Canon 120MXS 120MP sensor will be great for surveillance

It's been more than 3 years in the making but now Canon has something more concrete to show than just promises and theoretical data. Back in 2015, it announced, among two other next-gen cameras, a 120 megapixel SLR camera that has yet to actually launch. It has taken one step closer to making that drool-worthy and pocket-burning camera a reality with a 3-minute video showcasing why this particular sensor won't be of interest just to photographers but even to security agencies and personnel.

With an ultra-high resolution of 120 megapixels, in other words 13,280 x 9,184 pixels, the Canon 120MXS sensor boasts of 60 times higher resolution than your average 1080p (1920x1080) Full HD image sensor. That sounds great on paper, but the proofs Canon offers will definitely leave you impressed.

The sensor is naturally able to record more detail than a Full HD sensor, which means that you can zoom into an image very deeply without running into a loss of detail, often represented as blurry pics. And that's just from a regular shot, no special lens or magnification used.

Canon also put the sensor to use in a rugby match to monitor thousands of anonymous people. Regular security videos, even in, say, 4K resolution, wouldn't be able to clearly identify faces from a large distance and wide range. No problem for the Canon 120MXS, which is both impressive and frightening at the same time.

That said, even three years later, Canon has not yet made any announcement on an actual end product with this remarkable sensor. The fact that it was able to use it in a working contraption does hint that it should be close to launching a 120 megapixel camera at long last. Expect it to be pretty expensive, of course.