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Why are sensors not upgradeable?

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*isteve

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Personally I'm getting pretty fed up of having to buy a new camera every 2 years when 90% of it is still up to scratch.

Nice for the manufacturers (I usually kept a film SLR for 5-8 years, no profit in that) but hugely wasteful and expensive.

There are no techical reasons why digital cameras should not be both modular yet retain standard lens mounts - it just requires a new form factor that will enable the "electonic pack" to slot in from the back/bottom like a digital back or portrait grip - silicon film does it after all. It would also open up the possibility for the SAME camera to accept specialist packs for pro use and for other manufacturers to make replacement packs for OEM cams. This would actually help Foveon!!

Then I may invest in a high spec body knowing it would not be obsolete for 10 years or so. As it stands its just cynical, wasteful and exploitative IMHO.

The 4/3 standard may help - at least sensors and lenses will be interchangeable - but as far as I can tell these cams are still not modular.
--
Steve
 
You answered your own question-
*isteve said:
Nice for the manufacturer
Click to expand...
Why would a manufacturer allow interchangable CCD's? they'd blow 3 upgrade-cycle's worth of profit selling new camera bodies.

Yeah its wasteful, yeah it sucks if your us, but guess what? we don't have a choice, and they're profiting very well from it.

(IRC there was an interchangeable CCD/Module camera a year or so ago... failed pretty miserably though)

-Scott
 
During that two year period probably about everything inside the case has improved and the case costs ~ $.49 to manufacturer.

A new plastic box is a lot cheaper than all the plugs and sockets that would have to be added.

There is some residual value in the lens. This is not an issue with cameras with exchangeable lenses, only for the less expensive models.

And, that old camera still takes just as good pictures as it always did. Pass it on to someone who can't afford the latest and greatest.

--
bob
http://www.pbase.com/bobtrips
New Gallery - Nat (Spirit) Festival in Myanmar
pictures from Thailand, Myanmar(Burma), and Nepal
 
It would probably add a fair amount of cost to the camera to make the sensor user replacable. And even if it were you'd find that you would almost never upgrade it.

The reason why is that changing the sensor would also require changes to the camera's processor because it would likely need to be faster. And that probably means that you need more and faster ram for the buffer.

You would likely need to replace most, if not all, the electronics in the body. At least those related to the digital imaging part of the camera.

Someone could probably design a "backplane-like" camera body into which you could plug in modules but it would be expensive and likely would never perform quite as well as one that was designed specifically as a set of components to work together.

Take your typical computer as an analogy. You can usually add and replace components but to get a real jump in performance you end up needing to replace the motherboard, processor, memory and often hard disk. Oh, you can often put a faster processor in your existing motherboard but real jumps in performance don't usually occur without a new processor chipset and family which means a complete replacement of most system components. I believe that a modular digital camera would suffer from the same fate.

On the plus side, there isn't anyone holding a gun to our heads saying, "buy this year's model - or else...".

I'm not trying to defend the manufacturers. They're in business to sell product and the environment right now is conducive and even demanding of frequent product introductions. Up to a point, this is good for the manufacturers. But, I don't think a modular camera would be a viable product. Maybe I'm wrong though. Tell Canon and Nikon and the other camera makers. If enough people tell them, perhaps they'll listen.
 
You may be right, and your advice is good (I do just that - my girlfriend is a benficiary of a nice CP990)

But I remain unconvinced. The problem to me seems to be volume and volume is constrained as long as chips are restricted to single low volume cameras (sorry but total sales of pro DSLR's do not constitute high volume).

In the long term it serves nobodys interest hence I guess the Olydak 4/3 standard which should allow ANYONE to make chips for the cameras and theortically these could be upgradeable. I can upgrade my PC, why not my digicam?

Mind you, I guess when cams get to 14Mpix (or 6 X3 foveons) there be little point in going further - the optics will be the limiting factor. Perhaps then we will see some kind of stabilisation.

Steve
BobTrips said:
During that two year period probably about everything inside the
case has improved and the case costs ~ $.49 to manufacturer.

A new plastic box is a lot cheaper than all the plugs and sockets
that would have to be added.

There is some residual value in the lens. This is not an issue
with cameras with exchangeable lenses, only for the less expensive
models.

And, that old camera still takes just as good pictures as it always
did. Pass it on to someone who can't afford the latest and
greatest.

--
bob
http://www.pbase.com/bobtrips
New Gallery - Nat (Spirit) Festival in Myanmar
pictures from Thailand, Myanmar(Burma), and Nepal
Click to expand...
 
Hmm - you are right - but how come the medium format market didnt fall for this line?
Linda Thomas said:
It would probably add a fair amount of cost to the camera to make
the sensor user replacable. And even if it were you'd find that you
would almost never upgrade it.

The reason why is that changing the sensor would also require
changes to the camera's processor because it would likely need to
be faster. And that probably means that you need more and faster
ram for the buffer.

You would likely need to replace most, if not all, the electronics
in the body. At least those related to the digital imaging part of
the camera.

Someone could probably design a "backplane-like" camera body into
which you could plug in modules but it would be expensive and
likely would never perform quite as well as one that was designed
specifically as a set of components to work together.

Take your typical computer as an analogy. You can usually add and
replace components but to get a real jump in performance you end up
needing to replace the motherboard, processor, memory and often
hard disk. Oh, you can often put a faster processor in your
existing motherboard but real jumps in performance don't usually
occur without a new processor chipset and family which means a
complete replacement of most system components. I believe that a
modular digital camera would suffer from the same fate.

On the plus side, there isn't anyone holding a gun to our heads
saying, "buy this year's model - or else...".

I'm not trying to defend the manufacturers. They're in business to
sell product and the environment right now is conducive and even
demanding of frequent product introductions. Up to a point, this is
good for the manufacturers. But, I don't think a modular camera
would be a viable product. Maybe I'm wrong though. Tell Canon and
Nikon and the other camera makers. If enough people tell them,
perhaps they'll listen.
Click to expand...
--
Steve
 
Guess you are also fed up with cars, refrigerators, televisons, VCRs, video cameras, washing machines, lawn mowers, and the thousands of other new products that come onto the market new each year with little or no opportunity for upgrading the previous model.

Rodger
 
Guess you are also fed up with cars, refrigerators, TVs, VCRs, camcorders, washing machines, lawn mowers, and the thousands of other new products that come onto the market new each year with little or no opportunity for upgrading the previous model.

Rodger

P.S. have you ever seen the inside of a digital camera? Most of them are so tightly packed that if you removed the outer case the whole device will continue to maintain its shape indefinitely.
 
Steve Jacob said:
Personally I'm getting pretty fed up of having to buy a new camera
every 2 years when 90% of it is still up to scratch.

Nice for the manufacturers (I usually kept a film SLR for 5-8
years, no profit in that) but hugely wasteful and expensive.
Click to expand...
...

sure there is a case for the "they're gouging us" argument but to put some balance in the equation the manufacturers do need both turnover and profits to fund the R&D that drives these technologies forward (and keeps our digicam interests exciting)

Mike
my $0.02 worth
 
Steve Jacob said:
Hmm - you are right - but how come the medium format market didnt
fall for this line?
Click to expand...
I'm not sure. I've never used medium format equipment...but I can speculate :)

Wasn't it true in the medium format world that there was always more than one film size? So the cameras had to be designed to accomodate different films from the start. Those backs that are plugged into MF equipment are large enough to take all the electronics for a digital imaging system making it self contained.

That would be harder to accomplish in the form factor allowed by a 35mm camera and harder still in the small digicam bodies.

Almost makes one yearn for one of those MF bodies and a 22mp sensor...but they sure are expensive!
 
Rodger Carter said:
Guess you are also fed up with cars, refrigerators, televisons,
VCRs, video cameras, washing machines, lawn mowers, and the
thousands of other new products that come onto the market new each
year with little or no opportunity for upgrading the previous model.

Rodger
Click to expand...
Hmm - none of these items (to my knowledge) double in performance every year. Only a PC is comparable - in this case even on price - and I can go a long way to keeping my PC up to spec quite cheaply with extra memory, disks, graphics cards etc. Even a new motherboard if I wished.
--
Steve
 
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