Interview with Andreas Kaufmann (ACM) about Leicas present and future

[colinh]

Well, let's see. The Canon 1 DS Mk II costs EUR 7,000 (USD 9,600)

It costs $6999 @ B&H, Adorama and other reputable major US stores.

Ah, I forgot to mention, we Europeans have to pay sales tax 🙂, in Germany, 19%. So when people quote prices here, it's always including sales tax.

Was there some legislation to make online (mail order) sales in the US elligible for sales tax?


Anyway, it's still cheaper in the US. Must be because the market's bigger. I mean the market's smaller, but maybe you buy more of the things?

colin

 

[rxmd]

Imagine what could be done with layers of semi-transparent photodiodes

Not much. That's, as you pointed out, the principle of the Foveon sensor. A photon's colour correlates to energy, which correlates to penetration depth within a medium. The problem is that penetration depth also correlates to the cosine of the angle of incidence, and with the oblique angles in the corners of the sensor in a rangefinder camera you get a big problem with vignetting in non-obvious ways (i.e. it doesn't go black, but the colours go increasingly quirky in the corners - redshift vignetting).

If these were deposited on a non-planar surfaced sensor with a fine fresnel ring structure ( or with millions of photo etched/deposited convex lenses ) , the light incidence issues would also be resolved.

A fresnel ring structure won't work if you have an interchangeable-lens camera, because it is designed for specific angles of incidence. You get a camera like the Sigma DP1.

Microlenses is what digital cameras are using now. They don't resolve light incidence issues completely; there are still vignetting problems. And that's with Bayer sensors which are less incidence dependent. A more interesting idea would be to deposit the sensor itself in a structure of spherical pits, which is, as I understand, what Foveon is doing now with mixed results.

Philipp

 

[Keith]

Not much. That's, as you pointed out, the principle of the Foveon sensor. A photon's colour correlates to energy, which correlates to penetration depth within a medium. The problem is that penetration depth also correlates to the cosine of the angle of incidence, and with the oblique angles in the corners of the sensor in a rangefinder camera you get a big problem with vignetting in non-obvious ways (i.e. it doesn't go black, but the colours go increasingly quirky in the corners - redshift vignetting).


A fresnel ring structure won't work if you have an interchangeable-lens camera, because it is designed for specific angles of incidence. You get a camera like the Sigma DP1.

Microlenses is what digital cameras are using now. They don't resolve light incidence issues completely; there are still vignetting problems. And that's with Bayer sensors which are less incidence dependent. A more interesting idea would be to deposit the sensor itself in a structure of spherical pits, which is, as I understand, what Foveon is doing now with mixed results.

Philipp

Can babelfish translate this back to german for me ... that way I'll have two excuses for not understanding it! 😛

 

[yoyo22]

He's saying nothing at all. We know now that if they find a way to produce a sellable M camera with a full frame sensor, they will do it - not big news, especially since we know they haven't found it yet. We also know that the company has some amount of interest in selling SLRs, but nothing more specific.

What do you expect him to say? Something like: "We're already developing the M9, so I would advise anyone not to waste his money on buying an M8. I repeat: don't buy the M8."?
If there wasn't anything to it, he would not have said anything at all. He said a lot, in a way that one would not even have to read between the lines, while not bloating out an official press statement at the same time.