Hello all, I heard that there is a new type of chip for digital cameras that i supposed to be phenomenal. From what I understand, it is based on how deep light can penetrate into the cell rather than targeting different cells for different colors. Does anyone know anything about them?
Hey thanks. That's the one, and I believe I did read that article in Discover. Do you think it will "catch on" and become the norm in most cameras? It looks really fantastic.
The problem with the Foveon right now is that only Sigma has tried putting it in a camera. Furthermore, they use their own lens mount and so if you want to use the Foveon... You have to buy into Sigma and Sigma Lenses. This is a real issue for folks that already own thousands of dollars in other lens systems like Nikon and Canon. The Foveon looks nice, but not near nice enough to make the switch.
I don't think the technology will die out, though. But it may be several years before the other manufacturers buy into Foveon, or (perhaps even more likely) develop their own versions. But you never know, something even better could come along and eclipse it altogether!
At the first glance I liked the Sigma SD9 because of the interesting new chip technology and because it's comparatively cheap. But it effectively has only 3 Megapixels! That's a bit few. And in tests I read it seems that there is not much a difference between the Faveon chip and current CMOS/CCD chips.
I've been hearing about the Foveon for over a year now...there's the usual chicken/egg problem that until the chips are made in large enough quantity they're too expensive for pro-sumer and lesser cameras, but until those cameras start using it there won't be enough demand to drive down the price.
From what I've been hearing they are between six months and 2 years away from being commonly available.
Smaller megapixel counts may not be so important since one of the main advantages of the Foveon is exceptional sharpness/detail, probably allowing more up-sampling later than is usual now...
I'm guessing Sony as the next to come out with one, unless they're developing their own competing proprietary technology...
I have been following the technology pretty closely as well. It is everything that Paul mentioned above due, in large part, from the fact that the images are so clean. Because the camera is not 'guessing' as to what color individual pixels are it ends up being much more accurate down to the individual pixels. I have seen less haloeing(?) and chromatic aberrations as well. There are still some color and brightness clipping issues that need to be resolved but the potential looks extremely promising. I am quite certain that this technology or a similar one will be the next big wave in digital cameras.
