On Mar 9, 2007, at 9:07 AM, Mark Erickson wrote: > Rumors are surfacing that Foveon sensors may show up in non Sigma > DSLRs in > the next six months or so. Foveon's design escapes resolution > issues that > are intrinsic to Bayer pattern color sensors. I don't see why > Pentax has to > stick with Sony forever. Wouldn't it be cool if Pentax tied up > with Foveon > for their next DSLR sensor?
As with any technology, there are plusses and minusses. One of the issues with the Fovean sensors used in the Sigma cameras so far is low light sensitivity. Due to the triple-layer photosite technology, it takes more light energy to achieve the same SNR as you get from a Bayer matrix sensor design. What this translates to is more noise at high ISO settings relative to the current state of the art Bayer sensors. The notion that the Fovean sensor's inherent sharpness is greater has little to do with Bayer matrix chroma interpolation: it has to do with the lack of an antialiasing filter in the design. That also means that, under certain circumstances, Fovean sensors have more tendency to create moire and other Analog to Digital artifacts. Much of which can be controlled by post-capture image processing in the camera, of course. Unless they've greatly improved on these things in recent developments, and in addition to the MegaPixel Barrier, I think it's too early as yet to suggest that Pentax abandon Sony's proven sensor technology. But they should certainly keep their eyes open for the possibilities that Fovean technology might present. Godfrey -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
