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What do you think the chances are of a foveon point and shoot camera
coming out are?

they are already out. The sd9 and sd10


"John Doe" <> wrote in message
news om...
> What do you think the chances are of a foveon point and shoot camera
> coming out are?

How about a compact point and shoot camera?

just cut the lens in half


"John Doe" <> wrote in message
news om...
> How about a compact point and shoot camera?
>

It's called the Sigma Sd9 or something like that. Junk -- but cheap!

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"John Doe" <> wrote in message
news om...
> What do you think the chances are of a foveon point and shoot camera
> coming out are?

"John Doe" <> wrote in message
news om...
> What do you think the chances are of a foveon point and shoot camera
> coming out are?

Lots of speculation, that's about it. This happened...

http://www.imaging-resource.com/NEWS/1070562816.html

Personally I think Foveon has slowly come to release that the general public
can't grasp the concept behind their technology as most have been very well
conditioned to believe Bayers have full color MPs, so the 5M is quite risky.
Rumors of Kodak linking up with Foveon have been around forever, possibly
for a P&S. They really should've put the Pro 10M in the 14n.

"james roboto" <> wrote in message
news:NeCdnerCUt4YqnOiRVn-...
> they are already out. The sd9 and sd10
>

I thought they were disposables.

In article <PDuHb.2226$>, "PhotoMan"
<> writes:

>> they are already out. The sd9 and sd10
>>
>
>I thought they were disposables.




They are to everyone except George Preddy............................
























"Only a Gentleman can insult me, and a true Gentleman never will..."

On Sat, 27 Dec 2003 18:43:39 -0700, John Doe <>
wrote:

>What do you think the chances are of a foveon point and shoot camera
>coming out are?

Realistically, and joking about setting a Sigma into fully automatic
mode aside? It's possible, but who from?

The Foveon sensor range is supposedly scalable from cellphone/PDA
cameras right up to SLRs. So far, the only manufacturer with product
is Sigma with the SD9 and SD10, and there are *rumours* the SD9 is out
of production. It is entirely possible that there are other devices
using the tech are out there but have not announced a Foveon tie-up;
there's certainly nothing on Foveon's website. However, there is a
VAR program getting into gear and Foveon's FAQ (Q14) states that their
current focus is the consumer market, citing Sigma's SD9 as a
"specialized application", so this implies a non-DSLR product in the
near future. So yes, it's possible. But who is going to make the
thing?

Canon and Sony dominate the digital camera market by percentage, and
they both make sensors for their own use and by others (some Nikons
use Sony sensors for example), so they are unlikely to turn to Foveon.
Fuji and Kodak also make sensors that are used by several other
players besides their manufacturers (some Olympus cameras use Kodak),
so we are left with three possibilities:

One of the "also rans" is going to make a wholesale switch to Foveon.
Someone will release a Foveon based P&S camera alongside their Bayers.
We'll get the P&S Foveon, but it'll be by Nokia and double as a phone.

I'm leaning toward the last one.

Andy

On Sun, 28 Dec 2003 14:55:06 +0900, "George Preddy"
<> wrote:

>Personally I think Foveon has slowly come to release that the general public
>can't grasp the concept behind their technology as most have been very well
>conditioned to believe Bayers have full color MPs, so the 5M is quite risky.
>Rumors of Kodak linking up with Foveon have been around forever, possibly
>for a P&S. They really should've put the Pro 10M in the 14n.

I think that's a some what bogus line of reasoning. It's pretty much
a given that the _typical_ P&S buyer doesn't even know what "Bayer"
means, or even that it has something to do with digital cameras for
that matter. Far more likely they look at the bottom line of their
"Which Camera" magazine and see which has the highest score and number
of megapixels at a price they can afford. That's not a DSLR, and by
implication since the only cameras using the Foveon are the Sigma
DSLRs, it's not a Foveon based camera - the technology doesn't even
get to enter the equation, let alone play a significant part of it.

I don't think Foveon's issues are with the end-user perception of the
technology at all; I think it's more to do with the fact that there is
no way that a DSLR, even at the $500 you mentioned the other day, is
going to get the kind of volume a popular P&S camera can. Sigma does
not appear to have any interest in a P&S, which is not suprising since
you can't sell lenses with a P&S and lenses are still Sigma's biggest
revenue maker. To get volume from the camera market Foveon needs
either a conventional P&S camera or a built-in on another device like
a PDA or a phone.

It's the latter that seems likely to me given the *huge* amount of
time that has passed with no P&S Foveon, despite the sensor hardware
being readily available. Nokia has been talking about multi-megapixel
camera phones for a while, Sony has them in its higher end Clié PDAs
right now and both those markets have more potential to be the real
death knell for consumer film photography than P&S digicams.

For another view on this, take a look at Foveon's FAQ in the "Consumer
and Professional Products" section. Below all the stuff about the
Sigma deal and the reference to "Foveon is actively engaged with
other major digital camera manufacturers" which has been up there
"forever", as you say in reference to the Kodak rumour, is some more
interesting text.

Firstly, any imminent announcements about video cameras seem to be out
of the equation (Q9), ditto for scanners (Q13). The real meat however
is Q14 - Foveon is currently focused on the "mass market", and does
not include Sigma in this - they are cited as a "specialized
application". I read this as saying a DSLR is specialized, which I
agree with since if you are not prepared to put the effort into
learning to drive a DSLR, then you would probably be better with a
P&S. Then they announce a VAR program targetted at the "industrial
and scientific imaging market", it looks to me like they may have
written off the camera market as a revenue stream.

I'd have really liked to see a non-Sigma Foveon based DSLR to get
something else to critique the technology with, but my hopes of that
ever coming to pass are all but gone. Right now, I doubt we'll even
see it in a non-Sigma camera.

Andy