Pre-PMA 2008 Releases: New Full-Frame Sony Sensor

This came over the wire while we were flying to Vegas last night for PMA. (We must've missed it while stumbling bleary-eyed and tired to our hotel after the long night flight.) Sony's Tokyo headquarters announced last night that it's developed a new 24.81-megapixel full-frame CMOS sensor for digital SLRs. This isn't huge news considering that the Nikon D3 already uses a full-frame 12.1-megapixel CMOS sensor built by Sony -- the bump up in pixels was inevitable -- but the new chip does appear to be faster than anything on the market right now at that resolution. Sony claims it will be able to shoot 6.5 frames per second though whether the buffer of whatever camera it's put into can keep up with capturing so much information so quickly, remains to be seen.

Also, as has been noted elsewhere, the new Sony CMOS sensor only offers 12-bit A/D conversion on the chip where other current DSLRs -- the Nikon D3 and Canon 1Ds Mark III to name just two -- include a 14-bit option.

More info on the new sensor can be found on this press release at Sony's website.