Stephan wrote:
"Mike Russell" wrote in message
….
The market for larger detectors is a temporary one, aimed at those who want to use their legacy glass. New lens designs will use, higher resolution detectors.
Detector?
Never heard that term before in digital photography.
I hope you are wrong in your prediction about sensor size, I am still waiting for a full size Nikon sensor.
Sensor is probably a better term. "Detector" is a term from medical and physics imaging applications.
Things are moving quickly, and if enough people keep wanting to use their old lenses, I think you’ll see a full sized sensor in the near future. But aside from that there will be some interesting things in optical design that you and I will see in the not too distant future.
(BTW, Stephan – speaking of telephotos have you done any lava shots recently?)
Here’s an old article about where I think lenses and sensors are headed. I wrote it a long year and a half ago when a 6 mp consumer digital camera was just a dream :-):
—begin article—
I think there is only one reason
to make the sensor larger, and that’s legacy glass. Photographers who have sunk money into their lenses, want a camera that will get some mileage on that investment if the sensor size is reasonably close to that of 35mm. If you have 10 K$or so invested in lenses, a K$ or three for a camera looks reasonable. But this market is fairly small to start with, compared to the consumer market, and will not last forever. The most expensive lenses are telephotos, and they get a bit of a boost with a slightly smaller sensor, so a larger sensor would benefit wide angle use only.
Working against larger detectors and interchangeable lenses is the fact that having a smaller detector means a smaller lens, and that means less weight.
Finally, and I think most interesting of all, are the advantages of an integrated lens and detector assembly. Short term, this means less risk of dust, and smaller size relative to a removable lens design. Longer term, the detector will become part of the optics of the camera when it becomes commercially feasible to fabricate spherical detector surfaces. Having a sp herical "film" surface will greatly simplify lens optics, and make it possible to design wider angle lenses where a planar, rectilinear image is no longer required.
Imagine a hybrid detector supporting a more useful form of digital zoom, with higher density of pixels at the center, for a telephoto effect, and pixel density dropping off at the edges to support wide angle shots.
Lenses will still be swappable, but the detector will be part of the optics. The camera may then serve as a storage, control, and power source. Sports photographers can take medium and long shots simultaneously, [using a variable resolution sensor, or] by capturing from multiple lenses at a time.
Other lenses will sense IR and UV in addition to visible light, perhaps using non-visible information for image enhancement and sharpening. Imagine an NVG-style light amplifier built into the sensor surface of your camera – add a Bayer filter pattern to the mix and you have color amplified light.
Another important feature would be detection of "Z", or distance information. This would allow not only stereo viewing and 3D model extraction, but things like post processing software digitally simulate depth of field available with the older, larger lenses, as well as quick masking out of background information. Imagine clicking on one person in a group photo and dragging them a couple of feet over – this is possible when you have 3D information and an editor that knows how to use it. Or take several views of the same person and generate a complete 3D model. If want to see what some of this will look like, watch Minority Report.
You may be right that larger, higher rez sensors will be part of photography’s future, but I think this will be a side path only as we see optics start to reflect the new functionality and design possibilities that digital offers. I believe that optics will take a new direction entirely when [digital cameras stop] trying to emulate 35mm film.
—end article—
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Mike Russell
www.curvemeister.com
www.geigy.2y.net
