Electronic Film System Turns Conventional 35mm RFF Into a Digital Camera

ISO

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How many more years, we have to wait ? This was already developed by a company called Silicon Film in 1999, but than probably got bought by a big camera manufacturer to sell us his crappy 2 Mio pixel cameras instead. Isn't it time to release this brilliant invention to us consumers? Lets say with 8 Mio pixel, ASA setting from 50- 1600 and SD card slot. Or are there any technical problems here?
 
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Hello,

I have heard of this, but don't really know that much about it. Could you please elaborate.
 
just search "Silicon Film ". The invention was also presented on a photokina around the year 2000 but never worked really. I am sure there is no technical issue to produce a electronic film that works in a film camera. And I am also sure that we will get it after the camera industry is finished with the "you need more pixel, buy a new camera" strategy. We will see.... What do you think? or know?
 
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I would love to have something like this, as an option. Kind of like one film type being digital.

However, I don't think something really practical will ever materialize.

The systems that were proposed did not have a full-frame sensor. That bothers me. I would think the technology would exist, since Canon has a full-size DSLR, but ...

Another thing, the proposed Silicon Film had this big honking add-on thing that you bolted to the camera. I would just want a drop-in cartridge. I really don't care about a screen and 50 million eeeny-teeny buttons.

I guess the closest we have now is the Leica DMR. (The other DMR!) :) :) This again is huge and tres spendy. I'm not sure, but I don't think this thing has a full size sensor either.

Maybe thinking backwards is the answer. Maybe somebody will come up with a digital SLR or RF that will accept film as an option.

Oh well ...
 
I think we're about 5-8 years away from the technology.

Huge, flexible sensors will be developed, just a matter of time.

Right now, not cost effective or technologically effective.

It will come if there's no nuclear holocaust that throws us back into the Middle Ages for the next 500 years.
 
Ahhh, the Silicon Film thread. This always comes up on the innernet about 5 times a year in different forums and mailing lists since '99. I think this is one of the more famous "innernet legends". Vaporwear from the very beginning.
 
The Silicon Film folks had an interesting idea, then got stupid. Initially the idea was a digital cartridge. Then, judging by their Website photos, the design concept mutated into designing a digital back for some existing conusmer film cameras -- so there could be an LCD screen and plenty of battery space -- at which point it collapsed into impractibility because it had to specific to a specific camera body.

It's also tricky, because it needs to "know" when the shutter is tripped, which then requires a complicated interface of some type.

The concept also requires either a flexibile sensor, or a sensor that can be adjusted for the shutter location of various makes. Clearly, at this point the storage could be a variation on one of those microdrives I keep on my keychain.

It will more than likely not be full frame. In that case, a rangefinder will be a better platform than an SLR, because you can just dial in the correct frameline, ie., 85/90 when shooting a sensor-cropped 50.
 
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@ eric : sorry, I never saw one of these threads. But still I do not think this is just a legend.

@ dmr : I am talking about a drop-in cartridge

@ All : here I want to discuss, if this is possible from a technical side. A drop-in cartridge solution, same size as a conventinal 35mm Film. The film catrige, that we know from our 35mm film, should be huge enough to place all the electronics inside. On the outside there is only a "switch" where you do the asa settings. Maybe on switch to turn on / off. On the bottom of the cartrige there is a slot, where you place your memory card. What I see in technology today, nobody can tell me that this is not possible to produce.

th_efilm.gif
What would happen if this came out in the year 1998. Would one of you have ever thought about buying a DSLR. Would millions of people spent millions of bugs in digital point and shoot cameras ? Till digital cameras got released, the big group of consumers had one $50 dollar camera for 20 years. Today every year the consumer buys a new one for $300. How many people spend more than $1000 in a DSLR equipment (and sell there F100 for $200 or mju for $2) ?

There was no way for the camera industry to bring this to the consumer at the begining of the "digital revolution", but one day they will ?

If you do not think so, just keep on selling your film jewels from the past. I am happy to buy them. BTW what would a digital Olympus 35SP cost today?

Still I am very interested about what you think about? (or links of some older threads)
 
@ vinceC:"It's also tricky, because it needs to "know" when the shutter is tripped, which then requires a complicated interface of some type."

Once you tip the shutter, there comes light on the chip. The electronic will realize and save your image. In fact a chip is the same than a film, it reacts on light! The only tricky thing is how to get the catrige in and out of your camera. Well, the first and the last image may be useless for you, because they may be a bit overexposed.
 
Technically, the necessary technology for a thin film sensor does not
exist (in the fabs that built current state-of-the-art sensors), and
therefore will have to wait 5 years or more, unless they become
a side-product of another application, like game, weapon or car industry
etc.

However, I am convinced that a thicker sensor (i.e. normal silicon wafer thickness
plus some coating) could replace the pressure plate in many cameras. This should
already be possible today, implying a possible one-time upgrade of your existing
film camera to a digital camera.

Technical questions that might have to be solved are:
- fit all the necessary electronics and battery in the space provided by film
and take-up spools
- vignetting for short registration distances (like in RFs) and big sensors.
IMO, this could be solved via enough dynamic sensor range and software.
- couple the electronics to existing shutter mechanics.

This seems technically possible today. Note that larger format sensors
are expensive, just the dies by themselves might cost > 1kUS.

So either you put in a cheap small sensor, which changes your focal
lengths dramatically (and doesn't match the viewing system in the camera,
like RF window or mirror), or you put in an expensive sensor, and probably face
several thousand dollars ONE-TIME upgrade costs. Not sure how big the
markets are for either solution.

Roland.
 
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Maybe I'm talking out my a** here, but what about a processor? Wouldn't this concept require a microcomputer to actually create the file that's saved to the memory card.
With film the image is written directly to the "sensor", then you advance to the next "sensor".
 
photogdave said:
Maybe I'm talking out my a** here, but what about a processor? Wouldn't this concept require a microcomputer to actually create the file that's saved to the memory card.
With film the image is written directly to the "sensor", then you advance to the next "sensor".

Yes. Microprocessor, enough buffer memory, Flash memory, USB interface, etc. etc. All to fit in the film spool and take-up compartments. But the biggest problem is really that the viewing system of an existing film camera fits a given format, and sensors in that size are expensive, in particular with short production runs.

Roland.
 
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ISO,
This idea wasn't killed by an evil camera corporation. If it was feasible, marketplace competition would have found someone, somewhere willing to make it. The electronics industry, especially before the tech-bubble burst, was hyper-competitive and looking for every feasible market.

The folks buying $1,000 digital SLRs are the same folks who five years ago bought $1,000 digital point and shoots, who five years earlier bought new $1,000 autofocus SLRs, who five years earlier bought auto-exposure SLRs, who five years earlier bought motordrive SLRs, who five years earlier bought long-zoom SLRs, who five years earlier bought telephoto SLRs, who five years earlier bought metered SLRs, who five years earlier bought the first SLRs, who five years earlier bought high-end rangefinder cameras.

Buyers of consumer technology products want the latest technology.

If, in 1998, someone had succeeded in mounting a half-frame 512 KiloPixel sensor into a film-cartidge size and sold it for $1,500, how worthwhile a product would it be today?
 
@ ferider: Thanks for the facts!

5 years or more sounds not to bad. At least there is some light at the end of the tunnel.

There was another thread here, that was "where did all go wrong?". I really think this was, when cameras started to became more and more plastic. For myself I like cameras with a traditionally built metal body, a superb lens and a good viewfinder. These cameras already exist, as all of you know. It would be just really nice if we could put a digital catrige inside. Hope this is not just a dream...

On the other side, I am also a children of the (digital) revolution :( Just depends on what I shoot...

But back to the Electronic Film System
 
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...targeting commercialization within fiscal 2006 (April 2006 to March 2007) to promote field innovation using its new electronic paper. WOW!
 
Fujitsu's development is a display, not an imager. It does sound very interesting - wonder what kind of refresh rate they get?

I remember hearing a lot about the original Silicon Film during its initial development. The company behind it was a major defense-electronics firm that had worked on satellite imaging systems, so it was plausible that they could develop such a thing. It wasn't a good fit for their business, though, so they spun it off to a separate corporation. Apparently it got as far as prototypes -- I remember seeing pictures of them -- but the prototypes were never released publicly despite promises to do so, fueling skepticism about the whole thing.

As I recall, the explanation for never getting it to the viable product stage was that there were several intractable problems, including: getting a usefully-large battery to fit into the 'cartridge'; providing control and display from within the camera back; and the fact that camera internal dimensions aren't standardized (the original goal was to have it fit any camera, but eventually they had to back off on that and promise prototypes for a few specific models.)

An unspoken problem, I suspect, was that the principal appeal of this type of product would be to cheapskates ("I don't want to spend money on a whole goldurn new camera when the one I bought back in '59 is still perfectly good") and these are just the same people who wouldn't be willing to pay enough to make the development cost worthwhile.

Advancing technology might have solved the other problems eventually (although not yet; look at the insides of a DSLR and you'll see that all the other stuff aside from the imager takes up much too much room to fit in a 135-magazine-size package) but the "cheapskate problem" probably IS insoluble...
 
Hmm...wasn't the whole Silicon Film thing regarded as mostly a scam/hoax? At the very least, I regarded it as a most frustrating shaggy-dog story from a technological standpoint.


- Barrett
 
Those who wait for silicon film to come to market will have plenty of free time to start and contribute to useless internet discussions.
 
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