Last March, Canon riled up the filmmaking community when they announced their full-frame 35mm CMOS sensor that can literally see in the dark. Canon has just released an amazing video of the sensor capturing footage of Yaeyama-hime fireflies -- images captured in an "exceptionally dark shooting environment." Check out the video after the break.
Canon, along with Zero Corporation, took a camera prototype equipped with the high-sensitivity sensor to Japan's Ishigaki Island to film fireflies after sunset. The fireflies were filmed in an environment that provided less than 0.01 lux. To get an idea of just how dark that is, a full moon provides approximately 0.3 lux and a crescent moon, approximately 0.03 lux. Canon says this in the press release:
No artificial lighting was used during shooting, which took place after sunset amid the island's mountains. Despite an exceptionally dark shooting environment of less than 0.01 lux, a level in which the naked eye would have difficulty discerning surrounding objects, the CMOS sensor was able to capture not only the color of the light emitted by the fireflies, each of which measures only a few millimeters in length, and their movements, but also the surrounding vegetation in which the species lives.
Check out the footage provided by Canon. Unfortunately -- and also ironically, there is only a standard definition video available to embed.
For the specifics on the sensor, check out our earlier post that lays it all out for you.
What do you think of the footage from Canon's 35 mm full-frame CMOS sensor? It definitely has documentary/corporate uses, but does it have any practicality in narrative filmmaking in your opinion? Let us know what you think in the comments.
[via CanonWatch & The Verge]
