Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2002/02/11

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Subject: RE: [Leica] RE: Foveon Chip
From: "B. D. Colen" <bdcolen@earthlink.net>
Date: Mon, 11 Feb 2002 15:05:06 -0500

Well, Jim old man - actually I now working in public relations/marketing, so
I know full well what marketing hype is all about. I also know that while
certain people go on and on and on about how digital just can't cut it for
various technical reasons, the output is getting better and better and
better - to the point that many many people who are highly regarded in
photography for shooting things other than rocks and trees to turn into
40x48 murals, have switched to digital. Perfect? Far far from it. And, as I
noted, with the Foveon examples posted we are looking at images on our
various monitors, not at prints.

But I believe that for anyone needing up to, say, 16x20 prints - and
certainly for anyone whose needs are primarily for prints smaller than that,
for book or magazine reproduction, etc., the days of film are limited.

That doesn't, btw, make me at all happy. I shoot only film. I don't own a
digital camera. I like the results I get with film. But then there were
people who liked their copper plates and glass plates too. ;-)

B. D.

- -----Original Message-----
From: owner-leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us
[mailto:owner-leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us]On Behalf Of Jim Brick
Sent: Monday, February 11, 2002 1:18 PM
To: leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us; leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us
Subject: [Leica] RE: Foveon Chip


At 10:42 AM 2/11/2002 -0500, B. D. Colen wrote:
>Stunning barely begins to describe it. Granted, we are looking at these
>images on our monitors, but the fine detail is really pretty amazing.
>Obviously there are those on this list who will pooh-pooh anything digital,
>and those who will continue to tell us that digital development has hit a
>brick wall and it will be a decade before digital equals film. BUT...for
the
>rest of us in the real world this does indeed give one pause in terms of
>making any further investment in film-based equipment at this time.
>
>B. D.


It's a good thing that the journalism folks are not scientists. Everything
that a marketing organization utters is always the greatest thing since
sliced bread. Unfortunately marketing folks know that the journalists will
run wild and blow everything out of proportion making the "breakthrough"
seem like the second coming.

There is a h-u-g-e amount of marketing hype associated with the Foveon
announcement. All of the same rules still apply. Foveon pixels are still no
smaller than any other pixel and Leica lenses still resolve too much detail
for the Foveon or any other sensor to capture without producing unwanted
artifacts. Nyquist, like Murphy, is still in there taking his piece!

All this chip might do is reduce the amount of color interpolation that
would normally be done. But I'm wondering how silicon happened to know to
filter the exact primary colors (R, G, & B) and not let any other
wavelengths through. Color film filters are exact. That's how we get our
film's color pallet. Adjusting the filter layers in film produces saturated
Velvia and E100VS, neutral Provia 100F, Astia, and E100, etc.

I guess we'll see. The examples that they show on their web site are
completely bogus. When's the last time you had color moire patterns on your
digital images? That problem was solved years ago. And getting type to have
every letter a different color is laughable. Actually, impossible because a
pixel cannot resolve a character. Only a point of light.

So let the marketing hype continue.

Jim

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Replies: Reply from "Greg J. Lorenzo" <gregj.lorenzo@shaw.ca> (Re: [Leica] RE: Foveon Chip)