Digital BW, The Print

Hello Jeff,

>>...if a sensor were made specifically for B&W...

>...Such sensors are made by the thousands...

I'd like to share my personal pet prediction.  This is not based on
any technical knowledge, just pure hunch and speculation.   I've had
this idea for over a year and it won't go away.  I predict that
someday we'll have cameras with switchable plug-in sensors.  Here's
why:

To me the biggest difference from film is that we could put any film
we wanted in our cameras - a huge range of choices.  With digi we're
stuck with whatever we get.  That is an enormous restriction,
especially for such expensive cameras.

Makers must constantly evolve their products to compete.  Where will
they go?  Someone pointed out that once the MP race hits diminishing
returns they'll turn to improving the DR and other attributes of the
sensors themselves.  I agree, but what comes after that?

I think that someone eventually will design a plugin sensor that will
have a standard pinout, at least within their own cameras.  They will
make several sensors, just a few at first; color and BW.  It
will evolve to having choices of different MP sizes with
correspondingly different size wells, with correspondingly different
noise and DR ratings (since all the sensors will be the same size). 
Perhaps even different BW sensitivities such as IR and panchromatic.

Each plugin sensor package will of necessity carry its own onboard
firmware.  The camera will just have enough image processing code to
trigger the sensor logic and transfer the data to the memory card
(which might mean lower "body only" camera prices).  This means the
sensor processing firmware will have a standard API.

A standard pinout and API will open up a vigorous 3rd party market for
sensors for these cameras (think Sony, Matsushita and Kodak), and
we'll eventually have a large range of choices.

The first company to make such a camera will likely sell tons of cams
(especially if they work behind the scenes with 3p sensor makers so
there is a wider range of sensors out of the starting gate)  because
the benefits will be obvious.  I predict K-M will do it because
Minolta has always been innovative.  Other makers will have to folow
suit, and it's possible the pinout and API will become industry-wide
(that one I'm not so sure about, but what a huge difference it would
make - the 3p sensor industry would be enormous).

This will most likely take some years to happen, but I think it's
inevitable.

NOTE: I cringe in fear that by posting this I will start a huge thread
in this forum.  I hope not.  I hope people will just think about it
and put it away to wait and see if it ever happens.  Please use
restraint and don't have a long drawn out discussion of these ideas. 
I'm sharing this because it fascinates me and I think others here may
appreciate it - but this is supposed to be a printing forum.

Regards,
Clayton


Info on black and white digital printing at    
http://www.cjcom.net/digiprnarts.htm