New technology releases

Mike McCarty · 08-24-2006, 07:26 PM

For those favoring the Canon brand they have today anounced their newest digital SLR: EOS 400D / digital Rebel XTi.

Ten mega pixel and NO spot metering! Go figure. That alone would break the deal for me.

Mike McCarty · 08-31-2006, 05:55 PM

This week Sigma has anounced that they will anounce, at the big Photokina photography confab in Germany in September, a new digital SLR: The SD14.

They have set up a teaser website here at: www.sigma-sd14.com. They are not giving up much info, but from the name you might conclude that this will be a 14 mp camera. They also say that this will be a "full color capture direct image sensor." I'm not sure just what that means, but from the tease they suggest that all other camera pixels capture just one color per pixel, implying that this new sensor will capture more.

I don't know much about Sigma cameras but it seems that the pixel race has not yet tired. Of course price is always a consideration, but if what they imply comes close to reality then imagine a camera with more than double the horsepower of a Nikon D70, and each of those horses with additional color capture capability. Yikes!

Mike McCarty · 08-31-2006, 06:36 PM

After a little more research regarding the Sigma camera referenced above I have come up with the following:

It appears that this new Sigma camera will employ an updated "Foveon" sensor which was first introduced in 2002 and then improved in '04.

With standard sensors such as the CCD and CMOS, which appear in other digital cameras, each pixel can capture only one color. The cameras logic goes through some algorithms in an attempt to interpret what is the real color. This method will come up with some amount of color artifacts and image blurring. With the Foveon sensor there are three colors per pixel: red, green and blue. It is written that this is pretty much the 'holy grail' of digital image sensors. It should mean ultra sharp, detailed images with full color single pixel resolution. At least that is the claim.

Garth Herrick · 08-31-2006, 07:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mike McCarty

This week Sigma has anounced that they will anounce, at the big Photokina photography confab in Germany in September, a new digital SLR: The SD14.

They have set up a teaser website here at: www.sigma-sd14.com. They are not giving up much info, but from the name you might conclude that this will be a 14 mp camera. They also say that this will be a "full color capture direct image sensor." I'm not sure just what that means, but from the tease they suggest that all other camera pixels capture just one color per pixel, implying that this new sensor will capture more.

I don't know much about Sigma cameras but it seems that the pixel race has not yet tired. Of course price is always a consideration, but if what they imply comes close to reality then imagine a camera with more than double the horsepower of a Nikon D70, and each of those horses with additional color capture capability. Yikes!

Hi Mike,

You know, it all depends on how they count those pixels for marketing purposes! The Sigma SD10 is actually more like a 3-1/2 megapixel camera, but since each Foveon pixel captures full color, it is marketed as a virtual 10 megapixel camera. Actually I believe it has the meager imaging resolution of a 3-1/2 megapixel camera compared to your much sharper D70. That said, I would expect about 4-1/2 megapixel resolution from the SD14, which I don't expect to particularly wow me. Thanks for the news anyway.

Julie: Congratulations on your new camera order! Give us some anti-shake test pictures and report when it arrives.

Garth