Pana´s Foveon like sensor!!!

[Godfrey]

So Godfrey, to bring it full cycle, isn't Rawfa simply saying he wishes his desired sensor were in his desired body??

Sure. So what? The whole Fovean vs bayer matrix thing is just another freekin' pseudo religious dogma debate. Like "Oh, it's got to be better because it has a CMOS sensor now." I see a lot of mis-information and hype, not actual information or a discussion of the compromises and priorities of the technology.

What the Fovean type technology offers as theoretical advantage over a Bayer type technology is more color resolution, not more spatial resolution, through co-locating R, G and B photosites. The downsides of a Fovean type technology is that since it requires a three-layer chip design with stacked photosites to co-locate the RGB sensitive site elements, it tends to be less sensitive to light and more likely to produce artifacts with lenses that do not collimate the ray trace to be orthogonal to the sensor plane. Because the Fovean chips are more complex to manufacture, they're more expensive too.

Thus far, Fovean sensor cameras have excelled at modest ISO settings with the right lenses, but Bayer matrix sensor cameras have gone much further with more spatial resolution, lower cost, better high ISO performance, and have nearly equalled the existing Fovean technology on color quality.

For some work, the Fovean sensor cameras have produced advantageous results. For other work, they haven't. Does Rawfa do the work for which Fovean sensor cameras have been the superior choice? Does he use one for his work and is excited over the prospect of having a newer, even better performing technology of this type to work with? I don't know. All I hear is "I really like this because I know its gonna rock!"

Now Panasonic has filed for patent a new sensor design which is similar to Fovean sensors. Maybe it has some advantage, maybe it doesn't. Cheerleading it as the greatest new thing to get obsessed over is just more geekery.

When cameras are produced using this new sensor technology and their performance is evaluated, then I'll be able to say what works well for what purposes, and get excited over the possibilities. Until then, it's just an interesting new technology that has some potential yet to be evaluated. What it means to camera performance is as yet an unknown.

And camera performance is what matters, not what technology the chip is based on.

 

[Terry]

I made no comments as to whether or not I thought that combo was a good thing.

 

[photoSmart42]

And camera performance is what matters, not what technology the chip is based on.

+1. There are so many other factors involved in a particular camera producing a quality image that the actual sensor technology used is only a small piece of the puzzle. Anything from the lenses used to the coatings/filters placed on the sensor, to the processing of the information from the sensor to the GUI/ergonomics of the camera can affect not only how well that sensor technology translates into quality photos, but also into how likely is the user to use a particular camera to actually take those photos.

I do think these discussions have some merit because they're not objective discussions about generic sensor technology inserted into generic cameras, but IMO they're very much subjective because most people having these discussions envision a specific camera they already love to use. So now we're no longer talking about mixing a new senor technology with a bunch of other unknowns, but we're talking about ONLY changing the sensor technology, and inserting that into a camera of the user's choosing, with known everything else. As an example, when I get excited about a new sensor technology, I get excited because I see it thrown into my beloved GH1 (or a derivative thereof), which is tangible.

Basically everybody's saying the same thing here, and everyone's correct in their own way.

 

[Godfrey]

I made no comments as to whether or not I thought that combo was a good thing.

Um, my response made no suggestion that you had.

feh, I just can't type this morning ... ;-)

 

[Will]

I'd be happy if Sigma would just put and LCD on a DP camera that I could actually see with.

Oh, and I think an foveon type sensor in a Panasonic 'might' really rock!

 

[Godfrey]

I'd be happy if Sigma would just put and LCD on a DP camera that I could actually see with.

Oh, and I think an foveon type sensor in a Panasonic 'might' really rock!

LOL! I'd be delighted if Sigma would build something, anything, without its standard lack of consistent quality.

But I'll refrain from my usual Sigma rant. ];-)

 

[pellicle]

Hi

The fact that they have a particular Fuji sensor is part of that performance envelope, yes, but you can't choose the camera independently of the sensor, just like you can't choose a Nikon D300s on the basis of Fovean vs Bayer sensor

ok, perhaps I think I see what you were meaning. One of the reasons I like film is that I can change the sensor according to what I'm photographing while keeping the camera I like.