A record-breaking uber-camera was developed just for the Las Vegas sphere

The Las Vegas Sphere is a real building with a huge LED screen on the outside. (Image: Earth LLC. via Adobe Stock)

System cameras with small sensors don't have it easy: smartphones have long since taken over the entry-level range and even cameras with relatively large APS-C sensors are losing popularity.

For this reason, more and more manufacturers are relying on full-frame cameras. Fujifilm is even relying on the even larger medium format for its professional cameras.

But even those look tiny compared to the sensor in the Big Sky camera – it has the largest image sensor in the world of cinema cameras and was designed for one purpose only: recording video material for the Las Vegas sphere.

Creating films for the Las Vegas Sphere is not easy

The Las Vegas Sphere is one of the most impressive buildings of recent years. This is a 112 meter high sphere that has millions of LEDs installed on the outside that… 53,883 square meter screen to form.

Viewed from the outside, the Sphere looks almost surrealistic.

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Xbox is using the Sphere in Las Vegas and it looks nothing short of impressive

Things continue impressively inside: The Las Vegas Sphere is essentially a giant spherical cinema. The LED screen measures a total of 14,864 square meters and extends across the inside of the building. There are 18,600 seats for spectators.

But how do you actually record videos and films that are to be displayed on such a giant display? Such a camera must have an extremely high resolution, as the Las Vegas Sphere's screen displays approximately 16K x 16K and offers an especially wide field of view.

The previous answer: 11 cinema cameras from RED, arranged in a circle and whose recordings were then stitched together later. To simplify the process, Sphere Studios, the company behind the Las Vegas Sphere, has developed a record-breaking camera.

One camera to replace 11

The gigantic image sensor and the huge corresponding fisheye lens. (Image: Wall Street Journal)

The Big Sky camera has a sensor with a resolution of 316 megapixels and has a size of 3×3 inches. This is the largest camera sensor in commercial cinema cameras and is almost seven times larger than the full format of many professional cameras.

Videos can also be recorded at 120 FPS – a refresh rate also supported by the Las Vegas Sphere.

The lens used is an extremely wide-angle circular fisheye lens. Because the lens casts a circular image onto the sensor, it is square so that as much image information as possible is recorded.

Sphere Studios traveled the world with the camera to record footage for the documentary “Postcard from Earth,” which will be broadcast on Sphere. The film allows viewers to visit impressive locations and experience them up close.

All photos were taken with just this one lens.

The Wall Street Journal published a very nice article about the camera and the Las Vegas Sphere, which you can see here:

Link to YouTube content

In addition to immersive films, the new camera should also enable VR visits to places around the world – or even beyond. For example, one of the future plans is to film the ISS. The camera also has a bayonet for interchangeable lenses, which theoretically makes it ready for other purposes. The future will show.