Fovean

[PHGN]

How many people here disagree with the labeling of Fovean resolution?

The case against:

True it has more photo diodes, but it is sampling fewer discreet locations. The (technical) term for these locations is pixels. If they want to say full color pixels, or triple sensor pixels, or something then that's fine. but to claim that they are three separate pixels is just plain wrong. I don't deny that the images up-sample better than standard images, but that doesn't get round the fact that it is outputting a lower resolution image. (Now if the up-sampling was done in camera, then there would be a case for saying X-Megapixel output, like the Fuji Super CCD cameras do. Wether or not that's really fair is another matter.)

 

[PalmsWestPhoto]

It is foveon btw

and there are about 614 people that agree with it. 400 of them work at sigma and foveon and the other 200 are people who bought the camera.

just kidding of course - There arent 200 people who bought the SDx ...

BTW they specifically did not mislead their marketing like this at the beginning where they called it 3MPx3 but when the camera didnt sell they changed the marketing material. Still didnt help much though.

--
Michael Salzlechner
http://www.PalmsWestPhoto.com

 

[photogeek]

... calling "regular" DSLR sensors 6MP is misleading, too. They are only 6MP in Green/Luminance channel, everything else is 1.5MP. While luminance is the most important thing for the human eye, calling what essentially is a 3MP camera 6MP is inaccurate, too.

This is an area where Sigma could do some clever marketing if they had a bottomless legal budget. They'd have to effectively educate the consumer that 6MP is, in fact, monkey business and the 3.4MP that they sell are the "real deal". In my opinion calling a camera that outputs 3.4MP images "10.2MP" can insult the potential customer, and many won't buy the camera just because they feel the manufacturer is lying to them to get their attention.

 

[Peter G]

NT = No Text

... calling "regular" DSLR sensors 6MP is misleading, too. They are

 

[ChromeLight]

You're confusing resolution with sampling frequency. Sampling frequency is one part of the equation, but there are many others: s/n ratio, Bayer interpolation, dynamic range, lense used,etc that contribute to the amount of optical detail in the photo. And that's the key: optical detail, not the size of the array that was used to capture it.

 

[PalmsWestPhoto]

PG

first of all the definition for bayer sensors wasnt made to be misleading. It was made based on the fact that the actual output image was xMPixels (a sensor doesnt have any pixels).

It is like coming to the market with the first four wheel drive car and trying to tell everybody that a 2 wheel drive car shouldnt be called car but motorcycle because only two of the wheels are powered. And even worse if you have a 4 wheel drive car but then you try selling it as a 12 wheel drive car is ridiculous. Luckily most consumers are smart enough to see that.

that outputs 3.4MP images "10.2MP" can insult the potential

Actually IMHO it borders on being illegal. I could take an old UZI change the formware to interpolate pictures to 20MP and sell it as a new ultra zoom image stabilized 20MPixel cam. Just put some fine print that they are actually interpolated 20MPs.

In the end though sales figures show the real result anyway.

--
Michael Salzlechner
http://www.PalmsWestPhoto.com

 

[Dominic Groß]

How many people here disagree with the labeling of Fovean resolution?

No one the company is called Foveon.

The case against:

There is another case of faulty counting...

True it has more photo diodes, but it is sampling fewer discreet
locations.

CFA has more sampling locations but it is samlpling less color and needs an AA filter that effectively blurs the Resolution down to something that works out without heavy moire.

I stop here and leave the rest for the trolls. This was discussed to death in the Sigma Forum (try a search there to find tons of information on both the real resolution of X3 and CFA Sensors).

Actually back than I said that I would like to see a labeling by comparison to CFA Sensors. This way it would be 8mp (7+1 marketing) for the SD9 / SD10.

(Now if
the up-sampling was done in camera, then there would be a case for
saying X-Megapixel output, like the Fuji Super CCD cameras do.
Wether or not that's really fair is another matter.)

So why do you think the Polraroid will not do that? Just because the SD9 / 10 do not do it this does not mean Polaroid will not implement this.

I think they have to do it and will do it because otherwise they could not sell this to the dumb massmarket. The average consumer will never understand what this whole debatte is about so they need to upsample it prevent serious trouble.

--
Nasa can put a probe on Mars, but they can't properly stitch images!

http://www.pbase.com/sigmasd9/dominic_gross_sd10

 

[DavidMillier]

Now that we are beginning to see significant differences in sensor technologies: ccd v cmos, bayer v X3, AA v no AA etc, it would perhaps be no bad thing for all sensors to be given a 'PR' rating to break the now false MP comparisons.

It would need to be measured independently rather than by the manufacturer. Perhaps reviewers could work together to establish a common standard. Phil?

... calling "regular" DSLR sensors 6MP is misleading, too. They are

 

[Jimmy Chen]

How many people here disagree with the labeling of Fovean resolution?

The following:
1. Asahi Optical Co., Ltd.
2. CANON INC.
3. CASIO COMPUTER CO., LTD.
4. CHINON INDUSTRIES INC.
5. Digipri Corporation
6. FUJI PHOTO FILM CO., LTD.
7. Hitachi, Ltd.
8. ImageLink, Inc.
9. Kodak Japan Ltd.
10. KONICA CORPORATION
11. KYOCERA CORPORATION
12. Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.
13. Microsoft Co., Ltd.
14. Minolta Co., Ltd.
15. NIDEC COPAL CORPORATION
16. NIKON CORPORATION
17. OLYMPUS OPTICAL CO.,LTD.
18. RICOH COMPANY, LTD.
19. SANYO Electric Co., Ltd.
20. SEIKO EPSON CORPORATION
21. SEIKO Precision Inc.
22. SHARP CORPORATION
23. Sony Corporation
24. TOSHIBA CORPORATION

agrees with this spec
... http://www.cipa.jp/jcia/english/newdigital/020101.htm

--
jc

 

[Jimmy Chen]

It is like coming to the market with the first four wheel drive car
and trying to tell everybody that a 2 wheel drive car shouldnt be
called car but motorcycle because only two of the wheels are
powered. And even worse if you have a 4 wheel drive car but then
you try selling it as a 12 wheel drive car is ridiculous. Luckily
most consumers are smart enough to see that.

So which car is more powerful?

1. A car that has a 6megasomething-hp engine pushes a 6megasomething-pound weight

or

2: A car that has 10.2megasomething-hp engine that pushes a 3.4megasomething-pound weight?

--
jc

 

[PalmsWestPhoto]

jimmy

first of all your analogy is completely wrong. It would actually have to be the other way around

a 6HP pushing 6 pounds vs a 3.4HP pushing a 10.2 pound

all in all it doesnt matter. Fact is that 10.2 is a ridiculous lie that anyone with a brain bigger then a peanut can figure out. And yes we all know that bayer type sensors use interpolation. That is not the question here. The only question is whether Sigma's claim is right and no of course it isnt.

And even if you try to convince somebody a million times it doesnt change the fact.

--
Michael Salzlechner
http://www.PalmsWestPhoto.com

 

[kiwi]

Hello Jimmy
are you employed as a PR person for all these corporations?

if not, then you've just made a horse's a'ss of yourself mate

Mike

How many people here disagree with the labeling of Fovean resolution?

The following:
1. Asahi Optical Co., Ltd.
2. CANON INC.
3. CASIO COMPUTER CO., LTD.
4. CHINON INDUSTRIES INC.
5. Digipri Corporation
6. FUJI PHOTO FILM CO., LTD.
7. Hitachi, Ltd.
8. ImageLink, Inc.
9. Kodak Japan Ltd.
10. KONICA CORPORATION
11. KYOCERA CORPORATION
12. Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.
13. Microsoft Co., Ltd.
14. Minolta Co., Ltd.
15. NIDEC COPAL CORPORATION
16. NIKON CORPORATION
17. OLYMPUS OPTICAL CO.,LTD.
18. RICOH COMPANY, LTD.
19. SANYO Electric Co., Ltd.
20. SEIKO EPSON CORPORATION
21. SEIKO Precision Inc.
22. SHARP CORPORATION
23. Sony Corporation
24. TOSHIBA CORPORATION

agrees with this spec
... http://www.cipa.jp/jcia/english/newdigital/020101.htm

--
jc

 

[Phil Askey]

Here's my standpoint: It's a tough call for Foveon but I happen to agree with them, they have 4.5 million photodiodes, and the Bayer pattern sensors have been stretching the 'truth' for quite a while now.

How many people here disagree with the labeling of Fovean resolution?

The case against:

True it has more photo diodes, but it is sampling fewer discreet
locations. The (technical) term for these locations is pixels. If
they want to say full color pixels, or triple sensor pixels, or
something then that's fine. but to claim that they are three
separate pixels is just plain wrong. I don't deny that the images
up-sample better than standard images, but that doesn't get round
the fact that it is outputting a lower resolution image. (Now if
the up-sampling was done in camera, then there would be a case for
saying X-Megapixel output, like the Fuji Super CCD cameras do.
Wether or not that's really fair is another matter.)

--
Phil Askey
Editor / Owner, dpreview.com

 

[Kendall Helmstetter Gelner]

How many people here disagree with the labeling of Fovean resolution?

The case against:

Consider these in the case for:

1) RAW file size. If I take a raw image from the new polaroid camera, and a raw image from a 4MP camera, the raw image sizes will be the same (actually the Polaroid would be larger). For a concrete example, an SD10 RAW file is around 10MB and a 10D RAW file is around 6MB. You certainly would like to know about how much storage you might need for a new camera, and shouldn't the rating help decide that?

2) Output. If the output quality for prints and web use is identical between the Polaroid 4.5MP camera and a 4-5MP camera, than shouldn't the rating be the same? Should not the MP rating relate to the maximum potential quality of the image produced, and nothing else?

How is a user being cheated if the output is of the same quallty between two similarily rated cameras?

--
---> Kendall
http://www.pbase.com/kgelner
http://www.pbase.com/sigmasd9/user_home
http://www.pbase.com/sigmasd9/sigma_shoot_1 - world apart, world
together

 

[madmaxmedia]

I understand the basic point about Foveon's advertising. But it's not like MP is a great indicator of camera image quality anyways.

Maybe a little FUD would be good- people will rely less of MP count and look at the complete picture. And then maybe manufacturers will rely less on MP count to sell their cameras, and improve other aspects as well.

How many people here disagree with the labeling of Fovean resolution?

The case against:

True it has more photo diodes, but it is sampling fewer discreet
locations. The (technical) term for these locations is pixels. If
they want to say full color pixels, or triple sensor pixels, or
something then that's fine. but to claim that they are three
separate pixels is just plain wrong. I don't deny that the images
up-sample better than standard images, but that doesn't get round
the fact that it is outputting a lower resolution image. (Now if
the up-sampling was done in camera, then there would be a case for
saying X-Megapixel output, like the Fuji Super CCD cameras do.
Wether or not that's really fair is another matter.)

--
http://www.madmaxmedia.com

 

[Jimmy Chen]

The only question is whether Sigma's claim
is right and no of course it isnt.

Then you need to read the JCIA spec on your own. Its pretty clear how they defined what is what and how things should be listed, and Phil even write a brief summary about it way back ...

You guys just keep getting sensor pixels mixed up with image pixels when they are two totally different things.

Thats like saying a good old dot matrix printer cannot print 300 dpi just because its print head has only 8 pins and not look at the pins.

--
jc

 

[Jimmy Chen]

if not, then you've just made a horse's a'ss of yourself mate

So are you also labeling Phil as such w/ his reply just below?

Next time please at least first attemp to read the facts and understand them before resorting to useless name calling. It only make yourself look bad.

--
jc

 

[Peter G]

I live in City/region of about a million people. I have been to a lot of camera/electronic stores in the area and I have never seen an SD9 or SD10 for sale. Yet there are 300D/10D/D100 at all of these places.

Put me in the against category. Selling a camera that output 1.5MP images as a 4.5MP camera is pure marketing BS IMO. It is the kind of thing that will alienate the informed and confuse the uninformed.

How many people here disagree with the labeling of Fovean resolution?

The case against:

True it has more photo diodes, but it is sampling fewer discreet
locations. The (technical) term for these locations is pixels. If
they want to say full color pixels, or triple sensor pixels, or
something then that's fine. but to claim that they are three
separate pixels is just plain wrong. I don't deny that the images
up-sample better than standard images, but that doesn't get round
the fact that it is outputting a lower resolution image. (Now if
the up-sampling was done in camera, then there would be a case for
saying X-Megapixel output, like the Fuji Super CCD cameras do.
Wether or not that's really fair is another matter.)

 

[ChromeLight]

It is the kind

of thing that will alienate the informed and confuse the uninformed.

To the informed it makes complete sense.

 

[PalmsWestPhoto]

Jimmy

you seem to be one of the people i mentioned. You need to reread that specification which was made for something totally different then what you are trying to make it look like.

Just keep on dreaming ...

--
Michael Salzlechner
http://www.PalmsWestPhoto.com