Pushing Micro Four Thirds to 47 Megapixels

For most of this month I’ve been focused on perfecting the performance of the Sony imx294 sensor on the WLV-01. To give some background on this sensor, it’s normally used in astrophotography and is rated at 10.7 megapixels natively. It is setup by default to be a binned sensor which helps immensely in low light situations.

The initial hack I discovered was that there is potential to create an unbinned mode for the camera to unlock 47 megapixels because it shares the same silicon as the imx492. Initially, unbinning the sensor worked but it caused colour shifts and demosiacing issues because it’s a quad bayer sensor. I eventually got it setup to take clean 47 megapixels images by tweaking how it interprets the green channel.

Here’s an article that explains the difference between a quad bayer and normal sensor in more detail: https://www.sony-semicon.com/en/technology/mobile/quad-bayer-coding.html

To test out the sensor, I took it into the studio to try it out on some portrait shoots. Here’s how the images look under different scenarios:

Full Spectrum No Filters (Black becomes rendered as a light purple in this lighting)
Tungsten Lighting
Lens - Micro Nikkor 55mm F3.5

Visible Light - IR cut filter applied
Tungsten Lighting
Lens - TTArtisan 25mm F2

Visible Light - IR cut filter applied
Natural Lighting
Pentax Takurmar 28mm F3.5

Full Spectrum No Filters
Natural Lighting
Lens - Helios 58mm F2

Visible Light - IR cut filter applied
Natural Lighting
Lens - Helios 58mm F2

Experimental Modes

In addition to unlocking a 47mp mode, I have been experimenting with generating monochrome raw images using the quad bayer sensor data. So far the results have been pretty good and will be sharing some results once I get a chance to test them out in the field.

Overall, this new sensor is ready to go for the upcoming Kickstarter campaign! I’m excited to see what everyone is able to create with it once it’s out.

Kickstarter Pre-Launch

Thanks again for following along and will have more updates soon!

Cheers,

Malcolm