Canon FF with Foveon-like sensor

[Carlosodze]

Hi, what do you think about this


http://www.thephoblographer.com/2014/04/30/full-frame-sensors-coming-canon-dslrs-mirrorless-cameras/



do you think this threaten the sigma market? given the fact that most people come to sigma due the amazing IQ Foveon gives, but the cameras itselfs have many limitations, so if canon release a FF with foveon like sensor, that has good capabilities apart from IQ, could be a real problem for Sigma sales, or am i wrong?

 

[Kendall Helmstetter Gelner]

Hi, what do you think about this

http://www.thephoblographer.com/2014/04/30/full-frame-sensors-coming-canon-dslrs-mirrorless-cameras/

do you think this threaten the sigma market?

Without a camera, how does it threaten anything?

Patents mean nothing, companies file patents all the time...

Not to mention Canon would have to work around the MANY Foveon patents on stacked photo sensor designs.

AND also build a RAW processing engine, which Sigma has a decade of expertise making now.

I think there was a thread about this (or a similar patent) just a week ago.

given the fact that most people come to sigma due the amazing IQ Foveon gives, but the cameras itselfs have many limitations

Well actually they focus in low light better than Canon cameras from what I could tell. There may be fewer limitations than you think.

And if the stacked sensor design has inherent ISO limitations then that's one limitation that Canon cannot improve on.

, so if canon release a FF with foveon like sensor, that has good capabilities apart from IQ, could be a real problem for Sigma sales, or am i wrong?

Between this, that, and the other - yes you are wrong.

 

[maceoQ]

AND also build a RAW processing engine, which Sigma has a decade of expertise making now.

And they still don't get it right. :-/

Well actually they focus in low light better than Canon cameras from what I could tell. There may be fewer limitations than you think.

Sigma focus better than Canon in low light? And Sigma has more resolution than Nikon D800?
Whats next..Sigma is better at high ISO than Sony? :-D

 

[Omexis]

That new source really didn't have any detailed information, Foveon style sensor? While the Canon patent could prove true for fruition, I am reluctant to believe a rumor based on a source that wouldn't disclose more information at the time. But who knows, Canon have been secretive about a new sensor, just another leapfrog, but I don't feel a threat to Sigma just yet

 

[PrebenR]

Hi, what do you think about this

http://www.thephoblographer.com/2014/04/30/full-frame-sensors-coming-canon-dslrs-mirrorless-cameras/

do you think this threaten the sigma market? given the fact that most people come to sigma due the amazing IQ Foveon gives, but the cameras itselfs have many limitations, so if canon release a FF with foveon like sensor, that has good capabilities apart from IQ, could be a real problem for Sigma sales, or am i wrong?

Could not care less to be honest.

 

[rjp85]

It doesn't matter. I don't see Canon lenses matching the Sigma DP lenses that are adjusted perfectly to the sensor. If they come out with something, Sigma will still have the upper hand.

 

[Kendall Helmstetter Gelner]

AND also build a RAW processing engine, which Sigma has a decade of expertise making now.

And they still don't get it right. :-/

Well actually they focus in low light better than Canon cameras from what I could tell. There may be fewer limitations than you think.

Sigma focus better than Canon in low light?

I've shot some model scenes side by side with a few people where in low light they were not able to get focus to lock with Canon cameras and I was (on the SD-1, the contrast stuff is not great at locking in low light regardless of camera).

And Sigma has more resolution than Nikon D800?

More and Less.

Whats next..Sigma is better at high ISO than Sony? :-D

Not Yet.

--
---> Kendall
http://www.flickr.com/photos/kigiphoto/
http://www.pbase.com/kgelner
http://www.pbase.com/sigmadslr/user_home

 

[Richard Franiec]

LOL.

 

[carlos roncatti]

LOL.

Twice....

 

[carlos roncatti]

Hi, what do you think about this

http://www.thephoblographer.com/2014/04/30/full-frame-sensors-coming-canon-dslrs-mirrorless-cameras/

i really dont see any chance for that to happening. Canon is behind nikon regarding sensors and still, they sell more cameras and are the first one on the market. Why would they enter a new unknown market?

do you think this threaten the sigma market?

What market? lol...sigma sell as high as ricoh...meaning, very few cameras

given the fact that most people come to sigma due the amazing IQ Foveon gives, but the cameras itselfs have many limitations,

i did that..but bad high iso and wait forever to take a picture after the buffer is filled is annoying..plus, sigma QC is better now, but at the time i bought 5 cameras, 5 lenses and flash, at least 40% of the produts had problems...

so if canon release a FF with foveon like sensor, that has good capabilities apart from IQ, could be a real problem for Sigma sales, or am i wrong?

you are wrong, sigma is a niche product and their users are loyal, few, but loyal.

 

[khunpapa]

Hi, what do you think about this

http://www.thephoblographer.com/2014/04/30/full-frame-sensors-coming-canon-dslrs-mirrorless-cameras/

do you think this threaten the sigma market? given the fact that most people come to sigma due the amazing IQ Foveon gives, but the cameras itselfs have many limitations, so if canon release a FF with foveon like sensor, that has good capabilities apart from IQ, could be a real problem for Sigma sales, or am i wrong?

Me-za think?


You are right.

With that IF, every thoughts are possible.



Canon now has patent. Yes, they can build stacked-sensor camera. Yes they can market this stacked-sensor camera. IF only they want.



Sensor is not commercially manufactured by seedling, but by billions of $$$ to the chip-manufacture plant. Nikon 1 is the best example of the brave company that was willing to throw away billions for the new road to the brave new world because of the new sensor.

 

[Kendall Helmstetter Gelner]

LOL.

Curious how many times you yourself have shot a Sigma DSLR side by side with Canon shooters?

The SD-1 is actually pretty accurate at focusing in low light. I'm not claiming it's faster (it is not), just more accurate in low light and more often able to get a lock. Also note I'm only saying Canon, Nikon cameras are still the best at focusing period.

I thought it was generally understood Nikon cameos were better at focusing, and Canon trailed... why is it such a surprise the Sigma DSLR would be in the middle?

Again, this is all based on real world experience. I'd love to know what your laugher is based upon. Please do regal us with tales of many a shoot you've been on side by side with a variety of cameras.

--
---> Kendall
http://www.flickr.com/photos/kigiphoto/
http://www.pbase.com/kgelner
http://www.pbase.com/sigmadslr/user_home

 

[superevolvedfish]

why don't Sigma license their Foveon patents to compaines like Sony and Canon? or have they already tried? That seems like the best way of making money from the tech.

 

[D Cox]

That story doesn't even give any patent numbers.

Sony do have patents for a multilayer sensor, but nobody expects them to bring it into production in the near future.

 

[Kendall Helmstetter Gelner]

why don't Sigma license their Foveon patents to compaines like Sony and Canon? or have they already tried? That seems like the best way of making money from the tech.

Foveon tried for years to do just that. The problem is that the big sensor companies (like Sony) don't like people rocking the lucrative sensor-making boat.

Foveon would have been sold for scrap, ideas carted off to the giant warehouse of Things to Never Open like at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark. It was only a last minute purchase by Sigma that saved them.

The rest of the camera industry does not deserve Foveon, and if I were Sigma I'd keep hold of such a great competitive advantage to have a truly unique element in a field of otherwise nearly alike products.

 

[Erik Magnuson]

That Canon might be developing a new generation of FF sensor is likely true (i.e., it's either that or give up the market. Guess what: Sigma/Foveon is working on a new generation of sensors too! That's what sensor designers do.) That Canon might also be able to increase yield and lower costs is plausible. That Canon might be working on multi-layer sensors is also plausible (e.g., they currently use a small multi-layer sensor for the metering sensor on a number of models.) That all of these rumors apply to the same sensor is NOT plausible at this time.

 

[Erik Magnuson]

I've shot some model scenes side by side with a few people where in low light they were not able to get focus to lock with Canon cameras and I was (on the SD-1, the contrast stuff is not great at locking in low light regardless of camera).

Of course that is possible: not all Canon users understand how to use the AF systems properly and not all Canon AF systems work alike. "Canon cameras" (even assuming DSLR) ranges from the D30 and 300D to the new 1Dx with very different AF systems. For example on many older & lesser Canons, the non-central AF sensors only work in one direction (horizontal or vertical). If someone doesn't know this or forgets it, they will have trouble locking focus.

Such a generic anecdote is worthless. It's like saying I beat Mario Andretti in a race when he was driving a Ferrari. That it was a Ferrari bicycle and he did not know it was a race would be irrelevant.

 

[Roland Karlsson]

Kendall Helmstetter Gelner wrote:
And if the stacked sensor design has inherent ISO limitations then that's one limitation that Canon cannot improve on.

There is nothing that says stacked sensors have any limitations in ISO. It is the Foveon implementation of stacked sensors that have it.

Now ... I agree though that the rumour that Canon has a Foveon lookalike sensor (whatever that means) is probably false.

 

[Erik Magnuson]

There is nothing that says stacked sensors have any limitations in ISO. It is the Foveon implementation of stacked sensors that have it.

Both **** Lyon and Eric Fossum have suggested that creating low read-noise photodiodes in the lower layers "was thought to be somewhere between hard and impossible". There is also no way around the strong matrix RGB separation issues, (i.e. same reason CYMG mosiacs are not common any more.) Some feel that the "weaker" broader RGB filters used on current mosaics to get better QE & high ISO compromise color fidelity.

 

[Chuck Lantz]

It seems a bit odd that the author of the linked article referred to the older SD14, instead of the SD1. For someone writing about "Foveon-like" capabilities, he's a few years out of touch.

"as seen in the Sigma SD14 and Sigma DP2,"

Besides that, I would guess that Canon is big enough to try something like that and get away with it, even if it didn't take-off. Their advertising budget and their public image is such that they could give a brick a nice black paint-job, hire some new-age actor to tout it internationally, and sell ten zillion of them before people caught on. Then they'd bury it and move on.

All things considered, if and when Canon did come up with some sort of "Foveon-like" sensor, it could possibly improve Sigma sales, since Canon's ads would heavily emphasis the new layered sensor, which would generate interest in all such sensors - meaning Sigma, of course - which in turn would bring Sigma/Foveon to a new audience.

Maybe?