Awhile back, a small company called Foveon introduced a brand new type of imaging chip, the “X3″:http://www.foveon.com/X3_tech.html. The X3 was revolutionary for the digital photography world because it “sees” a scene in the same way as traditional film. For the first time, digital photography would be on equal footing with traditional film; perhaps even better.
The problem is that many of the camera manufacturers make their own imaging chips, and it’s a very lucrative business for them. Consequently, they’ve been galacially slow in adopting Foveon’s chip. To date, only two cameras, “Sigma’s SD10″:http://www.sigmaphoto.com/html/Cameras_sd10.htm (”Digital Photography’s review”:http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/sigmasd10/) and “Polaroid’s x530″:http://www.polaroid-digital.com/x530/ (”Digital Photography’s preview”:http://www.dpreview.com/news/0402/04020909polaroidx530.asp) have included the chip.
Profit stifles innovation and the consumer loses out. Not that this if the first time it has happened, it is just very frustrating to get stuck with inferior technology.
May 11th, 2004 at 8:26 am
meh. Not enough people care. If an innovation is so superior, people will want it and manufacturers will make it. And I expect in this particular case the new chip is more expensive (furthering the lack of demand), right?
May 12th, 2004 at 1:45 pm
Ever heard of Beta vs. VHS? Apple’s System vs. DOS? Superior technology does not guarantee demand or success in the market. Microsoft pretty much proved that marketing and wise alliances can trump a superior technology any day. Foveon can’t compete with the marketing budgets of Canon and Nikon.
As to price, I don’t have any hard numbers to back it up, but my guess would be that the X3 is at least competitive with other chips. Since the X3 is capable of capturing the entire spectrum through its multi-layered architecture, it only needs one sensor. CCDs typically need three sensors, one for each color (red, green, blue). The higher price of a new technology is at least partially offset by the simpler electronics it requires.