DSLR Sensor in P&S

[fabian1]

Given that all film cameras are made to expose 35mm film then why aren't there any equivalent digital P&S with a larger sensor - like what is in a DSLR
--
Fabian1

 

[bill1]

Plus, I don't know if you remember the days of 35mm compacts or not, but current digital compacts have WAY more capabilities (eg optical zoom) than 35mm compacts ever did have or could have. 35mm compacts were also quite bulky.

 

[Andy Williams]

i own a canon dslr and a sony f828. i'd happily pay even more for the 828 camera if it had a larger dslr-like sensor, and also throw in a bigger, faster buffer like my canon has ;-)

ah wishes!

 

[bill1]

Sony fits a 28-200mm (35mm equivalent) lens into that boyd precisely because the sensor is so small. Double the size of th esensor and you double the size and width of the lens (and probably quadruple the weight).

 

[fabian1]

Sony fits a 28-200mm (35mm equivalent) lens into that boyd
precisely because the sensor is so small. Double the size of th
esensor and you double the size and width of the lens (and probably
quadruple the weight).

--
Fabian1

Cost? Memory is getting cheaper every day. A 256mb card is half the price from even months ago. A 3mp sensor fitted in the first Nikon D1 couldn't be that much given that they are superceeded in a DLSR.

Zoom? The popular Canon A80 is only 3 times optical. My wifes old P&S film camera is that.

Features? Get back to basics (lighting, composition, perpsective etc etc - its the same film / digital) with a camera that works well. Besides as previously stated in many other posts, features cost next to nothing, there not mechanical - just software.

 

[GodSpeaks]

The sensor cost is one factor, then there is the associated cost with making everything mechanical larger to accomodate the larger sensor.

The dSLR sensors do NOT have video output, these sensors work differently than the sensors in the P&S's. They have a real mechanical shutter in them and separate dedicated modules for autofocus and exposure. None of that is handled by the sensor, as it is in the P&S.

Since the dSLR sensors do not see the light of day until the instant of exposure, you could also kiss the live view LCD goodbye. You would be back in the days of using only the camera's builtin viewfinder.

By the time you are finished, you would end up with a camera as big and probably as expensive as a dSLR, but without the advantages of either a dSLR or digital P&S.

Declan
--
One night in Bangkok makes a hard man humble
One night in Bangkok and the tough guys tumble
I can feel an angel sliding up to me

 

[adder]

the sensor & the shutter mechanisum. DSLR have no live video because they have a mirror siting in front of the sensor. It's entirely possable, from a mechanical stand point to build a camera the sze of say a G5 or A1 or slightly larger with an APS size sensor. The lens would be bigger, but not that much if kept to 3 or 4x. The cost of the 1st ones would be high, but would eventually (like all digicams) come down. How far is anyones guess.

If the manufactures are to improve the image quality they will have to figure out how to do this. They have reached the limits of the small sensors, and much noise processing is like to make things worse.
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[David Hughes124436]

Given that all film cameras are made to expose 35mm film then why
aren't there any equivalent digital P&S with a larger sensor - like
what is in a DSLR
--
Fabian1

Hi,

Have you looked at these: Contax N Doigital, Canon EOS 1Ds or Kodak DCS Pro 14N which all have 35 mm negative sized ccds? I'm sure they'd work well with a 28 to 300 zoom and the "P" setting.

And, as for the cost...

Regards, David

 

[absurd_username]

Does anyone know about how much of the cost of a camera is for the sensor?

How much does a G3 4mp sensor cost vs G5 5mp?
How much do a 1DS and 10D sensor cost?

Would the 1DS 35mm sensor have been much cheaper if it were say 6mp instead of 11mp?

Are camera sensors progressing on something similar to 'Moore's Law'...like how Computer Processors have twice the transistors for half the money every couple of years?

It's entirely possable, from a mechanical stand point to build a camera
the sze of say a G5 or A1 or slightly larger with an APS size
sensor. The lens would be bigger, but not that much if kept to 3 or
4x. The cost of the 1st ones would be high, but would eventually
(like all digicams) come down. How far is anyones guess.

If the manufactures are to improve the image quality they will have
to figure out how to do this. They have reached the limits of the
small sensors, and much noise processing is like to make things
worse.
--
adder

--
My G3 Pictures
http://www.pbase.com/absurd_username

 

[greentoe]

the answer is simply no. Camera sensor costs are driven by size, not by the number of transistors one can squeeze on them. Also costs of making them lens friendly, low pass filters, etc.

-gt

Does anyone know about how much of the cost of a camera is for the
sensor?

How much does a G3 4mp sensor cost vs G5 5mp?
How much do a 1DS and 10D sensor cost?
Would the 1DS 35mm sensor have been much cheaper if it were say 6mp
instead of 11mp?
Are camera sensors progressing on something similar to 'Moore's
Law'...like how Computer Processors have twice the transistors for
half the money every couple of years?

 

[bill1]

Does anyone know about how much of the cost of a camera is for the
sensor?

An EOS 1V (think model is right) costs about £1699 in the UK (iirc). The EOS 1DMkII (a close digital analogue) is twice that so you can ballpark the sensor cost at £1200-1800.

How much does a G3 4mp sensor cost vs G5 5mp?
How much do a 1DS and 10D sensor cost?
Would the 1DS 35mm sensor have been much cheaper if it were say 6mp
instead of 11mp?

No. The issue is size not megapixels. Chips are made on silicon wafers that cost thousands of dollars and are typically 8-12 inches in diameter. The size of a chip determines how many chips you can produce per wafer. Thing is, these wafers have errors. The error rate is typically low (like 1 in 100 million transistors or less). In the case of CPUs an erroneous transistor will often make the chip unusable. This may be less so with sensors.

A Sony F828 for example has an 8.8x6.6mm sensor. The 1Ds has a 36x24mm sensor. That means that there is enough silicon real estate in one 1Ds sensor to produce instead 14 or so F828 sensors.

This is where the error rate rears its ugly head. Assume each 36x24mm area averages one error. That means the yeild of 1Ds sensors (assuming an error makes the hcip unusable) is very low as many have to be discarded whereas only 1 in 14 or so f828 sensors will be likewise affected by e4rrors.

But it gets even worse. Testing is a significant factor (in terms of time and money) for chip production. Think of it this way: an error rate of 75% (for example) means you have to test 4 chips for each production chip you produce whereas a 50% error rate means its only 2 per production chipp.

CPUs have gotten more powerful over the last 2 decades largely because of process shrinking and they have generally stayed the same size or gotten smaller. I think the first batch of 486s were produced by whats called a 0.5 micron process. This is like the "resolution" of the circuit/transistor process. Current CPUs are produced by a 0.013 or 0.009 micron process (thats 50 times smaller). In the next few years that will switch to 0.0065 microns (6.5 nanometers).. Thats all about fitting more transistors in the same physical area.

That process helps megapixels but doesn't help sensor size which is a physical property and it affects th eoptics. You can't make a 10x10mm sensor perform the same optics as a 20x20mm sensor.

 

[Petteri Sulonen]

Given that all film cameras are made to expose 35mm film then why
aren't there any equivalent digital P&S with a larger sensor - like
what is in a DSLR

First off, sensor cost: an APS-sensor compact would cost about as much as a DSLR + lens with similar capabilities. This would pretty severely limit the market.

Second, versatility: while you can cram a pretty decent circa-28-105 circa-2.8-4.5 lens into a pocket-sized camera with a small sensor, you'd have to make do with either a high-quality, bright-ish prime (like the Olympus Mju II, Rollei AF-M etc.), or a mediocre dark zoom (e.g. 35-105/5.6-10) like on most others.

This would be a very significant limitation for the camera: the former would be a wonderful camera for Cartier-Bresson wannabies ( me pleads guilty), and the latter would be no better than a small-sensor, bright-lens one, only more expensive: the optics would perform no better and the sensitivity of the sensor would be cancelled out by the poor brightness.

If someone made an APS-sensor based digital compact like the Ricoh GR 28 or the Oly Mju II and sold it for, say, $1000, I'd probably buy one. However, there's no way it'd sell as well as the small-sensor competition. I don't see one coming in the near future.

Anyway, the mission of a compact is to capture situationals -- maximal image quality isn't as important as compact size and, easy, quick, and straightforward use. The improvement in image quality afforded by the bigger sensor would very likely be pretty theoretical in real life.

Therefore, I think there may well be a Ricoh in my future. The new GX is very nearly everything I'm looking for in a compact... although RAW would be very nice. OTOH, if the auto white-balance and auto-exposure work well, I can live without it.

Petteri
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[GodSpeaks]

The sensors in the current dSLR's do NOT support video output - period.

Could sensors be designed with video output, yes I am sure they could. But the current crop do not have it. Only the smaller sensors in the P&S and the prosumer types of digital cameras support live video output.

However, I agree that the manufacturers are reaching the limits of the small sensors, but I also think it is the small size of the P&S digicams that makes them so popular. Make them bigger by putting in a larger sensor and I think some of that market would evaporate.

Personally, I think the 4/3 system is a dead end due to sensor size and I also feel the APS sized sensors are just marking time until the cost of full frame 35mm sensors becomes more reasonable.

To persue more megapixels requires more real estate on which to work, else noise will become a real factor, as the current 8mp cameras are showing.

But for now, it really is cost issue, being led by the cost of the imageing sensor.

Declan
--
One night in Bangkok makes a hard man humble
One night in Bangkok and the tough guys tumble
I can feel an angel sliding up to me

 

[Joseph S Wisniewski]

Cost? Memory is getting cheaper every day. A 256mb card is half the
price from even months ago. A 3mp sensor fitted in the first Nikon
D1 couldn't be that much given that they are superceeded in a DLSR.

Chips are priced by area. Memory costs go down because manufacturers figure out how to cram more memory cells on a given area of silicon.

An APS sized sensor is an AAPS sized sensor, and it costs about the same weather there's 3 million, 6 million, or 12 million cells on it. The size of the cells changes, but not the area of the chip.

Zoom? The popular Canon A80 is only 3 times optical. My wifes old
P&S film camera is that.

True, but the lenses in your wife's old P&S are much heavier than those in the A80.

Features? Get back to basics (lighting, composition, perpsective
etc etc - its the same film / digital) with a camera that works
well. Besides as previously stated in many other posts, features
cost next to nothing, there not mechanical - just software.

That paragraph is confusing. Are you advocating stripping features, or saying that they don't matter and should be included?

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

Ciao!

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http://www.swissarmyfork.com

 

[Joseph S Wisniewski]

the sensor & the shutter mechanisum. DSLR have no live video
because they have a mirror siting in front of the sensor. It's
entirely possable, from a mechanical stand point to build a camera
the sze of say a G5 or A1 or slightly larger with an APS size
sensor.

Actually, DSLRs typically have sensors that have near 100% of their surfaces devoted to capturing the image, then transfering it after capture, in the dark, behikd a closed shutter. This is called a "full frame transfer" sensor.

P&S cameras have about 1/2 their sensor area devoted to circuitry that lets them provide previews and do electronic shutter operations. Taking chip area away from the actual image capturing part of the cell increases noise and decreases dynamic range. So you give up image quality in order to gain those preview and electronic shutter features.

The lens would be bigger, but not that much if kept to 3 or
4x.

The 3 or 4x issue has nothing to do with lens size, just image quality. If you go from an 11mm diagonal P&S to a 28mm diagonal APS sensor, you increase the lens size by a factor of 2.5, and the lens weight by 2.5^3 or 16.5.

The cost of the 1st ones would be high, but would eventually
(like all digicams) come down. How far is anyones guess.

Then I guess, not very far. Because the average consumer isn't going to pay any extra cost or weight for features that won't matter to them in day to day use.

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

Ciao!

Joe

http://www.swissarmyfork.com

 

[Joseph S Wisniewski]

Sony fits a 28-200mm (35mm equivalent) lens into that boyd
precisely because the sensor is so small. Double the size of th
esensor and you double the size and width of the lens (and probably
quadruple the weight).

If you double the size, you octuple the weight (weight is proportional to size^3).

If you go from Sony 2/3 size (11mm diagonal) to Sony APS size (28mm diagonal) you're increasing size 2.54x, and weight 16.5x.

A heck of a thing to do in those Sony cameras that are mostly lens.

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

Ciao!

Joe

http://www.swissarmyfork.com

 

[Borstad]

This would be a very significant limitation for the camera: the
former would be a wonderful camera for Cartier-Bresson wannabies
( me pleads guilty)...

Yes please... can we make it say 24mm while we're at it?

Matthias

 

[Joseph S Wisniewski]

Given that all film cameras are made to expose 35mm film then why
aren't there any equivalent digital P&S with a larger sensor - like
what is in a DSLR

First off, sensor cost: an APS-sensor compact would cost about as
much as a DSLR + lens with similar capabilities. This would pretty
severely limit the market.

Apparently, it will cost more. $1700 is the lowest figure I've heard.

Second, versatility: while you can cram a pretty decent
circa-28-105 circa-2.8-4.5 lens into a pocket-sized camera with a
small sensor, you'd have to make do with either a high-quality,
bright-ish prime (like the Olympus Mju II, Rollei AF-M etc.), or a
mediocre dark zoom (e.g. 35-105/5.6-10) like on most others.

Very true. The market seems entirely for the small, fast primes.

This would be a very significant limitation for the camera: the
former would be a wonderful camera for Cartier-Bresson wannabies
( me pleads guilty),

Get on the waiting list, it's going to be a limited edition.

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

Ciao!

Joe

http://www.swissarmyfork.com

 

[tko]

A fixed wide angle, 6 MP, pointN shoot with a pro level sensor that went up to ISO 1600 and a rangevinder viewfinder?

I'm not joking. Kind of like the new Leica - very basic, very manual controls, very limited (or no zoom), but giving the ultimate in image quality.

I'd be interesting - but it would have to cost a fair amount less than a 300D - and/or be a lot smaller - otherwise what's the point?

Nah - on second thought, people would complain that it was fixed zoom, then they'd want raw, then an interchageable lens, then tracking autofocus and pretty soon you'd have a dSLR all over again.

 

[adder]

The lens would be bigger, but not that much if kept to 3 or
4x.

The 3 or 4x issue has nothing to do with lens size, just image
quality. If you go from an 11mm diagonal P&S to a 28mm diagonal APS
sensor, you increase the lens size by a factor of 2.5, and the lens
weight by 2.5^3 or 16.5.

it has a bering on total size (not just diameter) a Nikon 28mm & a Nikon 300mm are for the same size "sensor" i.e. 35mm film, but are not the same size. The more elements and mechanics the bigger the lens
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