RED Introduces 'Helium,' a New 8K 35mm Sensor for the Weapon and Epic-W

RED Digital Cinema’s President Jarred Land and Chief Design Officer Matthew Tremblay have announced a new sensor line that might get RED fans excited. Dubbed Helium, the first in the line is an 8K Super 35mm sensor, which has 3.65 micron pixels. It differs from RED's current 8K VistaVision sensor in size; according to Cinema5D:

To squeeze 8K into a smaller super 35mm chip necessitates new (smaller, denser) pixels. I’ve been told that smaller does not mean any compromise in imaging performance, quite the opposite, these are “better” pixels.

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Cinematographer Phil Holland shared a graphic on the RedUser forum that illustrates how the Helium sensor compares to those in other RED cameras.

Credit: PHFX

Land says that the Weapon Magnesium will be updated with the new Helium sensor, and the new Epic-W will come equipped with it. A Dragon has already been custom-built for Michael Bay for his work on Transformers: The Last Knight containing the new sensor.

There isn't a whole lot of information out yet about the Helium, so we'll keep you posted as we learn more.

Source: RedUser