What would the FFF have to do in order to be competative?

xpatUSA wrote:

Scottelly wrote:

xpatUSA wrote:

Scottelly wrote:

xpatUSA wrote:

Roger wrote:

dellaaa wrote:

Hello dellaaa and the Sigma group

Reading a recent post that included a 60M pixel Bayer sensor shot, the the discussion turned into a debate as to whether the FFF would ever arrive.

Well, ya we all are.

Looking at the Bayer photo what do you believe the FFF sensor would have to do better than the current generation of Bayer sensors? What are the design criteria the FFF design team have?

Well, my SD1M and SDQ-H meet or exceed most of the Bayer IQ except for the FP. Sigma needs to step up and make a sensor that's better than a 100mp Bayer sensor.

Taking equivalent MP as the criterion for "better", according to past threads 100MP Bayer demands more than 67MP 1:1:1 Foveon.

Ted, as you know, Sigma believes the SD Quattro H is equivalent to a camera with a 51 MP Bayer pattern CFA. Others agree. I agree that it's at least very close.

The SD Quattro H offers a little less than 7 MP on each of the lower layers. The 20 MP per layer FFF will have approximately three times as many photo-sites per layer on the middle and bottom layers. With an 80 MP top layer, a "Quattro" version of the FFF would therefore offer imaging equivalent to an approximately 153 MP (or possibly even a 160 MP) Bayer pattern CFA sensor, given the double equivalency (if there truly is such an equivalency).

What you mention about a 67 MP 1:1:1 sensor being required to match a 100 MP Bayer pattern CFA sensor makes no sense to me at all.

It'd a pity that your and Sigma's MP is different to actual raw image MP. I meant a top layer of 67MP ...

... a pixel pitch of 3.6um which I still think that they will not achieve ... ever.

"It captures detail levels well beyond its nominal pixel count: Sigma's claims that it rivals 50MP Bayer sensors are absolutely true, in terms of detail capture." - https://www.dpreview.com/reviews/sigma-sd-quattro-h/3

That's a pretty low pixel pitch - even for full frame.

Good luck to Sigma if they try to get that fabricated ...

So if Sigma succeeds with making the 20 MP per layer full-frame sensor, and then proceeds to work on "quattrifying" the top layer of that sensor, do you think they won't be able to get that fabricated Ted? If so, why not?

See above.

Scott. once again you are introducing speculation as a rebuttal.

A "quattrified" top layer of 80MP is extremely unlikely, IMO.

Not in my opinion. The more I think about it, the more it makes sense to me that they'll do it some day Ted. It's not that much more dense than the original Quattro sensors are.

OK, how much more dense is an 80MP top layer than the original Quattro sensor?

I'm thinking they only have to make those photo-sites a little less in width and height (maybe 20%).

Here's how I figure it Ted: 80-48=32 (so the sensor would have about 32 MP more on the top layer than a full-frame Quattro with the original Quattro density). To step up another 32 MP from 48 MP it's not even cutting the area for each photo-site in half.

A 48 MP top layer would be approximately 8,500 pixels across by about 5,660 pixels. An 80 MP top layer would be about 11,000 pixels across (by 7,334). As you can guess, 11,000 pixels across doesn't require a lot more density to fit into the same space, because it's only about 30% more pixels across.

That's nothing like the step up from the sensor in the SD 15 to the sensor in the SD 1.

They might just use the same density as the original though. That should be enough to do 8K, and they've already figured out the image processing for those.