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Why on earth doesn't Foveon...

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Leo said:
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--At the least, I know of professional photographers that do want Foveon, but won't buy the Sigma.

One friend in particular, has a gallery with images taken and assembled in mind-numbing detail. Many of his images are 8-10ft wide panoramics which consist of dozens of images. He clearly knows what he's doing, and has mentioned to me, that he would prefer a Foveon sensor over his Fuji S2 sensor, but he won't bite because of the Sigma body. Many times, he's discussed with me how he is looking forward to Foveon partnering with Nikon for a special edition camera.

There is a clear market for that technology...

Regards...

Russ



Greater is He that is within me, than he who is in this world...
 
Morven said:
Joseph S. Wisniewski said:
True, because no license is necessary. First, the patents on the
Canon mount expired several years ago. Second, even if the patents
were still in force, it wouldn't matter, because courts around the
world have supported the legality of properly done reverse
engineering
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All true.
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OK, so then you agree that reverse engineering with no sort of agreement is quite possible, even when patents are in force.
Morven said:
However, it's possible Sigma still does have an
agreement with Canon. How quickly did Sigma come out with EF-mount
lenses after the EOS system came out? If before the standard
patent expiration period, it's quite likely an agreement was signed.
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Sigma has had EOS lenses out since a few years after EOS was introduced. There were definitely patents in force at the time. But if Sigma signed an agreement, its an embarrasment for Canon and Sigma. Sigma lenses have had issues dealing with newer bodies.

The problems are an almost sure sign of reverse engineering. When you reverse engineer, you aren't working with a spec, you are working with a black box that you try to figure out what it outputs when you tickle certain inputs. If there is something in the spec that isn't implemented on the body you are tickling, you're not going to find it by reverse engineering.

--
Seen in a fortune cookie:
Fear is the darkroom where negatives are developed
 
I am not sure what % of Foveon belongs to National Semi or is under National Semi control, but that could be a reason why they survived...
theponja said:
What do you think ,Tom?

Really, from a bussiness point of view I don't understand how
Foveon is in the bussiness.

but now we have here another Foveon Sensor in a Sigma camera.

Regards
Luis
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--
Comprehensive Photokina 2006 speculation: http://photographyetc.livejournal.com
 
R Johns said:
Leo said:
No Text
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--At the least, I know of professional photographers that do want
Foveon, but won't buy the Sigma.
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I would consider a Pentax K10D-X3 if it had a 6 Mpixel 1.5 crop factor Foveon or even the 4.7 Mpixel 1.7 crop factor. If it was easy and cheap for Pentax to make such a "weirdo" brother to K10D, then it is possible that they made one.

If I had a company with such an interesting product like X3 then thats what I should do - approach e.g. Pentax and offer to participate in adaption of their own interfaces and own physical layout so that Pentax get a minimum of development costs for doing a Bayer-X3 twin camera pair. The X3 version will cost more and it will probably sell less, but it will also probably sell more than a Sigma. Pentax would get points for making yet another innovative and risky product and Foveon would get points for being accepted by one of the regular camera makers. win-win it looks like to me.

Maybe it has been dona - and maybe Pentax (or whoever) said no.

--
Roland
http://klotjohan.mine.nu/~roland/
 
Roland Karlsson said:
Cephalotus said:
Sigma decided that they want to have their own system (SA) for
whatever reason... (prestige?)

So the SD14 is a camera with SA mount and if they would make the
same camera with Nikon or Canon mount who would ever buy the SA
version? (you can get every Sigma SA lenses also for Nikon & Canon
+ many more).

So making their SA cameras also with Canon or Nikon mount they
would kill their own SA system immediately.
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Thats correct.

Its a pity though that Foveon is stuck with the Sigma then.
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I'd say its a pity you are stuck with pentax glass.....
Roland Karlsson said:
--
Roland
http://klotjohan.mine.nu/~roland/
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markspan said:
I'd say its a pity you are stuck with pentax glass.....
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hehe -- sort of.

But it is rather nice glass.

But it is not only a matter of glass really. I don't only stay with Pentax due to the glass I have. I also like the cameras. They are small and handy.

--
Roland
http://klotjohan.mine.nu/~roland/
 
actually, Roland made a point about being stuck to sigma glass if buying a sd-14, and I was referring to him being stuck to pentax glas (or, for that matter sigma glass in pentax mount), and therfore restricted to bayer-type cameras.

He did get it though...
Henrik Andersson said:
markspan said:
I'd say its a pity you are stuck with pentax glass.....
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... or Tamron or Tokina or ... Sigma glass ... if you choose a
Pentax body.

--
Henrik
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I can see the point.
Also I like your signature photo.
Leo
 
To the certain extend you can say that Foveon is accepted. There is no digital photographer who does know and talk about them. Many photos are posted and viewed. As soon as Sigma/Foveon would proof to be superior to the running in parallel Bayer interpolation or just being at the same image quality level and at much lower production cost the market is their (even with Sigma body). There won’t be shortage of investors and funding.
Leo
 
Morven said:
Joseph S. Wisniewski said:
True, because no license is necessary. First, the patents on the
Canon mount expired several years ago. Second, even if the patents
were still in force, it wouldn't matter, because courts around the
world have supported the legality of properly done reverse
engineering time after time, in field after field, for the last
couple of decades. Sigma can't hire corporate spies to smuggle
documentation out of Canon, but they can use the well supported
"double clean room" methodology. One team dissects the Canon
cameras and lenses and works up as thorough a specification for the
interface as they can. A second, independent team then builds
lenses, teleconverters, and yes, even cameras, to this
specification.
Click to expand...
All true. However, it's possible Sigma still does have an
agreement with Canon. How quickly did Sigma come out with EF-mount
lenses after the EOS system came out? If before the standard
patent expiration period, it's quite likely an agreement was signed.
Click to expand...
Patents only protect your non-obvious inventions. For example, if the Canon patent specified a combination of a bayonet mount, communication protocol, and signal levels, a competing camera company would have to use a dissimilar protocol or signal levels to get around the Canon patent.

Court cases involving reverse engineering have established legal precidence that patents cannot be used to prevent interoperability. So, someone cannot be prohibited from reverse engineering the mount dimensions and communication protocol in order to build and sell Canon mount lenses. And someone making a camera with a reverse engineered mount could easily claim that this was done in order to make it interoperable with Canon lenses. They'd have a pretty easy time rounding up a few professional photographers as expert witnesses to testify that a professional's investment in lenses is greater than their investment in camera bodies, so cameras need to be interoperable with lenses, just as lenses have long been held to be interoperable with cameras.

Reverse engineering only gets you around interoperability issues. If a patent contains intellectual property that does not relate to interoperability, it can still be used to control the market. The four thirds (tm) patent is an excellent example of this. The patent specifies a non-obvious "invention", a camera having a combination of interchangeable lenses, a sensor having a 4:3 aspect ratio, and a mount diameter to sensor diagonal ratio of 1.8.

So, its quite possible that anyone who wanted to could reverse engineer the four thirds mount and make four thirds lenses, but they cannot reverse engineer and manufacturer a four thirds camera, or they would be infringing on Oly's patent. Now, someone could reverse engineer the four thirds mount and make a 3:2 aspect ratio camera...

Four thirds (tm) is a particularly interesting case.

--
Normally, a signature this small can't open its own jumpgate.

Ciao! Joe

http://www.swissarmyfork.com
 
Leo said:
To the certain extend you can say that Foveon is accepted. There is
no digital photographer who does know and talk about them.
Click to expand...
I just asked three, and two never hear of Foveon, the third thought it was a Fuji film.
Leo said:
Many
photos are posted and viewed. As soon as Sigma/Foveon would proof
to be superior to the running in parallel Bayer interpolation or
just being at the same image quality level and at much lower
production cost the market is their (even with Sigma body). There
won’t be shortage of investors and funding.
Click to expand...
I can't see this happening. Third party sensors from a fabless company won't prove to be "much lower production cost", and Foveon has never proven superior to Bayer cameras with similar photo diode counts.

--
Normally, a signature this small can't open its own jumpgate.

Ciao! Joe

http://www.swissarmyfork.com
 
Thom Hogan said:
There are multiple reasons why a manufacturer might not be interested:

1. They get a better price for sensors elsewhere.
2. They make their own sensors (i.e. have design/fab costs to repay).
3. The Foveon sensor didn't have the performance necessary for all
models (think D2hs or 1DnII).
4. They were bribed to stay with current supplier (see #1).
5. The upgrade path was unclear compared to competitors.
6. They didn't believe Foveon's business model would sustain them.
7. They were approached incorrectly.
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4 (Mark II): They got threatened by the existing sensor provider.

I read that was the case with KM. They considered to use Foveon but THE major sensor threatened of not supplying them any sensor. (remember they also have p&s line.)
--
John
 
What so special about 4mp Foveon sensor?
Fuji has the best DR and Canon has the best high ISO.
Kodak sensor got the best colors. What does Foveon have?
I am just curious...
R Johns said:
--partner with a major camera manufacturer (ala - Fuji and Nikon)?

I mean no offense to Sigma fans, but putting the Foveon sensor into
a Sigma body, is like putting a silky smooth V-12 engine into a
Hyundai (no offense to Hyundai fans either).

I don't know how to phrase the question without sounding too rough,
but I really don't mean any harm.

I looked at the specs for the camera, and it occured to me that
this camera body doesn't have anything going for it. Sigma has to
mention things like;

"In-camera JPEG support"
"2.5-inch LCD screen"
"5-point autofocus"
and "Mirror lockup"

as part of the SD-14's nine Feature Technologies (scratches head).

Somebody needs to introduce Foveon to Canon... :)

Regards...

Russ



Greater is He that is within me, than he who is in this world...
Click to expand...
--
http://www.pbase.com/quest21
 
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