Specialist movie camera manufacturer RED has released details of a new 8K sensor for its Weapon cinema camera.
Called the Helium, the new sensor at 29.9 x 15.77mm is smaller than RED's 8K Dragon sensor (40.96 x 21.6mm). Both will boast 8192 x 4320 pixels.
One big advantage of the new Helium sensor is that a wider range of lenses will be able to used with it, even though it is slightly larger than the standard Super 35mm format.
It is expected that the Helium sensor will be easier to make and may take some of the pressure off difficult supply of the larger Dragon 8K VistaVision sized sensor.
The Helium is designed to operate in the same Weapon camera, but company CEO Jarred Land has suggested via the RED User forum that a new camera, the Epic-W, will also be released featuring the new sensor.
While little technical detail on the new Helium sensor has been released it is known that the pixels will be just 3.65 microns and that the sensor will be available in "coming months". The $60,000 8K Weapon will be available with both the VistaVision-sized Dragon sensor, first announced last year, and the smaller Helium sensor.
For more information see the RED website and REDuser forum.