Luminous Landscape Forum
Equipment & Techniques => Medium Format / Film / Digital Backs – and Large Sensor Photography => Topic started by: Gary Ferguson on October 10, 2006, 06:18:40 am
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I was thinking about upgrading my Phase One P25 to the P25+ or a P45+, but it got me wondering when the next generation of Kodak sensors will be announced, and just what they might be. Maybe I'd be better off waiting for the next release.
Anyone care to speculate what the next generation might be and when it could appear?
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Gary,
Have a look at the video blog with phase one from photokina. I may be wrong but I seem to remember him saying the next generation were a year off, hence the P+ backs.
Marc
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I've talked to the various manufacturers, both on the record and off, and the best that I can gather is that both Kodak and Dalsa will have higher desnisty sensors available in shipping qualities in 12-18 months.
My guess is that we'll see backs using these no sooner than Q1 or more likely Q2, 2008.
Everyone is being descrete, but these chips will be the same size as todays' but with a resolution of between 50 – 60 MP. This will bring the pixel pitch down to about 5-6 microns, which is about the limit for high quality images, at least with today's technology.
The real concern is, will photographers want this product (assuming a price of $30K, today's high end benchmark). A 39MP back produces about a 220MB 16 bit file. A 60MP (I haven't done the exact math) will likely be about 400MB. Add a layer or two in Photoshop, and now we're talking some serious card, disk and ram requirements, and processor speed.
Of course there'll be those that want it, even if they don't need it. (Yes, my hand is up). But, is there enough of a general demand in the pro community for that much resolution when a 39MP already produces more than enough for most commercial requirements. It's much like the argument of whether a shot should be done on 4X5" film, or will 8X10" be that much better. There are studios which are still shooting 8X10, (though most have long switched to MF digital) and certainly among fine art photographers making very large prints there's always that need, but I wonder about market demand...... (and so do the manufacturers).
Michael
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I think the + range from Phase and the new V4 Capture One will set the new bench mark.
It is now obvious that the 33 MB sensor from Dalsa and the 39MB from Kodak ,need some kind of correction with software.
I realize the problem manifests itself only with extreme tilts and shifts.
The people I know who use the P45 and the Aptus-75 eMotion-75 ,have to do their pre-light
and save the setting with sublime results.
After a few times the workload is rather easy.
For the fast shooters with fixed lenses,the problem doesn't really exist.
Also don't forget that Phase and Leaf have rather attractive trade-in or up programs.
Cheers,
Willem.
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Michael, thanks for the insight. My real motivation was the better screen and the longer exposure facility of the P25+, it's not often that I need more than the 22MP of the P25. But if I'm going to spend on an upgrade I guess I should investigate all options.
Your reply however got me thinking. Phase One have said that medium format digital backs essentialy have an indefinite life expectancy, they have test units and units that have been used for arial mapping that have completed vast numbers of exposures with zero evidence of image degradation. So if we're approaching the end game in pixel count/quality terms, and these backs have indefinite lives, then back manufacturers will be in a replacement busines rather than an initial sale business. I wonder what implications that has for the industry?
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I'd prefer to see a physically bigger chip, say 6x7 in size, to go with higher pixel count but I guess that is unlikely to happen as it would amount to a small part of an already small medium format digital market. I thought most MF 645 image circle lenses were already at their limits with 39mp.
Quentin
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It's disappointing to hear that they are working on 50-60MP chips. I think the market for these will be marginal. Would prefer to see them continuing to drop the price on existing sensors and/or working on improving high ISO performance.
Now that the R&D of the 22MP backs has been paid for, P1 could produce P25 backs for around $6000-6500 each, which could retail at $8000-9000. So they only make $1500 profit per back (there has to be a dealer margin too), but I bet they would sell at least 5,000 backs at that price (for a total profit of $7.5m). For every MFDB user, there are 10 more who would like to be using them but who are waiting for the price to drop. And once all those ex-Canon and Nikon users have switched to MF systems, the upgrade market is suddenly much larger too which makes the whole MFDB market look rosier.
Why does this seem so obvious, yet it's not happening? Someone should appoint me as CEO of one of these companies
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Does the price of a Porsche come down if they sell more of them?
I don't think so!
I think the price of these backs is not that much of an issue as long as you can charge the client for the high quality files you're delivering.
Also a $30 K over 3 years is really not that much in the bigger picture.
I was spending a lot more on film and processing!
However I do agree that a 39 MB back should be sufficient for most of us.
I'll be getting the 39 MB as I do like the option of cropping.
Cheers,
Willem.
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I don't think the Porsche analogy works at all. For one thing, Porsche is the most profitable car maker in the world at the moment, and makes something like $20K profit per car sold. The market for cars is HUGE - in the tens of millions, and there is not another market (equivalent of DSLRs) eating away at the car market. In other words, the car market is huge, has strong demand, no competition, and there is room for many profitable players. Porsche can afford to serve a niche.
The MFDB back market is in the region of 10,000 per annum, and many of the participants in this market are facing difficulties. Plus the market as a whole is under attack from Canon DSLRs *mainly due to price*. This market needs to compete on price, or more participants will go under.
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F&H having designed their upcoming Hy6 as a 6x6 camera
gives me hope there will be a 48mm x 48mm sensor.
I'd be happy with 9 micron to lessen the color cast / centerfold effect,
and as long as there's improvement in high iso results.
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Now that the R&D of the 22MP backs has been paid for, P1 could produce P25 backs for around $6000-6500 each, which could retail at $8000-9000.
Why does this seem so obvious, yet it's not happening?
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=79789\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
It is almost happening, but combined with the trend to integrate the sensor and digital parts more closely with the rest of the camera's electronics, as in the Mamiya ZD and the awaited Pentax DMF body. That trend (but without the lower prices!) is also true of the new "Fuji-Imacon" models, meaning the H3 system. Maybe Pentaxc will soon produce the first $8000-$9000 digital MF solution.
P. S. The H system is not produced by Hasselblad: it is produced by a partnership between Fujifilm and the Danish company Hasselblad-Imacon, with some help from Konica-Minolta on AF. In turn, Haselblad-Imacon is far more "Imacon" than "Hasselblad": the management is the former Imacon management, and the offices are the former Imacon offices.
The extent of the former Imacon management's control perhaps makes it clearer why Hasselblad-Imacon no longer chooses to design new camera bodies for the benefit of other back makers. I fear that "open backs" are for the transitional period of camera makers not able to produce their own digital backs, and so needing to allow access to third party back makers.
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Phase was still loosing money as of last year (or was it their first year with profit?) either way...they even have the added revenue of software and they are still having a hard time! the chip in th P25 is still the most expensive chip to produce...so if they could sell it for 7-8000... the P30 could sell for 5-6000? it is just not true...
they will sell the P20 for 7-8000, which is the same chip as the P25 only smaller...same quality, only smaller....yet everybody is asking for a 39mpix chip...and cheap...why? canon makes way more money on every single 1Ds mkII they sell....that is a camera that could sell for 5000...they even considered it, but dropped that idea, because they don't have to....MF makes are barely scraping by, it is a cutthroat business with no real winners even in the future...nobody will ever get rich making MF backs.....yet everybody always complains because they are so expensive....
if you are a dentist, you have to buy equipment...if you open a deli, you have to buy coolers, rent a store, buy food to sell......a DMF back is one of the cheapest things you could ever buy in photography....let's look at a P25: every time you fire your camera, you get a file that can give you a 16x20 fine art print, so for every commercial application this is PLENTY...so once you buy a P25 you get UNLIMITED MF shooting for the rest of your life...never pay a penny for shooting..ever again...this quality does not diminish, maybe there will be other backs that will shoot bigger files, faster, higher DR....does not make your back any worse...MF costs about .50-1$ a frame..so after 25000-50000frames you shoot for free, forever....
i am so sick of hearing how expensive DMF backs are, if it does not fit into your business budget, you probably don't need it anyway....complaining about wanting something does not really belong in a forum like this.....
everybody buys a car, gets in and does not think twice about the fact that it is worth 1/3 after 2 years and within 8 years might not even get you from A to B...not even mentioning the gas and service you have to put into it...
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Now that the R&D of the 22MP backs has been paid for, P1 could produce P25 backs for around $6000-6500 each, which could retail at $8000-9000.
Why does this seem so obvious, yet it's not happening? Someone should appoint me as CEO of one of these companies
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=79789\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
You (as a future CEO ) should know that the minimum (selling) price of the product that costs $6,000 - 6,500 must be AT LEAST $12,000 - 13,000 to support R&D, Marketing, and Overhead, etc. in order to stay in business. I ran my own high tech manufacturing company for 10 years before I sold it .
Jae Moon
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Market research is key here. I'll help them all...
• Same sensor size as P25 - P45
• 6 Micron pixel density
• 1600 ISO capability
• 2 frames per second limitless burst depth
• £10,000 ($6500) price point
• Bright screen
• shoot DNG or Phase-s raw (switchable)
• User interchangeable ir filter
• Option to shoot 20mp or 40mp
That'll do for now
Damien.
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Yep, thanks to Michael for the info. It's definitely a year away for even the announcement of a new sensor, and like MR says, ~18 months for the actual product.
I'd go for the + upgrade, in fact I just paid myself to go from the P45 to P45+ as I think the better screen and apparently better results at ALL iso's mean they have designed new electronics and/or processing for the files. look froward to seeing it in January.
yes, hand up too - I'm one of those sad people who woould welcome a 50+Mp back. My 6x7scans were always 500Gb in 16bit, and it wasnt such a problem to handle.
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My problem is that unlike most MF shooters here, 25% of all my work is done at and above ISO800. As such, the P30+ really interreges me. If that back can deliver comparable ISO1600 images, to either 5D or S5 at ISO1600, then I can totally flick my 35mm gear.
Most guys in my business have to support both formats, and if I could go totally MF, the current price on a P30+ would be offset by halving my investment in 35mm gear.
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Phase was still loosing money as of last year (or was it their first year with profit?) either way...they even have the added revenue of software and they are still having a hard time! the chip in th P25 is still the most expensive chip to produce...so if they could sell it for 7-8000... the P30 could sell for 5-6000? it is just not true...
Well I have seen the pricelist for the Kodak chips so I'm almost certain they can make the whole P25 back for under $6K.
MF makes are barely scraping by, it is a cutthroat business with no real winners even in the future...nobody will ever get rich making MF backs.....yet everybody always complains because they are so expensive....
Maybe everybody has a point
a DMF back is one of the cheapest things you could ever buy in photography....
I think you're getting carried away Even my entire Profoto lighting setup costs less than one of these backs. In fact I can't think of anything a photographer could buy that costs MORE.
everybody buys a car, gets in and does not think twice about the fact that it is worth 1/3 after 2 years and within 8 years might not even get you from A to B...not even mentioning the gas and service you have to put into it...
I already established why these 2 markets can't be compared.
Just my opinon, but they need to work on making cheaper backs, or go broke, and that would be a real pity.
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You (as a future CEO ) should know that the minimum (selling) price of the product that costs $6,000 - 6,500 must be AT LEAST $12,000 - 13,000 to support R&D,
Hi Jae, my point was that the P25 has been replaced already and that R&D has been paid off, but instead of spending more money on R&D on the new 'plus' range, they could have just dropped the price of the P25 backs to reach a much wider clientele.
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That's what they have done! You can pick up an 'as new' P25 for £7k now rather than the £20k they were 2 years ago. If you need to know where ask me :-)
Damien.
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Damien, please share
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I thought when you got into the 5 to 6 micron pixel range, the optimum f stop was in the 5.6 to 8.0 range. This might work well with a DX chip but with the much longer lenses in MF, wouldn't decent DOF be an issue!! Isn't difraction about to rear it's ugly head, if one stopped down for needed DOF?
bob
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Most guys in my business have to support both formats, and if I could go totally MF, the current price on a P30+ would be offset by halving my investment in 35mm gear.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=79874\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
Game set & match Phase One /Kodak ?
The Plus serries is a real great maturation of a product with lasting value and usability, as I think it targets the shortcomings of previous generations. I look forward to a review of iso 800 performance - maybe something for the next video journal - the last one of my current subscription.
Ed
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I expect to get a P45 Plus for testing in time for my February Antarctic trip, which I plan to do this time all in MF.
Michael
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I thought when you got into the 5 to 6 micron pixel range, the optimum f stop was in the 5.6 to 8.0 range. This might work well with a DX chip but with the much longer lenses in MF, wouldn't decent DOF be an issue!! Isn't difraction about to rear it's ugly head, if one stopped down for needed DOF?
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=79990\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
Maybe a bit pessimistic on the f-stop limits, but basically I agree.
Experience (backed by optical theory) seems to show that diffraction starts to limit resolution when the aperture ratio is about twice the pixel pitch. For example reports give a limit of f/8 to f/11 with the 5.5 micron pitch of the D2X.
So a 60MP 36x48mm back (5.5 micron pixel pitch) would only give its full potential detail at about f/11 and below. Due to the larger focal lengths involved, that DOF is like about f/8 and below in 35mm format. Then allow for the high degree of enlargement and large print sizes that would be needed to see all that detail in the first place: compared with a humble 16MP image printed at the same PPI and viewed from the same distance, the degree of enlargement would be doubled, reducing perceived DOF to that of f/4 in 35mm format. Or to "f/2.8 equivalent" for an 8MP image at the same PPI and viewing distance.
The combination of extrremely high detail and shallow perceived DOF on prints big enough to reveal that detail sounds rather limited in applicability, but could still be great for appropriate scenes, like landscapes with no foreground elements needing to be sharp. No surprise I suppose that 60MP MF would be targetted at rather special purposes and needs.
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I expect we'll get better ISO and bigger sensors in the next gen - in spite of what the word on the street is -all the cameras out there can project a larger image area. Then of course there will at some point be some innovative Foveon-type technology ...
Edmund
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I expect we'll get better ISO and bigger sensors in the next gen -
Edmund
I'm sure many of us have been hoping for larger sensors (full 645 format) in the next generation of sensors in addition to all the other 'must haves', but I'm not sure we will. Isn't this a better way of adding MPix ?
If anyone out there can shed some light on the manufacturing and cost of making a larger sensor in 645 or 6x6 format, I'd appreciate it, is it very similar to CPU manufacture?
-Nick
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http://www.stoqq.com (http://www.stoqq.com)
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I'm a bit out of date. My impression is that Moore's law applies to stepping on wafers and wafer surface. Which would mean full-frame 645 should be economically feasible around the next generation - my feeling is that the chipmakers are protesting a bit too much that it won't happen. Maybe they would prefer not to do those chip sizes and get some more profilt .
Edmund
I'm sure many of us have been hoping for larger sensors (full 645 format) in the next generation of sensors in addition to all the other 'must haves', but I'm not sure we will. Isn't this a better way of adding MPix ?
If anyone out there can shed some light on the manufacturing and cost of making a larger sensor in 645 or 6x6 format, I'd appreciate it, is it very similar to CPU manufacture?
-Nick
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I'm a bit out of date. My impression is that Moore's law applies to stepping on wafers and wafer surface. Which would mean full-frame 645 should be economically feasible around the next generation - my feeling is that the chipmakers are protesting a bit too much that it won't happen. Maybe they would prefer not to do those chip sizes and get some more profilt .
Edmund
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Moore's Law applies to the decreasing feature size of integrated circuits, which in turn means that you can fit the same function is less die area, which in turn means that the cost of that function decreases.
Moore's Law is essentially irrelevant when you are talking about optical sensors of a constant (or increasing) size.
Sorry.
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If anyone out there can shed some light on the manufacturing and cost of making a larger sensor in 645 or 6x6 format, I'd appreciate it, is it very similar to CPU manufacture?
The cost of a device at the bleeding edge of semiconductor technology pretty much increases exponentially with the size of the device.
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The combination of extrremely high detail and shallow perceived DOF on prints big enough to reveal that detail sounds rather limited in applicability, but could still be great for appropriate scenes, like landscapes with no foreground elements needing to be sharp. No surprise I suppose that 60MP MF would be targetted at rather special purposes and needs.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=80254\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
There aren't millions, but there are a few possibilities to solve this:
0. Camera movements in some cases,
1. Foveon like sensors that you helps improving the color quality of these sensors and reduce moire like artifcats withtout reducing too much the size of the pixels,
2. DoF Stacking,
3. ?
Cheers,
Bernard
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0. Camera movements in some cases,
1. Foveon like sensors that you helps improving the color quality of these sensors and reduce moire like artifcats withtout reducing too much the size of the pixels,
2. DoF Stacking,
3. ?
3. LF film at f22-32. One shot. No centerfold. No color cast :>))
Mark
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Moore's Law applies to the decreasing feature size of integrated circuits, which in turn means that you can fit the same function is less die area, which in turn means that the cost of that function decreases.
Moore's Law is essentially irrelevant when you are talking about optical sensors of a constant (or increasing) size.
Sorry.
[{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a] (http://index.php?act=findpost&pid=80311\")
Actually, before I did my PHD, I learnt some IC design; I think I probably have as much understanding of this as the average photographer as I've actually designed and had a chip fabricated.
An overly simple yield model is is that at any time you have a given DP*DS which is the probability of having an error in a *small* area DS of the chip, you can easily do the rest of the math yourself, on the back of an envelope (or at least I could when younger), it spits out a yield function which is a factor of chip size declining from 1 (tiny perfect chips) to 0 (huge never working chips) in a negative exponential (I remember this as a Poisson model).
[a href=\"http://www.icyield.com/yieldmod.html]http://www.icyield.com/yieldmod.html[/url]
But DP is not a constant - it falls over time as process technology improves, and this produces dramatic rises in the chip yield. So we get bigger and bigger chips over time, as you can easily see by going out there.
Now, big CCD-type chips probably have some other issues due to the fact that they are made by multiple masking steps; however I would expect the basic laws to hold, even though yields might jump by quanta (as masking steps are reduced). Indeed we can see marketed CCD and CMOS sensor chips go up in size over time.
Anyway, the bigger chips are already there, it's just an issue of when the yields will make them viable for the commercial MF market - I've been told that both Dalsa an Kodak sensor divisions get their real money from non-civilian applications.
Dr. Edmund Ronald
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Actually, before I did my PHD, I learnt some IC design;Dr. Edmund Ronald
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The level of education on this list is not obvious until you think about it...and then you realize its quite high!
Of course, photography requires a unique blend of creative and technical prowess that attracts bright people. It requires visualizing spacial imagery as well as reasoning through how to capture that vision in the camera. The neuroscientists among us can tell us what proportion of people opt to regularly use "both sides of their head." To the pleasure of us all, many of them are here!
So its kind of exciting to hit "View New Posts" and see who is out there now.
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Edumund, thanks for your lucid explanation!
I actually design chips for a living, but I work at the gate level, so I don't get much into yield issues.
I think you more-or-less confirmed what I was saying--medium format sensor cost doesn't improve from the Moore's Law-related density improvements. I agree with you that improvements in defect densities will help out sensor costs. That is of course a much slower improvement rate than the 2x every 2-3 years of Moore's Law.
It's not clear to me how much the defect density plays into the cost of these sensors, because my impression is that they map out bad pixels. So, unlike a memory chip or a processor, camera sensors can tolerate multiple defects on the device. So it is conceiveable that the yield is already quite high. Or perhaps not--I haven't seen that anybody's giving out any yield data.
I have read that the reason for the current size of 645 sensors is that they are fabricating them on 150mm wafers, and this is the biggest they can make them and still fit 4 die on a wafer. I'm not sure that makes sense, though. The diagonal of the active area of a 48x36 sensor is 60mm. That would leave 15mm for support circuits and pads, which seems like a huge amount. A standard 645 frame has a 70mm diagonal, which would leave 5mm. Offhand, it seems like that could be made to work; at the least, it would seem that they could get a lot closer to full 645.
If they really are limited to a 60mm diagonal on a 150mm wafer, then we aren't likely to see anything bigger until they make a technology change. Which, given the size of the market and the target costs, probably means waiting for hand-me-down 200mm or 300mm processing equipment.
I also note in passing that 150mm technology is way, way off the Moore's Law curve.
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I've been told that both Dalsa an Kodak sensor divisions get their real money from non-civilian applications.
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That's very encouraging to hear, actually. It had occured to me that both companies could leave the market, which would mean the instant death of medium format. And given that Kodak is not doing well, and Dalsa is a pretty small company, that likelihood of both of them exiting has seemed like a very real possibility.
But, if Uncle Sam is keeping them alive so they can build sensors for the KH satellites, that's a whole new ballgame! At half a billion +/- dollars per launch, they can afford to pour a lot of money into sensor companies.
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Now, big CCD-type chips probably have some other issues due to the fact that they are made by multiple masking steps; however I would expect the basic laws to hold, even though yields might jump by quanta (as masking steps are reduced). Indeed we can see marketed CCD and CMOS sensor chips go up in size over time.
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I see no reason to expect the number of masking steps to get smaller, because there is no sign that new generations of fab. equipment have larger field sizes than the previous ones. Instead, chip sizes are generally getting smaller as feature sizes get smaller: compare the new Intel Core Duo chips to previous Pentium chips, so fab. equipment might even move to smaller maximum field sizes.
Canon seems to agree with me: its recent whie paper on "full frame CMOS sensors" mentions the need for multiple masking steps as one reason for its prediction that "FF DSLRs will always cost a lot more than smaller format DSLRs".
Also, I see essentially no size increase in marketed CCD and CMOS sensors in recent years.
Canon has stayed with its three DSLR sensor sizes, but has greatly increased the proportion of its DSLR sales that use the smallest of those three sizes. Each other DSLR makers have stayed with the same sensor size as it has used all along, "APS-C" or 4/3; market share has decreased for 35mm and 1.3x and increased for the smaller DSLR formats. Even digital medium format seems to have topped out at about 36x48mm or 37x49mm, with the biggest of the new sensors using the same size as the previous generation 22MP sensors.
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Hi Steve,
I admire your ability to concentrate enough on details to do that job ! I'm pretty much burnt out.
You are certainly right in that shrink (smaller gate length) won't push the area defect rate down. Hence I must agree that the size increase of viable sensor chips is considerably slower than Moore's law which is an aggregate.
As for which defects kill a sensor chip, well you can map out a bad pixel, but if the bad pixel or bad stitch kills a line that's uglier - I don't know how many lines one can remap before the clients get unhappy ...
We know that nobody, ever, gives out accurate yield figures. However, if we knew what the cost of processing a wafer is we would probably be able to deduce a ballpark yield figure
Maybe it's time to chase down the Dalsa or Kodak guys and ask them which way the wind is blowing -
Edmund, thanks for your lucid explanation!
I actually design chips for a living, but I work at the gate level, so I don't get much into yield issues.
I think you more-or-less confirmed what I was saying--medium format sensor cost doesn't improve from the Moore's Law-related density improvements. I agree with you that improvements in defect densities will help out sensor costs. That is of course a much slower improvement rate than the 2x every 2-3 years of Moore's Law.
It's not clear to me how much the defect density plays into the cost of these sensors, because my impression is that they map out bad pixels. So, unlike a memory chip or a processor, camera sensors can tolerate multiple defects on the device. So it is conceiveable that the yield is already quite high. Or perhaps not--I haven't seen that anybody's giving out any yield data.
I have read that the reason for the current size of 645 sensors is that they are fabricating them on 150mm wafers, and this is the biggest they can make them and still fit 4 die on a wafer. I'm not sure that makes sense, though. The diagonal of the active area of a 48x36 sensor is 60mm. That would leave 15mm for support circuits and pads, which seems like a huge amount. A standard 645 frame has a 70mm diagonal, which would leave 5mm. Offhand, it seems like that could be made to work; at the least, it would seem that they could get a lot closer to full 645.
If they really are limited to a 60mm diagonal on a 150mm wafer, then we aren't likely to see anything bigger until they make a technology change. Which, given the size of the market and the target costs, probably means waiting for hand-me-down 200mm or 300mm processing equipment.
I also note in passing that 150mm technology is way, way off the Moore's Law curve.
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Ok, I've got a better picture of what's involved, thanks to all the PHD's, chip designers and general silicon guru's on the forum. Now...
Taking into account that the driving force and profit for CCD development at this level is for government contracts and that only about 10,000 digital backs are sold annually, common sense tells me that it's a case of the 'dog wagging the tail' (Dalsa and Kodak being the 'dog') and not the other way around, which is not the best scenario for us - the tail. To clarify - my perception is that Leaf/Jenoptik/PhaseOne/Mamiya go to Kodak/Dalsa with relatively small orders per year and say 'can we have a 645 CCD please' only to be offered a smaller one due to cost, not Kodak/Dalsa going to all the back manufacturers and trying to sell them their CCD's.
If this is true, we won't see a big drop in price even if yields increase, as the market is too small and there is not (understandibly) enough competition at the CCD fab level. The back manufacturers have to take what's been offered. Shaky ground indeed.
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my perception is that Leaf/Jenoptik/PhaseOne/Mamiya go to Kodak/Dalsa with relatively small orders per year and say 'can we have a 645 CCD please' ...
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Maybe. It is certainly true that at Kodak's sensor site, the great majority of its sensors are not for "normal" cameras, including MF backs, but are aimed at scientific and engineering equipment. So maybe medium format digital lives on the crumbs of other high end CCD customers, much as DSLR sensor making relies on fabrication equipment designed primarily acording to the needs of other customers, like makers of CPU's and other purely digital electronic devices.
Aside. CCD's are not actually digital; they measure light with an analog signal (a charge) and output this converted to another analog signal (a voltage), which is then converted to digital in an off-chip A/D convertor. CMOS sensors are usually both analog and digital, doing A/D conversion on-chip. This effects fabrication a bit: good sensors apparently require deeper electron wells than purely digital chips.
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There's a Dalsa presentation around which explains the issues surrounding CCD vs CMOS. There's lso a Canon Cmos white paper. The Dalsa document discusses some of the issues with stitching specifically CCDs ( the join needs to be analog ). We might be seeing the last CCDs now, with a move to CMOS by all players.
Edmund
Maybe. It is certainly true that at Kodak's sensor site, the great majority of its sensors are not for "normal" cameras, including MF backs, but are aimed at scientific and engineering equipment. So maybe medium format digital lives on the crumbs of other high end CCD customers, much as DSLR sensor making relies on fabrication equipment designed primarily acording to the needs of other customers, like makers of CPU's and other purely digital electronic devices.
Aside. CCD's are not actually digital; they measure light with an analog signal (a charge) and output this converted to another analog signal (a voltage), which is then converted to digital in an off-chip A/D convertor. CMOS sensors are usually both analog and digital, doing A/D conversion on-chip. This effects fabrication a bit: good sensors apparently require deeper electron wells than purely digital chips.
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There's a Dalsa presentation around which explains the issues surrounding CCD vs CMOS. There's lso a Canon Cmos white paper. The Dalsa document discusses some of the issues with stitching specifically CCDs ( the join needs to be analog ). We might be seeing the last CCDs now, with a move to CMOS by all players.
Edmund
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That might be. But presently all the high end medium format backs use CCD as reported by Michael in his recent essay on the subject.
Bill
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That might be. But presently all the high end medium format backs use CCD as reported by Michael in his recent essay on the subject.
Bill
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Of course, current gen is CCD. The discussion topic here is the next gen and I guess we've drifted into technology details because of the rather specialised readership
In the mean time, speaking of current generation (since Photokina), here is a document which might explain what the Phase+ backs do. It would seem that they've implemented hardware charge binning, with extra registers at the top and bottom that bin R with R, G with G, B with B. The same structure allows live preview extraction.
The 44x33 mm chip presented resembles the P30+ size rather closely
[a href=\"http://www.dalsa.com/pi/documents/documents.asp]http://www.dalsa.com/pi/documents/documents.asp[/url]
- Selectable resolution
- Four times sensitivity
- Three times faster readout
+ 6dB SNR gain in photon noise regime.
+ 12dB SNR gain in read noise regime.
Of course, if this is what's done then running at hi-iso would mean dividing the file rez by 4. Useful nevertheless, but not quite what the Phase marketing guys were saying at Photokina (they were saying full rez at hi-iso).
Edmund
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Note that the above paper was submitted around June 2005, published in December, so time from publication to market is around 12 months. This would imply that anything seriously new announced in December will not hit the market for another year or so. However I'm not sure that a straightforward move to a slightly larger sensor size would count as a publishable innovation
Edmund
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It occurs to me that it may be quite significant that Hasselblad has driven a stake in the ground and declared 48x36 to be "full-frame." And they are following up on that decision by releasing lenses that apparently are limited to a 60mm image circle. This action suggests that they're not expecting any sensors that are larger than 48x36. Or, alternatively, they've decided that larger sensors won't be important to their marketplace.
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Of course, current gen is CCD. The discussion topic here is the next gen and I guess we've drifted into technology details because of the rather specialised readership
In the mean time, speaking of current generation (since Photokina), here is a document which might explain what the Phase+ backs do. It would seem that they've implemented hardware charge binning, with extra registers at the top and bottom that bin R with R, G with G, B with B. The same structure allows live preview extraction.
The 44x33 mm chip presented resembles the P30+ size rather closely
http://www.dalsa.com/pi/documents/documents.asp (http://www.dalsa.com/pi/documents/documents.asp)
- Selectable resolution
- Four times sensitivity
- Three times faster readout
+ 6dB SNR gain in photon noise regime.
+ 12dB SNR gain in read noise regime.
Of course, if this is what's done then running at hi-iso would mean dividing the file rez by 4. Useful nevertheless, but not quite what the Phase marketing guys were saying at Photokina (they were saying full rez at hi-iso).
Edmund
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Edmund just making sure you are aware that current Phase backs use Kodak chips rather than Dalsa. According to [a href=\"http://phaseone.com/upload/pplus.pdf]http://phaseone.com/upload/pplus.pdf[/url] the + series is still based on the same chips.
The 44x33 mm chip presented is actually the one used in the Aptus 65
Yair
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Edmund just making sure you are aware that current Phase backs use Kodak chips rather than Dalsa. According to http://phaseone.com/upload/pplus.pdf (http://phaseone.com/upload/pplus.pdf) the + series is still based on the same chips.
The 44x33 mm chip presented is actually the one used in the Aptus 65
Yair
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Yair,
My apologies !!! Indeed, the sensor described is incorporated in your company's most excellent Aptus 65. So time from publication to market is very small.
Edmund
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It occurs to me that it may be quite significant that Hasselblad has driven a stake in the ground and declared 48x36 to be "full-frame." And they are following up on that decision by releasing lenses that apparently are limited to a 60mm image circle. This action suggests that they're not expecting any sensors that are larger than 48x36. Or, alternatively, they've decided that larger sensors won't be important to their marketplace.
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Indeed! If people were to look at what the camera and sensor makers are actually doing and saying, the picture is very clear and consistent:
Sensor sizes have maxed out, and the dominant trend now is adapting lens systems to get the most out of the various current sensor sizes.
In most cases, that means adding some lenses at shorter focal lengths, to recover wide angle coverage. With Canon it means a lot of that (EF-S lenses) and also some upgrading its high end 35mm format lens collection to get the most out of its current and future 35mm format sensors.
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Yair,
I like the graphics at that link http://phaseone.com/upload/pplus.pdf (http://phaseone.com/upload/pplus.pdf) comparing sensor sizes to the 645 frame. It suggests to me that the 1.1x size crop from the 645 frame (42.5x56mm) to Kodak's 36.8x49.1mm is not very significant.
For comparison, slide frames can take up to about 1mm of frame length and width, which for 24x36mm format is a crop of about half this much (percentage-wise) in the 24mm dimension.
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Please can we insist that Dalsa get a nice uniform quality on their 33Mp sensors before they start making higher resolution ones.
I for one am prepared to upgrade my back when it increases in quality and speed rather than purely in terms of pixel count.
There is plenty of potential for innovation in 1) reducing noise 2) improving architecture (ie: other than bayer) 3) Improving DR 4) improving performance.
So lets make sure that we keep insisting that more pixels is not the only issue. Particularly when optics are barely able to keep up with current pixel pitches.