[filmscanners] Re: Newish Digital Tech

["Arthur Entlich" <artistic-1@shaw.ca>]

David J. Littleboy wrote:


>
> This is exactly right. There's no reason to expect that a Bayer pattern chip
> is intrinsically better. There's also, so far, no proof that the Foveon chip
> is enough better to be worth the hype.


I'm not quite sure what "worth the hype" means.  The "hype" doesn't cost
you anything, in this case.  In fact, the X3 chip is cheaper per result
than competing products, so how can you say "worth the hype".

Just wait until the Foveon chips trickle into the middle range cameras,
and you'll begin to see just how much "fat" there is in the pricing the
CCD/CMOS sensors in use today.  For a new technology to break the price
point of the current technology, with at least equal if not superior
results (and I only put it this way in respect for your differing sense
of what superior means in terms of image rendition) on the very first
release, says a lot about the pricing structure or cost of production of
the older technology.  As I understand the X3 technology it allows for
reduction of the number of parts required downstream from the image
capture chip, and this leads to economy in production.

Once the Foveon chip technology enters the market in a wider
distribution, we are going to see some major reduction of prices.
Whether that leads to the more expensive Bayer/CCD method to become no
longer profitable, and therefore fall out of favor, we will have to wait
and see.  Even assuming the Foveon made no improvement at all in the
quality of the image (which I would disagree with) the cost of
production of such a system is inherently cheaper, and if market forces
aren't confounded by certain other interests, I believe the Foveon will
prove to be very good value and will rapidly migrate into digital camera
lines.

Art



----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Unsubscribe by mail to listserver@halftone.co.uk, with 'unsubscribe 
filmscanners'
or 'unsubscribe filmscanners_digest' (as appropriate) in the message title or 
body