Sensor Replacement

[Joseph S Wisniewski]

Gandolfi WholePlate wrote:

As I pointed out, it would be a major ergonomic hit to the camera,
because you'd have to add a door large enough to accommodate a sensor
and processor board that's pretty much the size of the whole camera

I am not suggesting an "at home" do it yourself kit but a factory
installed replacement so this argument is erroneous.

Factory installed makes it worse. You want to upgrade your Nikon D4
to a D5 sensor. You want the 70MP sensor of the D5, but you don't
want to pay for the telepathic autofocus system that debuted on the
D5 ("I don't need a camera reading my mind, I'll tell it what to
focus on by selecting a focus area with the joystick")

I don't think he cares about the actual reasoning.

It's what I like to call "localized greed". There's a part of Gandolfi that is perfectly aware that the cost to society for this feature is very high: increased materials costs, increased size, weight, and cost of the camera, decreased performance. But this is all submerged in what he believes is a benefit to him, personally:

"I'll save money on the newer sensor. I don't care about the other performance issues, so we'll let the whole world suffer with them, to save me money. It's all about me".

I've seen it before on other threads about interchangeable sensors, digital backs for old film bodies, and that silly "Silicon Film" debacle.

Now Nikon has two choices:
1. Factory upgrade the sensor in the D4
2. Trade in the D4 for a D5 for a discount. Your old D4 gets cleaned
and re-sold on eBay as "refurbished"

I think Nikon would prefer #2. Why?

1. To facilitate swapping sensors there's extra cost in manufacturing
the D4. How much or a higher price do you think the market will take
for future upgradeability?

2. Thousands would upgrade the first month, then it would drop to
hundreds a month, then dozens. Nikon would need to set up a
servicing facility, train some workers in a very delicate work over
and above their regular lab workforce, then fire them all when the
numbers go down. This is a logistic and HR nightmare.

That's exactly what Kodak went through with the 14n sensor upgrade. The example that people keep hauling out to show that sensors "can be upgraded" is actually proof that they can't be.

It's also sort of what Canon went through with the 1D III AF system. Set up increased repair capability, and a complex "get on the waiting list for an RMA" system.

Or something Leica went through with the M8 sensor board replacement early in that camera's history.

But not as bad as the Nikon D100 firmware issue. That's my favorite of all, because it was done for purely political reasons. Nikon had a firmware problem with the first D100 cameras, they insisted it could only be fixed at a Nikon service center. They set up a system where D100 owners could request an update, Nikon would send you a shipping box with shipping label in place, put your camera in, call UPS to have it picked up, and eventually it came back to your door, fixed. This was early in the D100 program, when there were a few thousand cameras in the field, so a few hundred per country didn't overwhelm Nikon service. I did send one of my D100 bodies in for that...

By the time the second update rolled around, there were probably over 100,000 cameras in the field. In the US, Nikon decided this would totally overwhelm the NY and CA repair centers, so they teamed up with UPS and set up a temporary "upgrade facility" in a UPS warehouse (in Kentucky, if memory serves). Just a bunch of benches, and people quickly trained to just do one thing, pop in a CF card and work through the update procedure. For this one, you just got online, printed a UPS sticker, boxed up your camera in whatever you had, and sent it in to the UPS warehouse.

The problem was that between the first and second updates, some people looking for "Easter eggs" went through the entire array of buttons on the D100, holding them down in various combinations, until they found out how to activate the "firmware update" menu on the D100. Yup, it was pure politics: Nikon had given the D100 user update capability right from day one, but decided they didn't trust their users to do it. Some of them might screw it up somehow, and a small percentage might have to send a camera into service. The brilliant solution...

Have every single person send a camera into service.

Then during the second update, one of the Nikon service centers "leaked" the firmware files and update procedures. The end result...

Thousands of people updated their own firmware, with one documented incident that was solved by simply repeating the update procedure. Meanwhile, there were dozens of documented cases of people who sent the cameras in to Nikon having them dropped, cooked, or "trash compacted" by UPS, typically necessitating replacement of the cameras by Nikon.

So you get a used, beat up camera with a new sensor and no telepathic
AF instead of a new camera with all the new stuff. I can't see Nikon
doing it.

Neither can I. And I mentioned the "getting an old camera back" issues of "wear and tear" and "lack of new features", but it just went by Gandolfi.

--
Rahon Klavanian 1912-2008.

Armenian genocide survivor, amazing cook, scrabble master, and loving grandmother. You will be missed.

Ciao! Joseph

http://www.swissarmyfork.com

 

[Joseph S Wisniewski]

Yeah, you can make a 12-MP-B&W-like sensor from a 24-MP-Bayer sensor,
but that doesn't alter the basic fact that given the same technology,
a non-filtered sensor gets more light (2x as much? 3x?) then a
filtered sensor. So I'm not getting the best that Nikon could be
offering and for pennies in R&D costs.

I proposed that to Fuji. I never did a monochrome conversion on one, but I processed essentially monochrome images taken with an S3 and a deep IR (87A) filter, using my monochrome raw processor, and found the S3 can deliver it's incredible dynamic range and a real 12mp of resolution as a monochrome camera. It would have been the very best of the best.

I proposed setting up a company to sell and support monochromatic S3 cameras in North America. We never got it going, though, and now it looks like Fuji is exiting the DSLR market, totally.

But I understand you argument. Interchangeable sensors won't happen.
Unfortunately, it appears that specialty B&W cameras are not
happening either.

Are you willing to pay a $1000 premium over the cost of a Nikon D300, or $1500 to $2000 over the cost of a D700? Those are the kind of numbers I am looking at for my business model. A lot will depend on yield as I get the process going. Right now, 2 cameras is not enough to establish any meaningful statistics. But if I can mod cameras without prohibitive numbers of fatalities...

No Canons, though. Reports from someone modifying Canons says they use solvent proof resin microlenses and can't be converted. So far, the only confirmed successes are D100 and D2X.

You would have thought that some company would make
at least a P&S that was B&W. Companies have dozens of models of P&S.
Surely one of the bridge ones could be made in a small B&W run.

That would be cool.

It could even have face detection (God forbid...)

Not sure that software would still work in monochrome

--
Rahon Klavanian 1912-2008.

Armenian genocide survivor, amazing cook, scrabble master, and loving grandmother. You will be missed.

Ciao! Joseph

http://www.swissarmyfork.com

 

[synp]

What did you think of my cost estimates? In the ballpark? Totally out to lunch?

 

[Tim the Grey]

Yep, they're slow, old, and lack sheer MP compared to 2008 tech.

So what, the weather forecast for this weekend at Le Mans is RAIN.

I have 2 cameras that will get soaked, and not care.

One day I'll upgrade, and most likely to Nikon, but who knows. I'll keep one of the old buses, maybe with Jens IR mod...
--



The world's best Vulcan, XH558, after 14 years on the ground, lives again.
http://catmangler.smugmug.com/