New 9mp chip aps-c, only $90-

[Kin Lau]

Found this on Pnet http://www.photo.net/news/cypress_9_MP.html

Of note, is that it's $90- for the sensor, and there's a colour version and a b&w version.

 

[jlw]

I saw a news release about this chip and started another thread on it.

What I thought was particularly interesting about it, aside from its low price point and CMOS architecture, is that the manufacturer claims that it doesn't use, or need, microlenses. (They claim they have a proprietary high-fill-factor process that makes this unnecessary.)

Since Leica, and others, have said that microlens design is one of the biggest challenges in making a good digital RF camera for existing lenses, an off-the-shelf sensor that doesn't need them would presumably make more digital RFs a lot more feasible.

Cypress is the company that bought FillFactory, the Belgian company that made the 14-megapixel sensors for Kodak's 14n SLRs. I seem to recall these sensors getting pretty good reviews, although some of the rest of the camera did not.

Here is a fun tutorial page from Olympus showing how a microlens makes up for the limited sensitivity area of a conventional CCD sensor.

It requires Java; you can adjust sliders to vary the wavelength and intensity of the light in the animated model. Turn the intensity 'way down and you can see how without a microlens, most of the photons miss the sensitive area entirely, drastically reducing the sensor's performance.

A sensor with a less "shielded" sensitivity area presumably would not need microlenses and would act more like ordinary film in its response to light.

 

[jorisbens]

Maybe someone should try to make a nice black and white digital module for a fed-2 with this chip, I'm sure i would buy one.

 

[bobofish]

On their website, there's an option for "request a sample."

I didn't bother registering for one, but maybe you can actually get a sample...then show everybody your shiny new APS-C sensor, and tell them the camera is on lay-away.

 

[taffer]

This and the parallel pnet thread opens some interesting questions

1) Consumer line DSLR bodies with $100-$150 sensors. So, let's say, a $200 digital rebel + a $100 sensor = a $800 rebel XT ? 😕

Methinks something's rotten here...

2) Does this new sensor open the door for camera hackers out there, making it easier (for somebody with the apt skills and knowledge, of course) to build custom digital backs ? Specially, the field of astrophotography seems to have an incredible amount of digital custom creations.

3) Could Mr. Kobayashi take this new sensor and build the sub-$1000 digital Bessa ? 😀 I think many of us are waiting for the moment when an affordable digital RF will hit the market. The RD-1 was great news, but still out of reach for the average RFFer.

Oscar

 

[jlw]

In terms of cost, there's a lot that goes into a digital camera besides the sensor: circuitry for extracting the data from the sensor, then storage, image processing, writing to memory card, control, display, menus, etc.

It would be interesting to know what percentage of a digital camera's cost is the sensor, but I doubt if that percentage is high enough that a $90 sensor vs., say, a $120 or a $180 sensor would make a huge difference in the final price.

What DID strike me as interesting about this news item was that the sensor is claimed to have a high enough fill factor (density of light-sensitive "photosites" on the chip) that it doesn't require microlenses to condense incoming light rays onto the photosites.

(Unlike a piece of film, a sensor isn't evenly sensitive to light across its whole area. Typically, the area of the chip that represents one pixel is light-sensitive only in one tiny "sweet spot" in the middle. Without a microlens, most of the light rays striking the pixel area miss the light-sensitive spot entirely.)

There ARE sensors out there now that have large enough photosites that they don't require microlenses, but until now they've been VERY expensive -- meaning they've been found only in the digital backs used on medium-format and large-format studio cameras, which typically have four-digit or five-digit pricetags.

What I'm hoping this announcement means is not a cheaper digital RF camera, but the technology to build one that performs better with current lenses (thanks to elimination of the need for microlenses) at about the same cost as that of the one current-production digital RF camera.

 

[Socke]

This and the parallel pnet thread opens some interesting questions

1) Consumer line DSLR bodies with $100-$150 sensors. So, let's say, a $200 digital rebel + a $100 sensor = a $800 rebel XT ? 😕

Methinks something's rotten here...



Oscar

Don't forget the support electronic to get the data to some storage medium, IP license fees for fat filesystem and jpeg compression and operating systems, at least the Canon 10d and digital Rebel run on DOS, and what ever some more or less obscure companys patent lawyers think up.
Then add some for future license suits and maybe a little R&D and again lawyers to find out if you break anothers license with your invention :-(

 

[jorisbens]

You need to have a username and a password to order a sample 😡

@Taffer: I've heard from a lot of persons that Mr. Kobayashi is anti-digital, so I don't expect him to build a voigtlander digital rf.