Digital BW, The Print

Hi David,

> Having just come from a lecture by Carver Mead, CEO of Foveon, I
> think that its going to be the camera of the future.
> I'm not tch inclined, but the gist of what he spoke about and
> showed slides is..

I'm sure it was a very entertaining lecture!  I would have loved to have
been there ;-)

> With traditonal CCD's each pixel records R G or B, then math
> algorythms, figure out 2/3rds of the missing information to
> construct the entire photo.

That is not how it works, and if that was what was presented, it is a
misrepresentation of how the Bayer reassimilation algorithm works.  It is
only the COLOR information that is interpolated, NOT the edge information.
In fact, television works in a very similar way...on a simple fact that our
eyes are far far less sensitive to color information then they are to edge
information.

> With the CCD's that we are used to,
> only 1/3 of picture info is real, the rest is mathematically
> figured out or guessed at.

Again, that is completely wrong.

> Hope some of this makes sense to you.

It makes complete sense to me.  What you believe you heard is not what
happens with Bayer pattern sensors.

You know they DO have a good idea, but they are creating absolutely bogus
straw men to fight against, and that, in my opinion, is not really "proper".

>  He said they were printing 48 inch prints from the Sigma, and
> compared it to the quality of single capture backs on a Hasselblad.

Really?  Did he SHOW you any of the supposed 48 inch prints?  The sensor
that was used in the DPReview camera was a 2k x 2k sensor, and the F7 sensor
is 2268 x 1512, and the F10 sensor is 1280 x 960.  Without interpolation,
assuming the 2k x 2k sensor, that would make a 48 inch print have only 42.6
pixels per inch.  I do not believe that.  I can't imagine how he can make
the claim he has, unless the image was run through something like Genuine
Fractals...

Austin