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Reçu — 8 mai 2026 News: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

Adam Savage's IMAX tours show the art behind large format films

IMAX Projectors
Left: Two IMAX film projectors. Right: Two digital IMAX projectors. Do note, this isn't the caliber of equipment you're likely to find in your local theater, even at "IMAX"-branded showings.

It's a rare thing to be able to see a full-fat IMAX film projection, but former Mythbusters star Adam Savage is letting everyone take a peek behind the curtain to see what goes into exhibiting movies using such a large format. Over the past few weeks, he's posted two videos shot at IMAX's headquarters, taking a look at the projection process in one and the film scanning and printing processes in the second.

The video on projection, which you can watch below, illustrates the scale of the machinery needed to project an image from a 70mm negative onto a 27m-tall (90') screen. The reels and projectors used are larger than a person, and the film has to travel up through the floor between the two. Watching it, it makes it seem like a miracle that the whole thing works at all.

Even more incredible is the process of scanning and printing the film, depicted in the second video. Both steps are essential for movies shot on IMAX that need VFX work (which is to say almost any contemporary movie shot with the format). In it, Savage admires what was apparently IMAX's only scanner until surprisingly recently, and which is built like a piece of fine furniture. Despite the extremely clever design, the decades-old machine has one asterisk: it apparently takes around 12 seconds to scan each frame. (The company keeps it around as a backup for its replacement, which is apparently much, much faster.)

What's harder to replace and, somehow, slower, are the film printers IMAX uses, as they utilize cathode ray tubes to expose the image onto the film. As they age, their output dims, so nowadays they take around one to one and a half minutes per frame.

The videos are full of little details like that, as Savage explores the company's headquarters and interviews some key members of its team. Both videos are well worth a watch if you're a movie buff or want to hype yourself up for upcoming IMAX movies, like Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey, which is the first feature-length blockbuster shot entirely in the format. Not that actually seeing a real IMAX showing of it will be an easy feat; they sold out a year in advance.

Now Canon's teasing something new, too

Canon has posted a video to its social media, which appears to tease an upcoming announcement.

The company says something is coming on May 13th at 9AM ET (6AM PT, 1PM GMT), with the caption "One camera. Endless possibilities." The post shows a person staring at a camera that is, as is often the case in these videos, cloaked in shadow, though a red tally lamp shines brightly from it. That detail, and the fact that, on Instagram, the post is a collaboration between Canon's main and Pro Video accounts, implies that we'll likely see something video-related.

This is the second teaser we've seen from a major camera company regarding an announcement on May 13th, which is, at time of writing, next Wednesday; Sony also posted a teaser for "the next R." Whatever the two companies are cooking up, it seems like the camera drought of 2026 may be coming to an end.

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