What happened to Foveon?

Jim Townsend wrote:

wrote:

"It seems to have dropped out of view since its announcement 3 years
ago.
Foveon was supposed to take over the industry. What happened?"

It was 5 years ago that Carver Mead, (one of Foveon's co-founders),
did a series of press interviews, with some major papers and magazines.

He reported that Foveon technology would not only do away with traditional
bayer sensors, but it would replace film as well because per square inch,
a foveon sensor had double the resolution of 35mm film :-)

a mere 135 mp to meet 125 lpmm, to capture something like printed text.

both sides of the foveon argument were intelltually dishonest.


At least the technology got off the ground and a camera with the Foveon
sensor could be purchased. It really is too bad it didn't live up to Mead's
claims. It would be nice to own a digicam with double the resolution
of 35mm film.

Absolutely nothing.

--
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wrote in message
...
It seems to have dropped out of view since its announcement 3 years ago.
Foveon was supposed to take over the industry. What happened?

Thanks,

Norm Strong

wrote in news:NaGdnSYtb8lD4qvfRVn-
:

It seems to have dropped out of view since its announcement 3 years ago.
Foveon was supposed to take over the industry. What happened?

They made a chip. It was rather good. Very impressive
for a small company with an oddball technology. But ...
it was not better than what already was existing. And ...
you could only find it in Sigma SLR cameras. And ...
it was only 3 MPixels. And ... it was only one chip.

The competition made lots and lots and lots of chips.
They were larger, more pixels, better color rendition,
etc, etc ....

So -- it died.


/Roland

"DJ" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 14 Mar 2005 22:25:35 -0800, wrote:

It seems to have dropped out of view since its announcement 3 years ago.
Foveon was supposed to take over the industry. What happened?

The Prediot killed what little credibility it might have had.

Thanks all for bringing me out into the light. I now have to ask the
definition of 2 new words: Bayer and Prediot. Could I get a definition of
those?

I'll lay my cards on the table: I was an avid amateur photographer in the
40's and 50's, the days of the twin-lens reflex. I was into other things by
the time the photo world was taken over by the 35mm SLR. I know essentially
nothing about digital photography per se. Because of my lack of knowledge,
I've hesitated buying a digital camera. I'd like to tack on the digital
aspects to my existing knowledge of optics and film photography, so that I
can make an intelligent choice of a digital camera.

Will someone please direct me to a place where I can read up on sensors,
both CCD and CMOS, and find out what the tradeoffs are in choice of sensor
size, ISO speed, etc?

Thanks once again.

Norm

wrote:

Thanks all for bringing me out into the light. I now have to ask the
definition of 2 new words: Bayer and Prediot. Could I get a definition of
those?

I'll lay my cards on the table: I was an avid amateur photographer in the
40's and 50's, the days of the twin-lens reflex. I was into other things by
the time the photo world was taken over by the 35mm SLR. I know essentially
nothing about digital photography per se. Because of my lack of knowledge,
I've hesitated buying a digital camera. I'd like to tack on the digital
aspects to my existing knowledge of optics and film photography, so that I
can make an intelligent choice of a digital camera.

Will someone please direct me to a place where I can read up on sensors,
both CCD and CMOS, and find out what the tradeoffs are in choice of sensor
size, ISO speed, etc?

Thanks once again.


Just get a 20D.

Gary Eickmeier

Malcolm Stewart wrote:
"DJ" wrote in message
.. .
On Mon, 14 Mar 2005 22:25:35 -0800, wrote:

The Prediot killed what little credibility it might have had.

... and guess what? Doing a clear out I came across a 3 year old news
article saying that Microsoft had given it their blessing or some such.

Is *that* what killed it?

----- Paul J. Gans

On Tue, 15 Mar 2005 16:43:29 -0800, wrote:


"DJ" wrote in message
.. .
On Mon, 14 Mar 2005 22:25:35 -0800, wrote:

It seems to have dropped out of view since its announcement 3 years ago.
Foveon was supposed to take over the industry. What happened?

The Prediot killed what little credibility it might have had.

Thanks all for bringing me out into the light. I now have to ask the
definition of 2 new words: Bayer and Prediot. Could I get a definition of
those?

I'll lay my cards on the table: I was an avid amateur photographer in the
40's and 50's, the days of the twin-lens reflex. I was into other things by
the time the photo world was taken over by the 35mm SLR. I know essentially
nothing about digital photography per se. Because of my lack of knowledge,
I've hesitated buying a digital camera. I'd like to tack on the digital
aspects to my existing knowledge of optics and film photography, so that I
can make an intelligent choice of a digital camera.

Will someone please direct me to a place where I can read up on sensors,
both CCD and CMOS, and find out what the tradeoffs are in choice of sensor
size, ISO speed, etc?

Thanks once again.

Norm

Norm, sorry about the initial flip response. "The Prediot" was a frequent poster
on this group calling himself George Preddy, who for ages persisted with
one-eyed posts about the benefits of Foveon technology. He was generally
regarded as a nutter.

Foveon is/was a technology with a lot of promise and a very seductive logic, but
in practice it failed to deliver. It may have been like the Beta/VHS argument.
Beta is the superior technology but VHS won out commercially. In the case of
Foveon vs Bayer, Bayer is the dominant technology, maybe because it has had the
most R&D effort invested in it, but the state of the art is that it is way
superior.

It is generally agreed that right now Canon make the best sensors, at least in
the APS-C format (22x15mm). Nikon and Konica-Minolta are close behind, making up
some of the difference with smart support electronics.

If you are serious about getting into digital, look closely at the digital SLRs,
Canon 350D or 20D, Nikon D70 etc. Unless you are looking for something very
compact and all-in-one, or lack the budget, dSLR is the only way to go. The
feature sets can be very confusing to compare so you may need to spend a lot of
time comparing, learning what all the terms mean and evaluating what's important
to you. One of the very good resources is www.dpreview.com. They review a lot of
cameras and explain a lot of the terminology they use.

I am a little younger than you but also was an avid photographer in my younger
years, using Roleiflexes, Hasselblad, SLRs (my father was a professional
photographer, and I had access to a range of equipment - I grew up with a
permanent darkroom in the house and D76 in my veins). Then I migrated to
Australia and ceased photography for about 35 years. Now I'm back, combining my
computer skills with a resurrected passion for photography, and having a ball.
My Canon 300D is capable of things I could only dream of with my old Minolta
SR1 (sic) and anything from Pan-F to Tri-X pushed to 1600 or HPS pushed to 3200
or 6400. Take a look at this: http://www.splatco.com/david/RS_CRW_7977-03.jpg
That was shot at 1600ASA then pushed 2 more stops in the computer. That's
6400ASA! At the "slow end" the cameras are equally awesome, with the most
amazing definition (at least with a good lens), good for poster-sized
enlargements (IMHO).

My one sadness is that my father never lived to see this revolution!

So, hang out on dpreview. Google for "digital camera reviews", "sensor size"
etc. Learn about the importance of sensor size (physical surface area) for low
noise and the relative "unimportance" of pixel count. As you surf around you
will initially discover more questions than you are answering.

Good luck, and enjoy!

David

On Tue, 15 Mar 2005 16:43:29 -0800, wrote:

Thanks all for bringing me out into the light. I now have to ask the
definition of 2 new words: Bayer and Prediot. Could I get a definition of
those?

Bayer filter:
http://electronics.howstuffworks.com...l-camera12.htm

Others have covered prediot.
--
Bill Funk
Change "g" to "a"

rafeb wrote:

Half the area of 35 mm would be generous.
The APS-C sensor (10D, 20D) covers only 40% of that area.
The Sigma SD-10 sensor (13.8 x 20.7 mm) covers 33% of that area.

Yup. The new Kodak CCD for the Pentax 645 medium format digital
is almost twice the area of a 35mm film frame!

http://www.dpreview.com/news/0503/05...645digital.asp

wrote:
It seems to have dropped out of view since its announcement 3 years ago.
Foveon was supposed to take over the industry. What happened?

Interesting sensor, but people don't buy sensors. They buy cameras.
Nobody made a good camera that used the sensor.

--
Ray Fischer