Image Sensor World spotted this new 20.4MP curved sensor from CEA-LETI. It’s a prototype for astronomical applications:
“By directly correcting the field curvature in the focal plane, curved detectors help saving about one third of the optics, usually used as field flatteners, and then avoids undesirable distortion effect either in the image and also on the optical properties across the field of view.
Why does this news matter? Because back in 2015 Sony did present a similar sensor. This is the first picture of Sony’s curved sensor via Spectrum:
And in 2015 we also spotted a patent of a Full Frame Sony curved sensor with 35mm f/1.8 lens. So this might be really the future of the camera RX series. I don’t think Sony will use such a sensor on an E-mount camera because none of the current E-mount lenses would work with it. It would make much more sense to use these sensor on a brand new system camera like a medium format Sony 🙂