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Sigma RAW only

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Erik Magnuson

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There was one thing very curious about the Sigma D9 specs:

it only supports Foveon RAW format - no JPEG. Now we have a news article about native support for RAW files that states it takes 12s on a P4 to open a Foveon RAW image.

If 2+2=5, I might guess that the lack of JPEG is because it takes too much CPU power to process the Foveon RAW image data for the in-camera CPU to handle at any reasonable frame rate.--Erik
Free Windows JPEG comment editor
http://home.cfl.rr.com/maderik/edjpgcom
 
Erik Magnuson said:
There was one thing very curious about the Sigma D9 specs:
it only supports Foveon RAW format - no JPEG. Now we have a news
article about native support for RAW files that states it takes
12s on a P4 to open a Foveon RAW image.

If 2+2=5, I might guess that the lack of JPEG is because it takes
too much CPU power to process the Foveon RAW image data for the
in-camera CPU to handle at any reasonable frame rate.
--
Erik
Free Windows JPEG comment editor
http://home.cfl.rr.com/maderik/edjpgcom
Click to expand...
Another possible thought: maybe someone, either at Sigma or at Foeon, thought any JPEG compression would ruin their wonderful image. RAW only is not a bad idea: after all most digital backs work like that. Another thought is that Sigma did not want to bother with the additional ciruitry. Remember, we have a "tendency" price, not a real one. If Nikon D100 goes well below $2500, Sigma will not be able to sell for much more than $2000. So maybe they tried to keep costs down to have more pricing flexibility.
Fabio
 
Wonder how long it takes to save a RAW image...For reference it takes about 13seconds on a D7 but it's a 5mp cam of course.
Fabio said:
Erik Magnuson said:
There was one thing very curious about the Sigma D9 specs:
it only supports Foveon RAW format - no JPEG. Now we have a news
article about native support for RAW files that states it takes
12s on a P4 to open a Foveon RAW image.

If 2+2=5, I might guess that the lack of JPEG is because it takes
too much CPU power to process the Foveon RAW image data for the
in-camera CPU to handle at any reasonable frame rate.
--
Erik
Free Windows JPEG comment editor
http://home.cfl.rr.com/maderik/edjpgcom
Click to expand...
Another possible thought: maybe someone, either at Sigma or at
Foeon, thought any JPEG compression would ruin their wonderful
image. RAW only is not a bad idea: after all most digital backs
work like that. Another thought is that Sigma did not want to
bother with the additional ciruitry. Remember, we have a "tendency"
price, not a real one. If Nikon D100 goes well below $2500, Sigma
will not be able to sell for much more than $2000. So maybe they
tried to keep costs down to have more pricing flexibility.
Fabio
Click to expand...
 
Fabio said:
RAW only is not a bad idea: after all most digital backs
work like that.
Click to expand...
Yes, but they are rather slow. And tethered to a comparatively powerful CPU. It just sticks out as not competitive for a non-pro camera. And face it, without premium lenses, they cannot be expecting a mass migration of working photographers. The ISO limitations also limit this market except for people doing just studio and landscape. Maybe weddings.

Also, on most cameras, the bottleneck is card write speed. It's quicker to compress the images than to write them out. JPEG is just too convenient and saves storage space.
Fabio Amodeo said:
Another thought is that Sigma did not want to
bother with the additional ciruitry.
Click to expand...
But again this does not add up. Foveon keeps hyping how cheap the sensor is (or rather could be). After all you can get JPEG circuitry in a $400 3 megapixel camera, so how expensive can it be? Unless, like I implied in my original post, something about the Foveon output makes it far more expensive than "normal".--ErikFree Windows JPEG comment editor http://home.cfl.rr.com/maderik/edjpgcom
 
Humm, lets see. You have 10.3 million pixels worth of color
information describing 3.4 million actual pixel sites. The result
is images that have drawn comments comparing them to
medium format film or digital backs. The color is nothing
short of amazing, and you want to what? You want to take
this 10.3 million pixels worth of color information, captured
at 12 bit, and use 8 bit jpeg compression on it????? Are you
nuts????? RAW or 16 bit tiff were the only choices for the
capture on this camera if you want to see the advantages of
the Foveon chip.
Erik Magnuson said:
Fabio said:
RAW only is not a bad idea: after all most digital backs
work like that.
Click to expand...
Yes, but they are rather slow. And tethered to a comparatively
powerful CPU. It just sticks out as not competitive for a non-pro
camera. And face it, without premium lenses, they cannot be
expecting a mass migration of working photographers. The ISO
limitations also limit this market except for people doing just
studio and landscape. Maybe weddings.

Also, on most cameras, the bottleneck is card write speed. It's
quicker to compress the images than to write them out. JPEG is
just too convenient and saves storage space.
Member said:
Another thought is that Sigma did not want to
bother with the additional ciruitry.
Click to expand...
But again this does not add up. Foveon keeps hyping how cheap the
sensor is (or rather could be). After all you can get JPEG
circuitry in a $400 3 megapixel camera, so how expensive can it be?
Unless, like I implied in my original post, something about the
Foveon output makes it far more expensive than "normal".
--
Erik
Free Windows JPEG comment editor
http://home.cfl.rr.com/maderik/edjpgcom
Click to expand...
 
Bob Williams said:
You want to take
this 10.3 million pixels worth of color information, captured
at 12 bit, and use 8 bit jpeg compression on it????? Are you
nuts?????
Click to expand...
Well, lets look at the competition:
D100: RAW + JPEG
D1x: RAW + JPEG
D60: RAW + JPEG
1D: RAW + JPEG (heck the 1d can even output BOTH at the same time!)
S2: RAW + JPEG
Contax N1: RAW + JPEG

Hmm, Nikon, Canon, Fuji and Contax are all nuts! All of these cameras record 12bits deep in RAW as well. In fact, JPEG is LESS important on these cameras since the RAW format is smaller due to the infamous Bayer pattern. For conventional CCDs, JPEG is so cheap and so fast, that even the cheapest cameras have it. So again, why not the SD9?--ErikFree Windows JPEG comment editor http://home.cfl.rr.com/maderik/edjpgcom
 
Mike Salzlechner said:
i dont think it has anything to do with CPU power as normally JPEG
compression is done via dedicated JPEG compression hardware. It
seems to be more a cost saver than anything else.
Click to expand...
So every other D-SLR introduced in the last year or so supports JPEG. It's cheap enough to put in $400 3MP point'n'shoot. And Sigma left it out to cut cost?

Actually, my suspicions are less about JPEG than all of the OTHER processing that takes place. The infamous Bayer interpolation, white balance, sharpening, etc. These have to be done BEFORE you can compress. Are the Foveon equivalents too hard to do in-camera? Algorithms not optimized yet?

I have to admit it could just plain be market positioning by Foveon. But I just wondered if they could also just be trying to make some lemonade. (E.g. they worked to get so much native format support because they have to.)--ErikFree Windows JPEG comment editor http://home.cfl.rr.com/maderik/edjpgcom
 
It really makes you wonder if it has more to do with the Foveon chip then the camera. Unless it is some Sigma marketing ploy.

Also the Foveon chip really only has 3 or so million pixels. Just they are full color instead of the single color pixels in a Bayer camera. I know it is a small nit, but this Foveon quoting of resolutionx3 business is decieving. The camera records 3x the information of a Bayer sensor, it does not have 3x the pixels or resolution.
Erik Magnuson said:
Bob Williams said:
You want to take
this 10.3 million pixels worth of color information, captured
at 12 bit, and use 8 bit jpeg compression on it????? Are you
nuts?????
Click to expand...
Well, lets look at the competition:
D100: RAW + JPEG
D1x: RAW + JPEG
D60: RAW + JPEG
1D: RAW + JPEG (heck the 1d can even output BOTH at the same time!)
S2: RAW + JPEG
Contax N1: RAW + JPEG

Hmm, Nikon, Canon, Fuji and Contax are all nuts! All of these
cameras record 12bits deep in RAW as well. In fact, JPEG is LESS
important on these cameras since the RAW format is smaller due to
the infamous Bayer pattern. For conventional CCDs, JPEG is so cheap
and so fast, that even the cheapest cameras have it. So again, why
not the SD9?
--
Erik
Free Windows JPEG comment editor
http://home.cfl.rr.com/maderik/edjpgcom
Click to expand...
--Valliesto
 
That is an interesting point, the cost of a JPEG compressor must have been offset by the lack of a Bayer processor. It must be much more difficult to interpolate the color data than to apply JPEG compression to a full color image. Seems something is amiss.
Erik Magnuson said:
Mike Salzlechner said:
i dont think it has anything to do with CPU power as normally JPEG
compression is done via dedicated JPEG compression hardware. It
seems to be more a cost saver than anything else.
Click to expand...
So every other D-SLR introduced in the last year or so supports
JPEG. It's cheap enough to put in $400 3MP point'n'shoot. And Sigma
left it out to cut cost?

Actually, my suspicions are less about JPEG than all of the OTHER
processing that takes place. The infamous Bayer interpolation,
white balance, sharpening, etc. These have to be done BEFORE you
can compress. Are the Foveon equivalents too hard to do in-camera?
Algorithms not optimized yet?

I have to admit it could just plain be market positioning by
Foveon. But I just wondered if they could also just be trying to
make some lemonade. (E.g. they worked to get so much native format
support because they have to.)
--
Erik
Free Windows JPEG comment editor
http://home.cfl.rr.com/maderik/edjpgcom
Click to expand...
--Valliesto
 
First off, many cameras have the option, but no one that needs
top quality uses the jpg option. It truncates the data to 8
bits. In the case of the Foveon chip, the loss is greatly magnified.
It is not interpolating the neighboring pixel values. It has true
12 bit color in all three channels for each pixel. You would be
throwing away over half of the image information. Why would
anyone buy a Foveon chip camera, and then do that? Throw
away most of the advantage and then add JPG artifacts in the
capture stage???? Sorry, but to me this sounds really stupid.
Erik Magnuson said:
Bob Williams said:
You want to take
this 10.3 million pixels worth of color information, captured
at 12 bit, and use 8 bit jpeg compression on it????? Are you
nuts?????
Click to expand...
Well, lets look at the competition:
D100: RAW + JPEG
D1x: RAW + JPEG
D60: RAW + JPEG
1D: RAW + JPEG (heck the 1d can even output BOTH at the same time!)
S2: RAW + JPEG
Contax N1: RAW + JPEG

Hmm, Nikon, Canon, Fuji and Contax are all nuts! All of these
cameras record 12bits deep in RAW as well. In fact, JPEG is LESS
important on these cameras since the RAW format is smaller due to
the infamous Bayer pattern. For conventional CCDs, JPEG is so cheap
and so fast, that even the cheapest cameras have it. So again, why
not the SD9?
--
Erik
Free Windows JPEG comment editor
http://home.cfl.rr.com/maderik/edjpgcom
Click to expand...
 
Ok, if this is so hard to understand, lets make it real simple.
Open one of your image files in a program that has a good
exif reporting module. Now note the bit depth of your JPG
file. Compare that to the full 36 bit depth the Foveon
provides. Then post the difference. The x3 is not deceptive
at all. It is a three layer sensor that does the same thing as
a three chip back, or a three shot back. It is using 10.3 mp
of color information to describe the actual recorded pixels.
You can cry about it all you want, but it is the truth. Lets
see if you actually post the bit depth of one of your wanted
jpg files, and if you understand then.
Valliesto Bailey said:
Erik Magnuson said:
Mike Salzlechner said:
i dont think it has anything to do with CPU power as normally JPEG
compression is done via dedicated JPEG compression hardware. It
seems to be more a cost saver than anything else.
Click to expand...
So every other D-SLR introduced in the last year or so supports
JPEG. It's cheap enough to put in $400 3MP point'n'shoot. And Sigma
left it out to cut cost?

Actually, my suspicions are less about JPEG than all of the OTHER
processing that takes place. The infamous Bayer interpolation,
white balance, sharpening, etc. These have to be done BEFORE you
can compress. Are the Foveon equivalents too hard to do in-camera?
Algorithms not optimized yet?

I have to admit it could just plain be market positioning by
Foveon. But I just wondered if they could also just be trying to
make some lemonade. (E.g. they worked to get so much native format
support because they have to.)
--
Erik
Free Windows JPEG comment editor
http://home.cfl.rr.com/maderik/edjpgcom
Click to expand...
--
Valliesto
Click to expand...
 
Bob Williams said:
You can cry about it all you want, but it is the truth. Lets
see if you actually post the bit depth of one of your wanted
jpg files, and if you understand then.
Click to expand...
Huh? I'm not claiming that JPEG can represent all of the data in a Foveon RAW file. It can't represent all of the data in a D30 RAW file either. I'm also not addressing which sensor is better.

My point is: every other D-SLR maker includes the option for JPEG output for when you need smaller (or faster) output and are willing to sacrifice some quality. (How much quality and how significant the degradation has been and will continue to be debated until JPEG is obsolete.) The SD-9 does not support this option.

So I just began to wonder why not. The availability of JPEG output on even the cheapest Bayer CCD cameras makes me think that simple compressor cost is not the answer unless the cost is somehow much higher for the Foveon output than Bayer CCD cameras.

The next bit of information was that Foveon did the deals to get native support in WinXp and Photosshop and that it takes 12s on a P4 to open a Foveon RAW file. Hmm, why spend the money and why so slow?

So from these 3 pieces of data, I was leaping to the conclusion that perhaps it's not currently practical to process the Foveon output in-camera to the current image standard (JPEG) and thus RAW support was necessary for wide adoption.

I freely admit that this is merely speculation from very limited "facts". Didn't anyone get the "2+2=5" joke?--ErikFree Windows JPEG comment editor http://home.cfl.rr.com/maderik/edjpgcom
 
I read in another article that it will take 12 seconds for Pentium4 to open an X3 image. That implies there is a fair bit of work going on so they decided to offload it from the camera.

How could they proclaim one of their advantages being less processing needed, if they had to icorporte even more processing than the competition. It seems they have an expensive algorithm of their own and they just removed the option of processing it from the camera. Which is lame IMO.

Peter
Erik Magnuson said:
There was one thing very curious about the Sigma D9 specs:
it only supports Foveon RAW format - no JPEG. Now we have a news
article about native support for RAW files that states it takes
12s on a P4 to open a Foveon RAW image.

If 2+2=5, I might guess that the lack of JPEG is because it takes
too much CPU power to process the Foveon RAW image data for the
in-camera CPU to handle at any reasonable frame rate.
--
Erik
Free Windows JPEG comment editor
http://home.cfl.rr.com/maderik/edjpgcom
Click to expand...
 
Ok, one more time real slow. With a digicam that uses a 12
bit AD, a jpeg file has a bit depth of 8 bits. In reality, what
this means is that the interpolation is already done, and a 3.6
bit color depth for the three colors has been combined to
create a 10.8 bit color value, and then it was chopped to 8
bit. In reality, this makes very little difference from the 10.8
bit file, unless jpg artifacts are introduced. The Foveon would
have to process the file in camera, separate the three layers
of information, and then discard 4 bits per color layer so that
each layer could be saved as an 8 bit value. After all of this
processing, it would be throwing away as much or more
information than a traditional bayer pattern sensor captures, and
be going from 36 bit to 24 bit color. They are not the same
system, or even close. This is the thing that so many people
seem to miss about the Foveon and the vast inmprovement it
promises. It isn't possible to use jpg to record the information
in these files until after they are processed, and then you have
to throw away half of the information to do it then. A lot of
the old thinking will be shattered by this new tech. The current
JPG standard is far below the needs of this kind of capture.
Peter G said:
How could they proclaim one of their advantages being less
processing needed, if they had to icorporte even more processing
than the competition. It seems they have an expensive algorithm of
their own and they just removed the option of processing it from
the camera. Which is lame IMO.

Peter
Erik Magnuson said:
There was one thing very curious about the Sigma D9 specs:
it only supports Foveon RAW format - no JPEG. Now we have a news
article about native support for RAW files that states it takes
12s on a P4 to open a Foveon RAW image.

If 2+2=5, I might guess that the lack of JPEG is because it takes
too much CPU power to process the Foveon RAW image data for the
in-camera CPU to handle at any reasonable frame rate.
--
Erik
Free Windows JPEG comment editor
http://home.cfl.rr.com/maderik/edjpgcom
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
Bob Williams said:
Humm, lets see. You have 10.3 million pixels worth of color
information describing 3.4 million actual pixel sites.
Click to expand...
Aargh! What is wrong with you people? There are 3.4m pixels, period. If you have to use the 10.3m figure, for God's sake call them something else. (Just in case you're stuck, try "3.4m 36-bit" pixels or "10.3m 12-bit color components".)

It's this kind of shoddy usage that just leads to confusion. I'm really sorry that Bayer sensors only capture one primary per pixel, but that doesn't, and will never, mean that an X3 site captures three pixels. This isn't that difficult a concept, surely?

Pete
-- http://www.peter-cockerell.net:8080/
 
Valliesto Bailey said:
It really makes you wonder if it has more to do with the Foveon
chip then the camera. Unless it is some Sigma marketing ploy.

Also the Foveon chip really only has 3 or so million pixels. Just
they are full color instead of the single color pixels in a Bayer
camera.
Click to expand...
But it still has 3.4Mpix x 3 color x 12 bit to write to the card. An ekvivalent bayer sensor (pixelwise) has 3.4Mpix x 1 color x 12 bit, so it will be 3x the size.
Valliesto Bailey said:
I know it is a small nit, but this Foveon quoting of
resolutionx3 business is decieving. The camera records 3x the
information of a Bayer sensor, it does not have 3x the pixels or
resolution.
Erik Magnuson said:
Bob Williams said:
You want to take
this 10.3 million pixels worth of color information, captured
at 12 bit, and use 8 bit jpeg compression on it????? Are you
nuts?????
Click to expand...
Well, lets look at the competition:
D100: RAW + JPEG
D1x: RAW + JPEG
D60: RAW + JPEG
1D: RAW + JPEG (heck the 1d can even output BOTH at the same time!)
S2: RAW + JPEG
Contax N1: RAW + JPEG

Hmm, Nikon, Canon, Fuji and Contax are all nuts! All of these
cameras record 12bits deep in RAW as well. In fact, JPEG is LESS
important on these cameras since the RAW format is smaller due to
the infamous Bayer pattern. For conventional CCDs, JPEG is so cheap
and so fast, that even the cheapest cameras have it. So again, why
not the SD9?
--
Erik
Free Windows JPEG comment editor
http://home.cfl.rr.com/maderik/edjpgcom
Click to expand...
--
Valliesto
Click to expand...
 
Peter G said:
I read in another article that it will take 12 seconds for Pentium4
to open an X3 image.
Click to expand...
A bit off topic, but a dedicated FPGA could do this job a lot faster than a P4 (I gess an Athlon XP could do it faster as well).
Peter G said:
That implies there is a fair bit of work going
on so they decided to offload it from the camera.

How could they proclaim one of their advantages being less
processing needed, if they had to icorporte even more processing
than the competition. It seems they have an expensive algorithm of
their own and they just removed the option of processing it from
the camera. Which is lame IMO.

Peter
Erik Magnuson said:
There was one thing very curious about the Sigma D9 specs:
it only supports Foveon RAW format - no JPEG. Now we have a news
article about native support for RAW files that states it takes
12s on a P4 to open a Foveon RAW image.

If 2+2=5, I might guess that the lack of JPEG is because it takes
too much CPU power to process the Foveon RAW image data for the
in-camera CPU to handle at any reasonable frame rate.
--
Erik
Free Windows JPEG comment editor
http://home.cfl.rr.com/maderik/edjpgcom
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
The demo shots that everyone is ga-ga over are jpgs. The bit depths with all the other DSLR is also 12bits. Your display device is only 8bits/colour.

I certainly want the choice of jpg convenience and space savings. If I am just shooting snapshots I dont want to waste 8MB/image.

Current max quality carries so few artifacts that no-one really can see them. I shot a total of one TIFF with my NIKON and never used it again, because I could not dicern the advantage.

But this is a first Generation camera, so eventually there will be JPG modes.

Peter
Bob Williams said:
Peter G said:
How could they proclaim one of their advantages being less
processing needed, if they had to icorporte even more processing
than the competition. It seems they have an expensive algorithm of
their own and they just removed the option of processing it from
the camera. Which is lame IMO.

Peter
Erik Magnuson said:
There was one thing very curious about the Sigma D9 specs:
it only supports Foveon RAW format - no JPEG. Now we have a news
article about native support for RAW files that states it takes
12s on a P4 to open a Foveon RAW image.

If 2+2=5, I might guess that the lack of JPEG is because it takes
too much CPU power to process the Foveon RAW image data for the
in-camera CPU to handle at any reasonable frame rate.
--
Erik
Free Windows JPEG comment editor
http://home.cfl.rr.com/maderik/edjpgcom
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
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