iconoclast
06-15-2007, 08:47 PM
Hi everyone. I'm a "newbie" to this forum, but have watched it grow for some time and followed RED with passion from afar :)
Aside from the delays that have been inevitable, and anyone having a whinge should think twice about why they are whinging and why they gave RED a look in the first place, the answer is obvious - aren't we all sick of the other manufacturers making us endless promises for the future, only to find the price in the $100K+ range.
Red makes my DSR570's purchased some years ago now, at $100K each look like damn expensive boat anchors! (They weight as much too!)
Technology is going to increase dramatically every day of the year. It's an exponential process. We can't change that. It's going to get faster and better as we head towards 2032 :) RED shows that already, especially at the price. (Yeah I know, you still have to buy lenses and kit.)
Kodak have sent out an announcement (see below) about a new filter for CCDs. Given that Kodak pretty much invented the CCD filter system in the 1970's, and I've never followed this minute point of technology, I have no idea if it's on all CCD's, most, some or only Kodak! I get the impression it's a pretty broad monopoly market.
Anyway, given that it's a new technology and it's improving the CCD functionality, RED must be working with a technology that is either in the old style or unique to itself.
Which brings the question, as Kodak is saying that the new filters will be ready for shipping in 2008, will RED look at this technology for it's purposes. I can only imagine the results!
But does this make a purchase today any less than a purchase next year? Or could this lead to a further delay in deploying RED if they choose to implement an enhanced technology?
Personally, I'd rather just have a RED today, it's as cheap as chips to feed a feature film's production team, and it leaves most of the "Pro(cough)Sumer" products trailing behind. You can always buy another in three or four years, and hand the current model down to the BTS crew :)
That's what I'm doing with my 570's - if and when I get my REDS :)
To the RED TEAM - I don't envy the Coders, Designers, and that last 5%. Whatever you do today, in six months the technology will have become smaller, faster, broader and lower powered. But getting a base product that kicks butts and can be developed is more important that keeping up with technology changes and never getting the product to market.
Now, I'm going to go back to lurking, as I've got heaps of work to do without a RED :(
Here's the story from the Sydney Morning Herald, for interests sake.
Breakthrough in boosting photo quality
A Kodak technician holds up image sensors embedded on a silicon wafer. The technology enables people to take better pictures in poor light.
A Kodak technician holds up image sensors embedded on a silicon wafer. The technology enables people to take better pictures in poor light.
June 15, 2007
A year from now, capturing a crisp, clear image of a candlelit birthday party could be a piece of cake - even with a camera phone.
Eastman Kodak said it has developed a colour-filter technology that at least doubles the sensitivity to light of the image sensor in every digital camera, enabling shutterbugs to take better pictures in poor light.
"Low light can mean trying to get a good image indoors of your kid blowing out the birthday candles. It can mean you want to take a photograph on a street corner in Paris at midnight," said Chris McNiffe, general manager of the photography company's image sensor business.
"We're talking about a two-to-four-times improvement in (light) sensitivity."
Analyst Chris Chute does not doubt that the new filter system, intended to supplant an industry-standard filter pattern designed by Kodak scientist Bryce Bayer in 1976, represents a breakthrough in boosting photo quality - especially when light conditions are not ideal.
"It's often the most simple concepts that can have the most profound impact," said Chute of IDC, a market research firm near Boston. "This could be revolutionary in terms of just changing that very simple filter on top of the sensor and basically allowing companies to use it in all different kinds of cameras."
Kodak expects to provide samples of its new technology to a variety of camera manufacturers in the first quarter of 2008. The technology is likely to be incorporated first in mass-market point-and-shoot cameras and camera-equipped mobile phones beginning sometime next year.
"Typically new features like this would be more likely to show up in high-end products and then trickle down," said analyst Steve Hoffenberg of Lyra Research Inc.
"But I think the biggest potential benefit of this may come in the camera phone environment. Camera phones are using smaller sensors to begin with and smaller sensors generally mean smaller pixels, which means lower sensitivity."
When the shutter opens on a digital camera, an image is projected onto the sensor, which converts light into an electric charge. Most sensors use the Bayer mask: Half of the millions of cells on a checkerboard grid are filtered to collect green light and a quarter each are filtered to let through red and blue light. A computer chip then reconstructs a full colour signal for each pixel in the final image.
The new method, which has been under development for more than five years, adds "panchromatic" cells that are sensitive to all wavelengths of visible light and collect a larger amount of light striking the sensor. Tailoring software algorithms to this unique new pattern enables faster shutter speeds, which reduces blurring when capturing a moving subject, McNiffe said.
Aside from the delays that have been inevitable, and anyone having a whinge should think twice about why they are whinging and why they gave RED a look in the first place, the answer is obvious - aren't we all sick of the other manufacturers making us endless promises for the future, only to find the price in the $100K+ range.
Red makes my DSR570's purchased some years ago now, at $100K each look like damn expensive boat anchors! (They weight as much too!)
Technology is going to increase dramatically every day of the year. It's an exponential process. We can't change that. It's going to get faster and better as we head towards 2032 :) RED shows that already, especially at the price. (Yeah I know, you still have to buy lenses and kit.)
Kodak have sent out an announcement (see below) about a new filter for CCDs. Given that Kodak pretty much invented the CCD filter system in the 1970's, and I've never followed this minute point of technology, I have no idea if it's on all CCD's, most, some or only Kodak! I get the impression it's a pretty broad monopoly market.
Anyway, given that it's a new technology and it's improving the CCD functionality, RED must be working with a technology that is either in the old style or unique to itself.
Which brings the question, as Kodak is saying that the new filters will be ready for shipping in 2008, will RED look at this technology for it's purposes. I can only imagine the results!
But does this make a purchase today any less than a purchase next year? Or could this lead to a further delay in deploying RED if they choose to implement an enhanced technology?
Personally, I'd rather just have a RED today, it's as cheap as chips to feed a feature film's production team, and it leaves most of the "Pro(cough)Sumer" products trailing behind. You can always buy another in three or four years, and hand the current model down to the BTS crew :)
That's what I'm doing with my 570's - if and when I get my REDS :)
To the RED TEAM - I don't envy the Coders, Designers, and that last 5%. Whatever you do today, in six months the technology will have become smaller, faster, broader and lower powered. But getting a base product that kicks butts and can be developed is more important that keeping up with technology changes and never getting the product to market.
Now, I'm going to go back to lurking, as I've got heaps of work to do without a RED :(
Here's the story from the Sydney Morning Herald, for interests sake.
Breakthrough in boosting photo quality
A Kodak technician holds up image sensors embedded on a silicon wafer. The technology enables people to take better pictures in poor light.
A Kodak technician holds up image sensors embedded on a silicon wafer. The technology enables people to take better pictures in poor light.
June 15, 2007
A year from now, capturing a crisp, clear image of a candlelit birthday party could be a piece of cake - even with a camera phone.
Eastman Kodak said it has developed a colour-filter technology that at least doubles the sensitivity to light of the image sensor in every digital camera, enabling shutterbugs to take better pictures in poor light.
"Low light can mean trying to get a good image indoors of your kid blowing out the birthday candles. It can mean you want to take a photograph on a street corner in Paris at midnight," said Chris McNiffe, general manager of the photography company's image sensor business.
"We're talking about a two-to-four-times improvement in (light) sensitivity."
Analyst Chris Chute does not doubt that the new filter system, intended to supplant an industry-standard filter pattern designed by Kodak scientist Bryce Bayer in 1976, represents a breakthrough in boosting photo quality - especially when light conditions are not ideal.
"It's often the most simple concepts that can have the most profound impact," said Chute of IDC, a market research firm near Boston. "This could be revolutionary in terms of just changing that very simple filter on top of the sensor and basically allowing companies to use it in all different kinds of cameras."
Kodak expects to provide samples of its new technology to a variety of camera manufacturers in the first quarter of 2008. The technology is likely to be incorporated first in mass-market point-and-shoot cameras and camera-equipped mobile phones beginning sometime next year.
"Typically new features like this would be more likely to show up in high-end products and then trickle down," said analyst Steve Hoffenberg of Lyra Research Inc.
"But I think the biggest potential benefit of this may come in the camera phone environment. Camera phones are using smaller sensors to begin with and smaller sensors generally mean smaller pixels, which means lower sensitivity."
When the shutter opens on a digital camera, an image is projected onto the sensor, which converts light into an electric charge. Most sensors use the Bayer mask: Half of the millions of cells on a checkerboard grid are filtered to collect green light and a quarter each are filtered to let through red and blue light. A computer chip then reconstructs a full colour signal for each pixel in the final image.
The new method, which has been under development for more than five years, adds "panchromatic" cells that are sensitive to all wavelengths of visible light and collect a larger amount of light striking the sensor. Tailoring software algorithms to this unique new pattern enables faster shutter speeds, which reduces blurring when capturing a moving subject, McNiffe said.