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Cypress *MONOCHROME* sensor... please please please...

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Petteri Sulonen said:
This thread is getting a quite a lot of activity for a product idea
that nobody's (supposedly) interested in.
Click to expand...
Well, there was a period of about five years there when I bought nothing but black & white film, so yeah, I'm interested! As I said before, I'd even buy one from Nikon or Pentax (I'm currently a Canon user) because I like the idea so much. I've supported complete systems from Nikon and Bronica in the past, so this is no different, really.
Petteri Sulonen said:
Any manufacturers in the house? Yoo-hoo?
Click to expand...
If the sensor maker offered a complete electronics package, instead of just the sensor package, a low volume company might be able to do it. But as it is, I expect Canon's the company most likely to pull off a B&W dSLR. As for other camera types, who knows? But I'm an SLR shooter, I'm afraid. :)
 
Petteri Sulonen said:
Canon's strategy seems to be to identify the biggest market and
dominate it. They don't appear to be too big on niche products, the
20Da notwithstanding.
Click to expand...
The 20Da is exactly why I think they're the ones to do it. They've already dominated all the big dSLR markets, from top to bottom. Do you want growth? Think niche!

To my eye, this would be more up
Petteri Sulonen said:
Konica-Minolta's or Ricoh's street -- think Hexar and GR. Too bad
Ricoh already screwed up their digital GR...
Click to expand...
Well, I'm not going to buy a camera from either of those companies--too much experience, if you know what I mean. Other than Nikon and Canon, Pentax is my favorite camera company, and I'd buy a Pentax in a heartbeat.
 
Don't know if any of them read these forums, but they're hearing it direct from me ad nauseum. Every time I get a chance, I whisper the idea in the ears of camera company product managers and such. My contacts are all Americans working for the U.S. subsidiaries, of course, so there's a long way between me and the corporate decision-makers in Japan, but I'm giving it my best shot! I'm a true believer.

Last week it was Fujifilm. They didn't laugh at me (as the good folks at Nikon and Canon do). Or maybe I should say they didn't laugh at me while I was still on the phone with them :-) (They're sending me an E-900 because they think it gets halfway to what I'm looking for. We'll see.) Next week I'll get a chance to whisper in Olympus's ear. I'm sure they can't wait.

But more seriously, I think you're right that the response to threads like this shows that there is a market for a responsive, compact, Hexar-like digicam with a great sensor. If somebody could make a decent one and price it under $1,000 I think they just might sell a bunch.
Petteri Sulonen said:
This thread is getting a quite a lot of activity for a product idea
that nobody's (supposedly) interested in.

Any manufacturers in the house? Yoo-hoo?

Petteri
--
My flickr page: [ http://www.flickr.com/photos/primejunta/ ]
Me on photography: [ http://194.100.88.243/petteri/pont/ ]
Me on politics: [ http://p-on-p.blogspot.com/ ]
Click to expand...
 
BJL said:
For example, Canon reports 70% yields for its "APS-C" sensors, 25%
for the 5D sensor up from 10% for the 1Ds Mk II sensor.
Click to expand...
Where does Canon report this information? I've never seen it.

I've seen people make up such figures, but I've never seen yield information for Canon sensors (or, for that matter, any image sensors) published in a company document or a real news publication with reliable attribution.

But maybe I have missed it, and that's why I ask. Would love a source citation, if you have one.
 
Petteri Sulonen said:
Canon's strategy seems to be to identify the biggest market and
dominate it. They don't appear to be too big on niche products, the
20Da notwithstanding. To my eye, this would be more up
Konica-Minolta's or Ricoh's street -- think Hexar and GR. Too bad
Ricoh already screwed up their digital GR...

Petteri
--
Click to expand...
Hi Petteri,

Your reference to the Ricoh GR made me think of how it is the current "no veiwfinder" concept product with an add on viewfinder and it would be just our luck that the brave Mfr. who does the first mono sensor camera will dump this form factor on us. However, if someone like Leica would make a retro UR/O-Series, I suspect that it would be popular.

After reading through this interesting thread, I noticed that no one mentioned the PJ market. I suspect that there are enough PJs, that would want something like a mono rangefinder, P&S in their pocket, though the resolution might be lost on them, for news paper applications, but for magazines it would be nice.

We are now at a point where many people have several digital cameras, so the advent of specialty models to bolster a mfr's image, may be coming about.
--
Bob Ross
http://www.pbase.com/rossrtx
 
This guy had a hard time convincing Kodak apparently .. maybe you are all familiar with this story already

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/reviews/cameras/kodak-760m.shtml
Ross said:
Petteri Sulonen said:
Canon's strategy seems to be to identify the biggest market and
dominate it. They don't appear to be too big on niche products, the
20Da notwithstanding. To my eye, this would be more up
Konica-Minolta's or Ricoh's street -- think Hexar and GR. Too bad
Ricoh already screwed up their digital GR...

Petteri
--
Click to expand...
Hi Petteri,
Your reference to the Ricoh GR made me think of how it is the
current "no veiwfinder" concept product with an add on viewfinder
and it would be just our luck that the brave Mfr. who does the
first mono sensor camera will dump this form factor on us. However,
if someone like Leica would make a retro UR/O-Series, I suspect
that it would be popular.
After reading through this interesting thread, I noticed that no
one mentioned the PJ market. I suspect that there are enough PJs,
that would want something like a mono rangefinder, P&S in their
pocket, though the resolution might be lost on them, for news paper
applications, but for magazines it would be nice.
We are now at a point where many people have several digital
cameras, so the advent of specialty models to bolster a mfr's
image, may be coming about.
--
Bob Ross
http://www.pbase.com/rossrtx
Click to expand...
 
Spec's for another current Cypress/FillFactory monochrome IBIS4-14000 sensor do not give me much hope. Let me compare to the 6.8 micron pixels of the new Kodak KAF-31600 FFT CCD 31MP color sensor.
Sensor: Cypress-FillFactory / Kodak
pixel spacing: 8 / 6.8 (microns)
well capacity: 65,000 / 60,000 (electrons)
noise: 35 / 16 (electrons) Dynamic range: 65 / 70.5 (dB)
Quantum Efficiency 40% / 37%R,43%G,36%B
  • Despite the absence of a Color Filter Array, the Cypress/FillFactory only has about the same QE: Kodak monochrome sensors with microlenses can reach 85% QE or more. Beter just to use a color sensor and do monochrome conversions.
  • Despite the bigger pixels, FillFactory S/N (dynamic range) is almost one stop less
  • Noise is more, by far more than pixel size explains: Kodak's older FFT CCD's with bigger 9 microns pixels have 22e noise level compared to 35e for the FillFactory, and Kodak is not the low noise champion.
This makes a lie of the comment on their website that CCD has the disadvantage of "lower signal-to-noise ratio"; Kodak CCD's from some years ago have higher S/N, and so I suspect do Sony and Fuji CCD's.

However, that does seem to be simply a monochrome version of the 14/N or SLR/N,C sensor; just maybe the new sensor is significantly improved.
 
I read it from a recent interview with a Canon rep. about the 5D, cited in a recent thread, maybe by T3.

But do not bet the house on it! I might have got it wrong. The 10% 1DsII yield was offered to explain its high price.
 
The reference listed below on this link goes on to explain why the noise amplitude will be smaller because of the "kTC" noise and noise amplitude is proportional to square root of C and since they have a lower capacitance, the noise amplitude will be smaller....

.. which is weird since the "kTC" noise is actually a "kT/C" noise or in other words, noise amplitude for a resistor R shunted by a capacitance C is actually sqrt(kT/C) or a larger capacitance will yield smaller noise amplitude. There are no measurements on the reference to indicate otherwise.

They do increase the effective volume available for collecting light. Shorter-wavelength will have less penetrability so blue channel should have higher noise. This approach will not do anything about the reflection by the metal on top of the pixel. There is the risk of a pixel's charge being collected by a neighboring pixel reducing sharpness, but they seem to have addressed that.

If pixel area is kept the same as today while the underlying process continues to evolve with future technologies, some of the issues currently plaguing fill factor (due to the area occupied by the support electronics) will become less of an issue.
BJL said:
Here are some details: the page mentions "CMOS APS sensors", so
seems updated for the latest Cypress/Fillfactory offering.

http://www.fillfactory.com/htm/technology/htm/high_fill.htm
Click to expand...
 
I take that back -- they probably meant noise electrons in which case they would be correct..
Hamming said:
They do increase the effective volume available for collecting
light. Shorter-wavelength will have less penetrability so blue
channel should have higher noise. This approach will not do
anything about the reflection by the metal on top of the pixel.
There is the risk of a pixel's charge being collected by a
neighboring pixel reducing sharpness, but they seem to have
addressed that.

If pixel area is kept the same as today while the underlying
process continues to evolve with future technologies, some of the
issues currently plaguing fill factor (due to the area occupied by
the support electronics) will become less of an issue.
BJL said:
Here are some details: the page mentions "CMOS APS sensors", so
seems updated for the latest Cypress/Fillfactory offering.

http://www.fillfactory.com/htm/technology/htm/high_fill.htm
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
stephenmelvin said:
Petteri Sulonen said:
Canon... don't appear to be too big on niche products, the 20Da notwithstanding.
Click to expand...
The 20Da is exactly why I think they're the ones to do it. They've
already dominated all the big dSLR markets, from top to bottom. Do
you want growth? Think niche!
Click to expand...
Both of you are missing a very obvious small and profitable niche that Canon pursues while no one else seems very interested: the one for the EOS-1Ds series. Prices over US$7,000 and stated production levels of only 2,000/month compared with over 100,000 for other Canon DSLR's makes them clearly niche products, easily outsold even by their 1.3x format EOS-1D models, which themselves are "high frame rate, lowish resolution" niche products.
 
would really like a fairly compact camera whit this sensor
If they could make one whit a good fixed lens at 28-40mm
wouldn't care if it was retro ore not, as long as it was
functional, and not overpriced like the Rd-1..
 
Mathias Tornqvist said:
You might make fun of us, but as you can see, there's a fairly
enthustiastic group dream of just such a thing. It could tap into
one of the last groups of photographers still using film - the the
Tri-X, HP5+, PanF, Neopan shooters out there.
What huge untapped market does that lastest Coolpix Optio Easyshare
815WSX Crazyshot target?
Click to expand...
Put 20 Crazyshots on a shelf in Costco. Put 20 B&W digidreamcams next to them. Which do you think will sell out first? There doesn't have to be a market for a specific color camera because people will buy anything, at least to a certain degree.

What's a reasonably sized production run for a digital camera? Do you folks really have that many friends? And who will buy the second and third generation cameras?

Most new cameras these days keep development costs down by only making a few changes from a previous camera. A brand new B&W design will need to cost more in order to pay for extra development costs. Especially if the market for updated models is unsure.

Maybe some manufacturer will take the challenge. But to me it's obvious that it would be a challenge, not an obviously profitable thing to do.
 
I'm doing my best too, discussing the concept with every camera buff I know.. and it seems to be a subject they'd be interested in.. (5 so far!)

Lately, I've been taking almost all my photos in B/W on my XT... and only converting them to colour occasionally....

I sincerly hope at least ONE of the manufacturers is listening/watching this thread! There does appear to be at least SOME interest.. I would think at least as much at the 20Da.. maybe more.. even for successive generations... think about it... a 5D body with a 1DII 17mp mono sensor?!?!... that would be absolutely KILLER.... in the meantime, I'll hope for a mono XT at 8mp...

Cheers,
Scotty
--
Free the Images
 
I'm just trying to convince the university I've once studied at to marry the monochrome sensor, an OM-2 (which happens to be mine) and an OM-2 winder's case (EUR 30,- at ebay) into a cute B/W picture taking device.

No display (or maybe a very weak B/W for histogram output only), just the camera, the sensor, some heat pipes, a battery, a CF slot and an ASIC that writes 16bit TIFF files with linear response there. Oh yes - and those wonderfull sharp Zuikos. I actually like the idea of a 150% sports viewfinder, too - it's not a bug, it's a feature :))

Where can I get a used 21/2 Zuiko from?

The whole thing actually depends on wheter the chip is really suitable for photography - it must be panchromatic and have anough DR (not so shure if it is made for industrial use only, e.g. for automation) - and documented well enough.

Kind regards,
Martin

--
http://www.datzinger.net
 
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