NEW Leaf Software available

[ThierryH]

This makes sense in the general case, but as far as I am aware, Phase has *always* bought Kodak sensors, until the P65+ and P40+.

No, Cartsen, the Light Phase (6 MPx), the Phase 11 MPx, ... are/were Philipps/Dalsa sensors.

I find it difficult to believe that now being the first time that Dalsa sensors have made more price/performance sense than Kodak is a coincidence.
There are many possible theories about why this might be, of course, including coincidence. Another would be that Kodak has not been advancing as fast as Dalsa recently, due to R&D cutbacks. There are others too. I just wish we had more information.

Fact is that Dalsa was ready to develop a sensor for/with Phase, under their specifications, and with an exclusivity.

Best regards,
Thierry

[BJNY]

Valeo 6 which used a CMOS 24x36 chip which was not Dalsa.

For correctness,
t was Leaf C-MOST digital back, not Valeo 6.

[Doug Peterson]

And for the fun of completely useless trivia the Phase One FX+ was a Sony line sensor.

[BJL]

Dalsa bought Phillips.

To be more precise, Dalsa bought the CCD sensor division of Phillips, which is why Dalsa as a whole is Canadian, but some or all of its medium format CCD sensor R&D activity is in the Netherlands (Phillips' home).

As to Kodak vs Dalsa: it does look as if Dalsa has taken a performance edge over Kodak with their respective 6 micron cell designs, and Dalsa is also getting some customers by offering larger maximum sensor sizes (and higher pixel counts): Dalsa offers 40x54mm (60MP) and 36x56mm (56MP) vs Kodak's 37x49mm (50MP).

[BJL]

At this time I am avoiding making any conclusions at all. There is too little information.

Here I totally agree: Leaf is on my DMF "at risk" list, along with Sinar, Hy6, Leica and Pentax. Four makers of digital backs and/or digital bodies and three lens/body systems is already too many, and Leica and Pentax are about to make the market even more overcrowded.

[Carsten W]

Here I totally agree: Leaf is on my DMF "at risk" list, along with Sinar, Hy6, Leica and Pentax. Four makers of digital backs and/or digital bodies and three lens/body systems is already too many, and Leica and Pentax are about to make the market even more overcrowded.

I generally agree, but I would remove Leica from that list, at least for the next few years. The owner, Herr Doktor Kaufmann, is in a long-term investment, expansion and planning stage, and doesn't expect much back for the foreseeable future. He is bringing all the various companies in the group back to the new Leica industrial park, which is currently being built in Wetzlar, the original home of Leica, and a larger city than Solms. He is expanding the Leica camera system on as many fronts as he can. And he is worth some billions, and is personally a huge Leica fan, and a shrewd business man and investor, so at the very least, he expects that he can pull it off. Even if everything fails, the plan will run for some years without deviating from the plan.

The other at-risks are much shorter term.

[gavin_stok]

Right now I'd like Leaf to do 2 things to enhance my confidence in their software:

1. Match the PC version with the Mac version with a shorter timeframe. 11.2.x should be available for PC by now, but instead only 11.1 is available.

2. Allow for installation of the PC software on 64 bit operating systems. Right now installation is stopped, whereas the code/installer could be written to install as a 32 bit program on a 64 bit platform.

Unfortunately Leaf is lagging behind Hasselblad (64 bit PC application) and Phase One (32 bit PC application on 64 bit OS) right now as a result.

Finally, being able to choose my own password on the website would be much appreciated!

Too much to ask?!