the key point y'all missed is that it looks unlikely that a 35mm format
64MP sensor is likely, based on CMOS developer Carver Mead's comments at
end of article fundamental size limits in wavelength of light see
http://www.dpreview.com/news/0009/00...foveon16mp.asp

the 16.8MP foveon chip is 22mmx22mm square format ;-) now, so 64MP would
be 44x44mm square, right? The trend is towards larger sensor sites to
improve images and reduce noise. The Fuji 22 MP sensor is circa 40x51mm; a
32 MP sensor would be decidedly MF sized and not 24x36mm.

Most of us shooting MF SLRs with interchangeable backs also have full kits
of 35mm SLRs, including the pros.

So if 64MP becomes available, I see it requiring MF sized cameras and
lenses, and not 35mm SLR sized chips, even full frame ;-) What I don't see
is any "need" or killer application which requires 64MP sized chips. Now
if HDTV cameras required a 64MP or larger sensor, I would expect cheap MF
digital backs as a side product. But they don't. Other than specialty
military/science applications, I don't see a requirement which will
justify the multi-billion dollar fabrication facilities needed to make
42x56mm or 56x56mm sized sensor devices. Do you?

Again, my argument is that the 35mm SLRs, as QGdeB noted, are far more
popular than the more pricey 16MP digital backs for MF. If 16MP offered a
serious advantage over 8 MP or 11 MP for digital users, then I would
expect to see a lot more digital back users with 16MP backs. And we don't.

So I argue that there is a series of "sweet spots" here, around 2 MP for
consumers with cell phone cameras for 90% of photos to websites, and 4-5
MP for $200 cameras for family digicams doing home prints up to 11x14" or
so, and a modest market (in terms of multi-million $ R&D and chip plant
costs) for higher end DSLRs up to 11 to 16 MP or so. There isn't and
hasn't been much demand for 16MP sensor MF digital back images, right? So
where is the demand for 64MP images which will drive the mfgers to make
billion dollar investments to provide such chips in high enough volumes to
make 64 MP digital backs possible?

In short, I see MF gear being needed beyond 16MP (cf Fuji's 22 MP sensor).
That's the good news. The bad news is I don't see enough of a market for
such gear (today, or in future) from the handful of MF using pros to
justify the mfger costs to deliver digital backs in high enough volumes to
get the custom made costs down to mass produced limits.

In the above article, National Semiconductor figures they can make 16MP
chips for "disposable" digital cameras as cheaply as today's disposable
film cameras (actually recycled), i.e., under $10 or so each 16MP CMOS
sensor chip. The problem is that a 64MP chip at today's volumes will still
cost $10,000, not $40 ;-)

my $.02 again

bobm
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* Robert Monaghan POB 752182 Southern Methodist Univ. Dallas Tx 75275 *
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