[filmscanners] RE: Foveon

["Austin Franklin" <darkroom@ix.netcom.com>]

> That is the breakthrough in the Foveon technology - each sensor element
> has three layers, and can measure R, G, and B.  With the current
> generation of CCD and CMOS detectors, each sensor element measures only
> one primary color.

The sensor array still have individual sensors for each of the colors, but
uses three of them per PIXEL.

> The Foveon device has a one-to-one mapping of sensor
> elements to pixels,

It has a 1:1 mapping of pixels to pixels, not sensor elements to pixels.  It
still uses three sensors per pixel...for a 1 shot, I believe it has two, you
can't measure three different colors with one sensor...it still has to have
three "elements".

Basically, if you took a current Bayer patterned digital camera, and
quartered the resolution...you would get the same "idea" that the Foveon has
as far as pixel/sensor mapping.  My understanding is the Foveon still uses
3u sensor size...the sensors haven't gotten any smaller...they just use
three sensors per pixel, and do no interpolation.  That's a good answer,
providing the noise is very low (smaller sensor elements mean higher noise),
and the sensor is physically large enough.

Austin

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