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Old February 26th 05, 03:24 AM
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"The PhAnToM" wrote in message
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Can someone again summarize why the lingering hatred of Foveon?

Thanks.

There is no hatred.

There was a lot of disappointment when the Sigma D-SLRs, produced
relatively mediocre results compared to all other digital SLRs (and
compared to many compact digital cameras for that matter). This has
translated into healthy skepticism that the 1.5 megapixel sensor in the
Polaroid x530 will produce good results (this camera is nearly a year
late, with no explanation ever provided for the delay, making many
people very nervous about it, but who knows, it could be a sleeper).

What upset a lot of people about Foveon was how the 3.4 megapixel X10
sensor somehow morphed into a 10.2 megapixel sensor. This stemmed from
an attempt to re-define a pixel from a spatial input element into a
photo-detector. Terms such as "pixel sensor" were invented, in an
attempt to confuse the consumer. Foveon decided not to adhere to the
JCIA GLA03 standard regarding the definition of a pixel, claiming that
the standard did not adequately address X3 technology (it actually
does). Fujitsu, who has a non-standard sensor design, takes great pains
to be accurate in terms of the JCIA GLA03 standard, even noting the
standard in their specifications (i.e. see
"http://home.fujifilm.com/products/digital/lineup/f810/performance.html").

Now we have the 1.5 megapixel Polaroid x530 being marketed as a 4.5
megapixel camera. But what can WWL do, since if they tried marketing it
as a 1.5 megapixel camera it would surely fail. This camera will likely
be about as good as a current 3 megapixel compact camera, but it isn't
3 megapixels either, it's a 1.5 megapixel, 4.5 megasensor camera. The
problem is that many consumers look only at megapixels, just as when
buying computers many look only at megahertz; this is unfortunate, but
it requires education of the consumer into accepting a different
standard for product selection (can you imagine if a company tried to
redefine megahertz?!).

Some ill will may have been created by a few people, posting under many
aliases, on rec.photo.digital, who promulgated a tremendous amount of
mis-information about Foveon and Sigma. But most people realized that
these individuals were not speaking on behalf of Sigma or Foveon, so
their actions didn't have a lot of effect (and of course, in the big
scheme of things, Usenet means nothing). These people were basically
trying to justify their purchase of a specific product, and got
extremely upset whenever anyone pointed out any flaws (I'll never
understand this attitude, yet it certainly is not limited to digital
cameras). They've disappeared from Usenet for the most part, and we all
want to believe that they didn't represent the majority of Sigma camera
owners!

Personally, I have many excellent photographs in my home that were
taken with Foveon technology, and they are indistinguishable from 35mm
(at least to me). But these were all taken with the Foveon studio
camera, which is a very different animal (and in most cases I don't
know how much time the photographer spent on post-processing).

So "hatred" is definitely not the right word. Disappointment that what
appeared to be a great concept hasn't worken out commercially, at least
on the high end, is more like it. (you'll probably soon see Foveon
sensors in a lot of new applications, since they do have some inherent
advantages).