Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2003/09/18

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Subject: Re: [Leica] Digital back for leica, project website
From: Grégoire Vandenschrick <gregoire.vds@skynet.be>
Date: Fri, 19 Sep 2003 00:21:41 +0200
References: <2E697613-EA20-11D7-94B7-0050E42E6E0B@shaw.ca>

I KNOW ther is that darn problem of very steep incident light in the
corners, because lenses are soo much closer to the film, and because the
sensors are 3D things (in the opposite, film is really 2-D flat??). It seems
the real problem with the incidence of light is a real and major problem
with the CCD type sensor, for in order to have a rather high fill factory,
every photosite has to be covered by a converging microlens. And as a
consequence of a very small sensitive zone in the photosite, once the light
comes with a good angle, finished, the light falls out of the sensitive
photosite zone. OK, I know that. and the situation will not change easily in
the field of CCD, because the technology has now about 25 years of life.
BUT, the CMOS technology is younger, and in full devellopment currently. Two
or three years ago, all the pro digital body were equipped with CCD, now,
the biggest sensors (full frame, 24x36) are CMOS, and they have no more the
cheap quality that was the reason they were not used for the upmarket. Now
the Upmarket is CMOS, because they are less expensive to produce, of the
same quality of the equivalent CCD, and because they are incident light more
tolerant!!! Have a look at the Canon EOS 1Ds (CMOS 11 Megapixels), the Kodak
DCS PRO 14n (CMOS 14 Megapixels) and so on.

I think that Now Leica is working very hard on the digital back module for
R8/9, and they have no time to think about it, even if I had a polite answer
of one of their engineer that reassured me Leica was thinking about that for
a long time, and that they were looking at the new tech etc but not
realisable now. Ok, is it real, or does Leica have not in plan to do that
now, or not the capability, or team ressources, or Hermes doesn't find that
such a product, with its very high develloping cost, will not represent
enough income for the investment.

So, I just wanted to look by myself, that's all, and doing it, I was quite
excited, this seems possible, if only CMOS sensor society were not so
reluctant to divulgate the characteristics of their product, one could know
exactly if ther is the possibility to adapt a full frame CMOS to the Leica-M

Best

Grégoire
- ----- Original Message ----- 
From: "John Collier" <jbcollier@shaw.ca>
To: <leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us>
Sent: Thursday, September 18, 2003 11:36 PM
Subject: Re: [Leica] Digital back for leica, project website


> Do you think it is technically realistic? Leica doesn't think so and
> neither do the half dozen or so experts we have on the LUG. I suppose a
> half frame sized sensor might work but that would make a mess of using
> the viewfinder.
>
> John Collier
>
> On Thursday, September 18, 2003, at 02:03 PM, Grégoire Vandenschrick
> wrote:
>
> > frankly, my goal was to see by myself if this project could be
> > technically realistic first
> --
> To unsubscribe, see http://mejac.palo-alto.ca.us/leica-users/unsub.html
>


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Replies: Reply from Jerry Lehrer <jerryleh@pacbell.net> (Re: [Leica] Digital back for leica, project website)
In reply to: Message from John Collier <jbcollier@shaw.ca> (Re: [Leica] Digital back for leica, project website)