Raphael Bustin wrote:

On 23 May 2004 22:21:57 -0500, (Bob Monaghan)
wrote:


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

And who appointed Carver Mead as the authority on this topic?
Carver's got a specific product to sell, and so far it's been a
very hard sell. Foveon continues to play a very small role in
the digicam market.

He's got the physics on his side. The wavelength of light isn't
changing. You can't use smaller than five micron pixels, and even those
are pretty noisy. 64MP with 7x7 micron dots is 6x6cm in size, even
without the electronics between the pixels.

I think MF and LF may continue to have a role in niche
applications. It will be many years (if ever) before a silicon
sensor can return the sort of pixel counts that I get from
scanning either of these. The only real issue I see is
how long will Kodak and Fuji (et al) continue to make
film in these formats?

Film will be competitive for a long time. When you start handling 64MP
(or 400MB) images, you'll soon notice some things:
- memory isn't cheap, and you need lots of it
- digital processing needs memory all the way from scanning workstations
to permanent storage
- permanent storage isn't permanent, unless it is refreshed every five
years or so
- the rest of the equipment gets obsolete even faster...

In terms of total cost of ownership, MF is still hard to beat. Digitals
win when you need the speed.

-- Lassi