I think you are largely correct... Pretty much all of the comments posted have been mostly negative.. Clearly these cameras do not have the capability performance wise of a Nikon or a Canon and several others.. I guess I'm down to that Sigma must be pretty poor business folks.. As far as the technology not being functional for photography that is BS especially I'd say after my recent chance to see some really great images on my own equipment here .. Granted they are not the tools that our current cameras are but in a narrower slot of function they certainly do not function any less and in a couple of areas at least from what I saw I'd say more. So I just feel it's still an underdeveloped technology and likely in the hands of the wrong owner.
jimbo ----- Original Message -----
From: Paul Grant
To: DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Saturday, November 30, 2013 12:17 PM
Subject: Re: [Digital BW] Foveon sensor.. ?????
For what it is worth I have spent most of my life in the heart of the Silicon Valley in the Semiconductor and Chip Business.
From what I recall the Foveon company was started in the late 90s by some silicon valley legends. I won’t say this was a hobby company but it was not their first big deal by any means. The company started out I believe making chips and camera’s unique for portraits. It used 3 chips one for Red, Green and Blue then combined the images. This evolved to a single chip that was intend to emulate film (light passing through layers). As I recall much of the initial interest by Foveon was to license the technology or sell chips to the camera companies. At the time I thought they were trying to control the sensor market much the way Intel controls the CPU market for PC’s. That was/is the goal in Silicon valley. In any event that model never worked. The only licensee was Sigma. Somewhere in the past 5 or 6 years Sigma purchased the Foveon company.
At least that is how I recall it.
Regards,
Paul
On Nov 30, 2013, at 10:31 AM, Tony Sleep <TonySleep@...> wrote:
On 28/11/2013 15:00, jimbo wrote:
> Ok so to get to it ...why is this set up in the closet..I just don't get
> why this technology has not been embraced.
Probably because Sigma have not managed to get their sensors used in any
of the major brands like Canon/Nikon. Also the lower pixel count is a
misfit with marketing bullets (phony, I know, but the average punter won't
want to tackle the complexity of the explanation). And lastly because
Foveon has inherently lower sensitivity and susceptibility to noise,
thanks to the layered photosite topology (less light gets to the bottom of
the well).
--
Regards
Tony Sleep
http://tonysleep.co.uk
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Re: [Digital BW] Foveon sensor.. ?????
2013-11-30 by jimbo