[Photo credit: Andy Westlake]

The sensor is designed to be capable of distinguishing the lettering on the side of a plane around 11 miles (18km) away.

First announced last month, the world’s first 250MP CMOS sensor has high-speed processing technology that captures incredibly detailed high-resolution photos and videos – said to be ‘ideal for security usage, with potential for astronomy’.

Canon touts the APS-H-size sensor as having the world’s largest number of pixels for a CMOS sensor smaller than 35mm full frame.

Canon 250MP camera image [Photo credit: Andy Westlake]

Canon 250MP camera image [Photo credit: Andy Westlake]

In a statement released on 7 September, Canon said: ‘With CMOS sensors, increases in pixel counts result in increased signal volume, which can cause problems such as signal delays and slight discrepancies in timing.

‘The new Canon-developed CMOS sensor, however, despite its exceptionally high pixel count, achieves an ultra-high signal readout speed of 1.25 billion pixels per second, made possible through advancements such as circuit miniaturisation and enhanced signal-processing technology.

‘Accordingly, the sensor enables the capture of ultra-high-pixel-count video at a speed of five frames per second.’