a camera with a sensor like this any time soon, but extrapolating from the history of digital photography, expect a consumer camera producing 10 mp images with an 8x digital zoom inside ten years. Implementation could be with no, or a more conservative digital zoom in the camera. Bigger files would be saved in the camera's storage. "Zoom" could be done later by cropping. This alternative would depend on the cost of camera storage at the time.
Remember, you read it here first.
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-34173423
https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/213596-canons-250-megapixel-sensor-can-read-the-side-of-a-plane-from-11-miles-away
http://www.theverge.com/2015/9/6/9270865/canon-announces-250-megapixel-sensor / electronics optics company Canon developed 250 megapixel sensor digital cameras Canon sensor sensitive read lettering side of an aircraft 18km 11.1 miles away domestic cameras smartphones ultra-high-resolution sensor find role surveillance systems other specialised applications slow shooter Canon overcome several technical hurdles sensor functioning signal timing problems introduced reading data from 250 million pixels 19,580 x 12,600 on board data read chip speed 1.25 billion pixels per second Canon improved signal processing systems ensure picture taking well coordinated sensor measures 29.2mm 1.15in by 20.2mm 0.79in smaller sensors 35mm digital cameras individual pixels sensor about 1.5 microns across approximately the same size consumer cameras Dr Konstantin Stefanov senior research fellow Open University Centre for Electronic Imaging impressive technical feat sensor how useful sensors made bigger bigger more problems large size read once every few seconds specialised applications astronomy surveillance Canon sensor shoot video five frames per second slower rate needed film movies video clips captured 125 times more dense standard HD video 30 times resolution of 4K video Dr Stefanov build bigger sensors very specialised applications hospital X-ray machines sensor replaced photographic plate capture captured image improvements elements imaging system made large sensors unnecessary do not need big sensors use smaller better optics simply increasing the number of pixels is not the only way forward /
