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Next Level of Digital Sensor

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emunity

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It will revolutionize Digital Photography or at least bring it to the next level. But my question is will this be another FAD or Fovian Sensor?

For anyone interested here is the link.

I think you will be very interested. I talked to them recently and they said it will be available this year and if a company liek Nikon or Canon ordered 100 of 1000's of these sensors, they would reduce the cost to about $250 per sensor for a size near 1:1 with 35mm file. It suppose to be more cost effective and at least 50% better or my dynamic range etc etc.

Read on tell me what you think?

http://www.panavisionsvi.com/technical_extreme.htm
 
And, more than that Saga-shi, E1 has nothing to do with 35mm. It can only accept sensors of much smaller size.
regards
George
 
Very interesting, ideed. So far their old technology, ACS, was not terribly popular for the 4 years or so on the market.
I'm wondering if "XTREMEPIX" is doing any better.
Somehow, ACS history makes me sceptical.
--
Vladimir.
 
emunity said:
I think you will be very interested. I talked to them recently
and they said it will be available this year and if a company liek
Nikon or Canon ordered 100 of 1000's of these sensors, they would
reduce the cost to about $250 per sensor for a size near 1:1 with
35mm file. It suppose to be more cost effective and at least 50%
better or my dynamic range etc etc.
Click to expand...
Here's the primary problem they have - they are an American company. The really big companies (like Nikon and Canon) are not going to touch this in a million years - and why should they? NIH, or Not Invented Here, is the mindset of the major players. I could also do pretty well if a huge company would order 100 or 1000's of anything from me - but they will not.

So that leaves the outlyers like Sigma, Minolta, Epson and so on. Sigma as we all know has gone the route of Foveon, and there's little reason to depart (I'll go on about that more in a second) The rest of them find it just as easy to buy sensors from other people, like Sony.

Furthermore there's not much really revolutionary about the technology - unlike Foveon which at least has a different approach to capturing images, all this means is possibly smaller pixels on the same bayer grid we all know and love, with possibly better dynamic range.

The final problem is all those "probablies". Unlike other cheap sensors from many companies, or even the Foveon chip, this chip as not really been field tested at all. There are few companies that are going to take a chance now when they can achieve a good degree of success just by going with the status quo. If you were going to take a chance as a camera maker you might consider Foveon as it has had a lot of real-world battle testing behind it, but this new chip is a real question mark that few companies are going to have the bravery to try and answer.

Also, I have to say that it looks like MAYBE one guy is behind the whole thing. I say MAYBE because I am actually doubting if he is even doing this full time or if this is just a sideline and an idea with a few prototypes! There is hardly anything at all on that website, and you can tell they have not had graphic designers come on board yet.

It will be interesting to see if they get any traction but I have to say my spider sense says "dead in a year". I don't mean to throw rain on this parade as I am also very exicited by new technologies, but you also have to be careful to discern which new technologies are real and which are vaportware!

--
---> Kendall
http://www.pbase.com/kgelner
http://www.pbase.com/sigmasd9/user_home
Summer Shoot:
http://www.pbase.com/kgelner/sigmachangingseasonsiibyday
 
Kendall Helmstetter Gelner said:
It will be interesting to see if they get any traction but I have
to say my spider sense says "dead in a year". I don't mean to
throw rain on this parade as I am also very exicited by new
technologies, but you also have to be careful to discern which new
technologies are real and which are vaportware!
Click to expand...
If it is a promising technology however, it will have an immediate effect on the price of the Sony and Kodak sensors!
regards,
George
 
Kendall Helmstetter Gelner said:
Here's the primary problem they have - they are an American
company. The really big companies (like Nikon and Canon) are not
going to touch this in a million years
Click to expand...
Why not? Nikon uses Digital DEE in Nikon Capture, and Digital ICE and DEE in their scanners. Those are products of Dallas based Applied Science Fiction.
Kendall Helmstetter Gelner said:
So that leaves the outlyers like Sigma, Minolta, Epson and so on.
Click to expand...
And Oly. Not an outlier, but one of the top 5. Using a Kodak sensor.
Kendall Helmstetter Gelner said:
Sigma as we all know has gone the route of Foveon, and there's
little reason to depart (I'll go on about that more in a second)
The rest of them find it just as easy to buy sensors from other
people, like Sony.
Click to expand...
Definitely true. It took Nikon years to get their own sensor production going. I don't think we're going to be seing Pentax or Oly brand sensors soon.
Kendall Helmstetter Gelner said:
Furthermore there's not much really revolutionary about the
technology - unlike Foveon which at least has a different approach
to capturing images, all this means is possibly smaller pixels on
the same bayer grid we all know and love, with possibly better
dynamic range.
Click to expand...
And no electronic shutter. Exactly the direction Nikon is moving away from in their high production D70.

And it's a CMOS part that comes off a standard line. Look where that got Kodak, with the Fill Factory sensor. And then compare to Canon's process, with much deeper etches.

I don't think it's the part the market needs, today.
Kendall Helmstetter Gelner said:
The final problem is all those "probablies". Unlike other cheap
sensors from many companies, or even the Foveon chip, this chip as
not really been field tested at all. There are few companies that
are going to take a chance now when they can achieve a good degree
of success just by going with the status quo. If you were going to
take a chance as a camera maker you might consider Foveon as it has
had a lot of real-world battle testing behind it, but this new chip
is a real question mark that few companies are going to have the
bravery to try and answer.
Click to expand...
Or they'll try it in a limited "don't bet te company" way.
Kendall Helmstetter Gelner said:
Also, I have to say that it looks like MAYBE one guy is behind the
whole thing. I say MAYBE because I am actually doubting if he is
even doing this full time or if this is just a sideline and an idea
with a few prototypes! There is hardly anything at all on that
website, and you can tell they have not had graphic designers come
on board yet.

It will be interesting to see if they get any traction but I have
to say my spider sense says "dead in a year". I don't mean to
throw rain on this parade as I am also very exicited by new
technologies, but you also have to be careful to discern which new
technologies are real and which are vaportware!
Click to expand...
I quite agree.

--
A cyberstalker told me not to post anymore...
So I'm posting even more!

Ciao!

Joe

http://www.swissarmyfork.com
 
Kendall Helmstetter Gelner said:
Here's the primary problem they have - they are an American
company. The really big companies (like Nikon and Canon) are not
going to touch this in a million years - and why should they? NIH,
or Not Invented Here, is the mindset of the major players.
Click to expand...
Now you are mixing companies with US goverment/military. :)

--
jari k
 
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't Foveon a US company?

Oh and jari k - crawl back into your spider hole before they find you.
jari k said:
Kendall Helmstetter Gelner said:
Here's the primary problem they have - they are an American
company. The really big companies (like Nikon and Canon) are not
going to touch this in a million years - and why should they? NIH,
or Not Invented Here, is the mindset of the major players.
Click to expand...
Now you are mixing companies with US goverment/military. :)

--
jari k
Click to expand...
 
emunity said:
It will revolutionize Digital Photography or at least bring it to
the next level. But my question is will this be another FAD or
Fovian Sensor?
Click to expand...
I don't think anyone is interested in a 1.5MP resolution chip no matter how good the color can theoretically be without Bayer interpolation.

http://www.dpreview.com/news/0406/04062102foveonf19.asp

The only way Foveon will compete is if they make a chip with competitive resolution without multiplying by three, at a competitive price.
 
Joseph S. Wisniewski said:
Joseph S Wisniewski said:
Here's the primary problem they have - they are an American
company. The really big companies (like Nikon and Canon) are not
going to touch this in a million years
Click to expand...
Why not? Nikon uses Digital DEE in Nikon Capture, and Digital ICE
and DEE in their scanners. Those are products of Dallas based
Applied Science Fiction.
Click to expand...
After rethinking this point and the point you made about Oly using the Kodak sensor, I'm willing to fall back to Canon and Nikon not using ouside sensors as more of a big company hubris thing that specifically a Japanese trait (though I still think there's a current of Japanese being reluctant to go outside thier own culture for anything). In either case the effect is the same. I do think that the outlyers have kind of cast thier dies as well for some time in terms of where sensors come from, it would probably be a few years before anyone makes major sesnor brand switches unless something big comes along to perturb the market.
Joseph S Wisniewski said:
And no electronic shutter. Exactly the direction Nikon is moving
away from in their high production D70.
Click to expand...
Joseph S Wisniewski said:
I don't think it's the part the market needs, today.
Click to expand...
I think you are more knowedgeable than myself on specifics in this area, so I am relieved your assesment is in line with what I was thinking.

--
---> Kendall
http://www.pbase.com/kgelner
http://www.pbase.com/sigmasd9/user_home
Summer Shoot:
http://www.pbase.com/kgelner/sigmachangingseasonsiibyday
 
win39 said:
I don't think anyone is interested in a 1.5MP resolution chip no
matter how good the color can theoretically be without Bayer
interpolation.
Click to expand...
win39 said:
The only way Foveon will compete is if they make a chip with
competitive resolution without multiplying by three, at a
competitive price.
Click to expand...
I'm not even going to go into the whole resolution thing as that as been covered to death. I'll just agree to disagree. If the camera outputs a 4MP JPG, and it looks like other 4MP JPGs, then what would a user care the sensor did in the meantime?

However the Foveon chip has another great theoretical advanatage and that is quality of video output. given the output resolution of camera video, the Foveon chip should have a major edge on producing nice looking video - like a 3CCD camcorder in your pocket! And using the VPS feature where it just combines pixels on the sesnor into larger "pixels" I believe it should have really good noise performance in video as well.

That's the feature I'm most anxious to see in the upcoming Polaroid camera.

--
---> Kendall
http://www.pbase.com/kgelner
http://www.pbase.com/sigmasd9/user_home
Summer Shoot:
http://www.pbase.com/kgelner/sigmachangingseasonsiibyday
 
I think you have misconceptions about the meaning of "pixels" in a digital camera. This sensor has 4.5M measurement points. A 4.5MP Bayer sensor also has 4.5M measurement points. Half of them are green. Don't be fooled by the fact that each sensor in a Bayer array is geometrically distinct. It is important to avoid the tendency to think of sensor arrays as like images themselves. More locations does not always mean more resolution, especially when you look more deeply into Nyquist. Remember, these sensors have diffusion filters covering the sensor wells! They blur the optics intentionally to distribute signals across more than one sensor well. Any illusion you get of sharpness in the end is a product of DSP reconstruction , and not a product of any ability of the sensor to register fine detail!

This is one of the hardest concepts to get across about digital sampling. Avoid the temptation to think of the sensor array as being like pixels on your PC monitor. They are just abstract sensor arrays, and what they capture after the diffusion filter is intentionally very unsharp. It has only one function -- to provide information for reconstruction. Think instead of how the image is reconstructed. Think information theory.

Luke
win39 said:
emunity said:
It will revolutionize Digital Photography or at least bring it to
the next level. But my question is will this be another FAD or
Fovian Sensor?
Click to expand...
I don't think anyone is interested in a 1.5MP resolution chip no
matter how good the color can theoretically be without Bayer
interpolation.

http://www.dpreview.com/news/0406/04062102foveonf19.asp

The only way Foveon will compete is if they make a chip with
competitive resolution without multiplying by three, at a
competitive price.
Click to expand...
 
Luke Kaven said:
It is important to avoid the
tendency to think of sensor arrays as like images themselves. More
locations does not always mean more resolution, especially when you
look more deeply into Nyquist. Remember, these sensors have
diffusion filters covering the sensor wells! They blur the optics
intentionally to distribute signals across more than one sensor
well. Any illusion you get of sharpness in the end is a product of
DSP reconstruction , and not a product of any ability of the
sensor to register fine detail!
Click to expand...
How many pixels is the range that part of the same information can spread to?

If this is correct, then there would be no problem at the virtual line where two different colors meet, or not?
regards
George
 
Kendall Helmstetter Gelner said:
Joseph S. Wisniewski said:
Kendall Helmstetter Gelner said:
Here's the primary problem they have - they are an American
company. The really big companies (like Nikon and Canon) are not
going to touch this in a million years
Click to expand...
Why not? Nikon uses Digital DEE in Nikon Capture, and Digital ICE
and DEE in their scanners. Those are products of Dallas based
Applied Science Fiction.
Click to expand...
After rethinking this point and the point you made about Oly using
the Kodak sensor, I'm willing to fall back to Canon and Nikon not
using ouside sensors as more of a big company hubris thing that
specifically a Japanese trait (though I still think there's a
current of Japanese being reluctant to go outside thier own culture
for anything).
Click to expand...
Not necessarily. Nikon buys its sensors from others. They are currently seriously trailing Canon and might go with this sensor assuming it has significantly better performance than current sensors and can go full frame. Canon might be interested if it has superior performance and if Canon can get an exclusive deal to keep the sensor to itself. Business is business. Of course, this all assumes that the new sensor has superior performance, can be manufacturered cheaply, etc. etc.
Kendall Helmstetter Gelner said:
In either case the effect is the same. I do think
that the outlyers have kind of cast thier dies as well for some
time in terms of where sensors come from, it would probably be a
few years before anyone makes major sesnor brand switches unless
something big comes along to perturb the market.
Kendall Helmstetter Gelner said:
And no electronic shutter. Exactly the direction Nikon is moving
away from in their high production D70.
Click to expand...
Kendall Helmstetter Gelner said:
I don't think it's the part the market needs, today.
Click to expand...
I think you are more knowedgeable than myself on specifics in this
area, so I am relieved your assesment is in line with what I was
thinking.

--
---> Kendall
http://www.pbase.com/kgelner
http://www.pbase.com/sigmasd9/user_home
Summer Shoot:
http://www.pbase.com/kgelner/sigmachangingseasonsiibyday
Click to expand...
--
Leon
http://pws.prserv.net/lees_pics/landscapes.htm
 
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