Digital BW, The Print

I have known Ken Boydston, owner of Megavision, since being part of his  
mentor group back in 1998. He is one of the nicest, most modest engineers I  have 
ever met. He INVENTED many of the things other companies have copied  since 
1983. He and I have shared the "bucket" analogy to describe  sensors to novices 
for many years. His latest thing is to put an OQO  miniature PC running 
Windows on the back of his camera backs (you can even do  Photoshop on it). VERY 
cool stuff. He has put together a few prototype backs  using the Kodak Square 
sensor (16 MP).
 
I have not spoken to him in several months, but he didn't seem real  
enthusiastic about the market prospects for a monochrome back. However, being  the 
pioneer that he is, if anyone does it, it will probably be him. He has sold  his 
FB backs for about $7-8,000 in either 6 or 11 MPx, so if it  were to go  to 16 
or 22 Mpx for the purists on this board, I suspect they would be in the  
$15,000 range. Just remember that you can do Infrared Captures with them also  AND 
you have full spectrum resolution, so they are much sharper than the color  
versions. I suspect having a single-shot monochrome sensor is like having 
double  the well site count of a Bayer color one. So a 22 Mpx monochrome is like 
having  44 in color. So a more affordable 11 MPx mono would be more like a 22 
Mpx in  color. So don't give away those Medium Format cameras just yet.
 
Claude
 
In a message dated 7/9/2005 2:04:11 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,  
DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com writes:

Now to  pose a question I have been wondering about: if a sensor were 
made  specifically for B&W, what would be changed?


 


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