Good news for photographers who yearn for film like images

[sharf]

Fujifilm Develops New Image Sensor Technology for Digicams

Fuji Photo Film Co. Ltd., Tokyo, Japan, has developed a new basic technology for a new type of image sensor that ensures 3x higher sensitivity and richer color depth than conventional image sensors, reports PhotoImaging Enterprises Association International's PEN News Weekly.
In today's digital cameras, images are captured and converted into digital signals by triplets of CCDs placed side by side -- one each for red, green, and blue. It is difficult for ordinary photographers to realize that a digital image captured with a digital camera has less depth than pictures taken with film in which the photosensitive pigments for the three primary colors of red, green, and blue are layered above one another, but pro photographers can recognize this.

Adopting the same concept of layering, the new image sensor developed by Fujifilm uses organic pigments reacting to red, green and blue light. The pigments are sandwiched between transparent electrodes and stacked above one another. When light enters each pigment layer, electric current flows between the electrodes, and the electric current is then converted into digital signals.

Fujifilm has made a prototype image sensor containing a green-reacting pigment. It yields monochrome pictures having the same depth as photo film, and is now making prototype elements for red and blue light as well. The company has filed a patent application on the basic technology and hopes to commercialize new image sensors in three to four years, says PEN News Weekly.

 

[Ah Pao]

Sounds so much like the Foveon X3 sensor?

 

[Caspere]

Sounds so much like the Foveon X3 sensor?

Only better...much better...

 

[pai]

3-4 years... we wait... we wait...

 

[Ah Pao]

Only better...much better...

Haha, because it's developed by Fuijfilm and hence has a very good chance of making it big in the market? :bsmilie:

The Foveon X3 sensor looks like a great product with a great concept, but unfortunately didn't take off. Hope Fujifilm delivers to what is being promised.

 

[sharf]

Haha, because it's developed by Fuijfilm and hence has a very good chance of making it big in the market? :bsmilie:

The Foveon X3 sensor looks like a great product with a great concept, but unfortunately didn't take off. Hope Fujifilm delivers to what is being promised.

I hope so too... Quite excited about the news.

If this works as well as or even better than film, does that mean that film as a medium is completely dead?

Sharf

 

[vince123123]

There will always be film fanatics around.

 

[lsisaxon]

Fujifilm Develops New Image Sensor Technology for Digicams

Fuji Photo Film Co. Ltd., Tokyo, Japan, has developed a new basic technology for a new type of image sensor that ensures 3x higher sensitivity and richer color depth than conventional image sensors, reports PhotoImaging Enterprises Association International's PEN News Weekly.
In today's digital cameras, images are captured and converted into digital signals by triplets of CCDs placed side by side -- one each for red, green, and blue. It is difficult for ordinary photographers to realize that a digital image captured with a digital camera has less depth than pictures taken with film in which the photosensitive pigments for the three primary colors of red, green, and blue are layered above one another, but pro photographers can recognize this.

Adopting the same concept of layering, the new image sensor developed by Fujifilm uses organic pigments reacting to red, green and blue light. The pigments are sandwiched between transparent electrodes and stacked above one another. When light enters each pigment layer, electric current flows between the electrodes, and the electric current is then converted into digital signals.

Fujifilm has made a prototype image sensor containing a green-reacting pigment. It yields monochrome pictures having the same depth as photo film, and is now making prototype elements for red and blue light as well. The company has filed a patent application on the basic technology and hopes to commercialize new image sensors in three to four years, says PEN News Weekly.

O!! First organic food, then O-LED, now O-sensor!!!! Wow! But being organic, will there be any concerns of the lifespan? I think OLEDs cannot do not last as long as solid state LEDs. Then again, LCDs are somewhat organic also.

 

[student]

I hope so too... Quite excited about the news.

If this works as well as or even better than film, does that mean that film as a medium is completely dead?

Sharf

Let me talk a little about B&W photography.

I do not profess to be a guru in anything. I am at the present moment, not terribly excited about B&W images from DSLR, especially from Canon. The sample images from several photographers had given me that impression.

My Oympus E1 gives better B&W images, in my very limited experience.

My impression may have arisen from bad understanding of PS skills.

But I quite sure that one day, digital technology will do quite well in capturing images for B&W.

However, it will still not replace film B&W.

And the simple reason is that the final output medium will not be the same. Esthetic choices and knowledge will determine what a photographer likes. But it will be different.

I am referring to inkjet prints, and silver prints, and platinum prints, and albumen prints etc etc., just to illustrate.

Albumen is not better than platinum. And platinum not better than silver. And silver not better than inkjet

And inkjet not better than silver. Silver not better than platinum. And platinum not better than albumen.

These output media are just different from each other. What one prefers is pure personal esthetics.

However I will be very excited if one day, I may do all the B&W processing digitally, and then out put them through a computer to make a silver print. This technology already exist. However the consensus is that it still does not produce the tonal gradation of film. But I am sure it will come.

Will I give up film then? Well, right now, will I give up medium or large format films for the excellent digital capture already avaliable? I doubt so.

Why? Cost and obsolescence.

Most importantly, cost.

How much is a digital back for medium format? How much is the cost for that hybrid printer? What is the life span of hardware and software to run such a set-up?

My current mechanical enlarger will outlast my life span. My camera will still function 20 years down the road.

While technology gets more and more exciting and capable, the limiting cost factor, for the forseeable future, will be too prohibitive, especially for amateurs ike myself.

 

[student]

There will always be film fanatics around.

Not film fanatics.

Just people with different esthetics.

Shall I call you a digital fanatic?

 

[vince123123]

Maybe it would be more palatable for you if the word was "fan" instead. In any event, there will always be both film fans and fanatics alike.

Anyway I suppose you may call me that only if you are correspondingly so

Not film fanatics.

Just people with different esthetics.

Shall I call you a digital fanatic?

 

[gooseberry]

Sounds so much like the Foveon X3 sensor?

I think the Foveon X3 sensor relied on the absorption properties of silicon to seperate the colours. Fuji is using organic pigments to do the colour seperation - which they are claiming to be much better.

 

[SnakeJackal]

there exist sensors which capture photons and signals wider spectrums than light spectrums, each photon/energy signal captured have different wavelength and thus an information like image stored. However these sensors are so sensitive that noise is too high if we use it as a camera. These sensor need to be buried under the roock deep in the earth crust and use to capture signals from outerspace.

I hope a commercialised version of the sensor would use these techinique instead of the 3 layer CCD methods. The ultimate accurate image we can capture.

 

[yanyewkay]

the Foveon X3 sensor failed terribly not because it was not good but I'll blame it on poor marketing. Sigma is good as a lens maker but not many heard of Sigma bodies.

Student: Erm.. what has the new sensor got to do with B&W photos? It is after all a colour sensor and not a B&W sensor.

Fujifilm has made a prototype image sensor containing a green-reacting pigment. It yields monochrome pictures having the same depth as photo film, and is now making prototype elements for red and blue light as well. The company has filed a patent application on the basic technology and hopes to commercialize new image sensors in three to four years, says PEN News Weekly.

i think they were saying they could capture 'greens'. If you open photoshop and view only the green channel it is also giving a monochrome picture but with only details relating to greens.

Isn't this basically how colour photography started? same scene using 3 shots on B&W film, each shot exposed with a different light filter on it (RGB) and the final output was projected on screen with 3 different colour light source (RGB) instead of white. Superimposing the pictures to form the world's first colour picture.

Then finally with some magic they could put all 3 colours onto a single layer of film and produce the colour flims.

 

[student]

Maybe it would be more palatable for you if the word was "fan" instead. In any event, there will always be both film fans and fanatics alike.

Anyway I suppose you may call me that only if you are correspondingly so

If only you learn to pause a little before you type "submit reply".

First of all, you are the one to call people who prefers film "fanatics".

I am not a fanatic in films. My esthetics directs me to film as a choice. And for practical reasons by way of cost and issues of obsolescence, it makes sense for me to use films.

How would you define a "fanatic"?

It is not an issue of palatablilty. Again your choice of words "There will always be both films fans and fanatics" suggest that, to use the same logical derivation, "there will always be both digital fans and fanatics".

Why is it that the digital types want to label people who prefers films as fanatics? What is in the mind of such types?

I wonder........

I shall not write what I think of such types, although I am in no doubt as how I would like to label them.

 

[waileong]

For all intents and purposes, film is already dead. What's your point?

Note that I say this although I am a happy user of film today and have thousands invested in film cameras and lenses.

I have stated this in another thread that film is dead, but it's not extinct and I hope it won't be.

To use an analogy-- records are dead, I think there's no disagreement. Tapes, CD's and now MP3's have taken over, and although you can still buy new records (very hard, but still can) and you can buy turntables (mainly pro turntables, for use by DJ's), no one seriously believes that there will be any improvements in record technology, or any growth in the market. So although records have not disappeared from the face of the earth, for all intents and purposes, it is dead.

Same for film.

I love it, I use it daily, but I would not argue with anyone who says it's dead.

Wai Leong
===

I hope so too... Quite excited about the news.

If this works as well as or even better than film, does that mean that film as a medium is completely dead?

Sharf

 

[yanyewkay]

O!! First organic food, then O-LED, now O-sensor!!!! Wow! But being organic, will there be any concerns of the lifespan? I think OLEDs cannot do not last as long as solid state LEDs. Then again, LCDs are somewhat organic also.

OMG :bigeyes: ;p corny.. sorry..:embrass: i couldn't help it..

OLEDs are solid state as well but like you said, lifespan is significantly shorter especially for certain colours.

Lifespan on these type of 'OSENSOR' will relate me to the OLED's case. Will the colour sensitivity for certain colours decline over time? The last thing I want to have is another equipment to calibrate again!

 

[lsisaxon]

I think the Foveon X3 sensor relied on the absorption properties of silicon to seperate the colours. Fuji is using organic pigments to do the colour seperation - which they are claiming to be much better.

Foveon makes use thin film technology to make optical filters over the sensor. I think this new sensor is making use of engineered bandgap which is sensitive to only certain bands of light, which is very similar to OLED technology which uses engineered bandgap to emit different coloured light.

 

[student]

Student: Erm.. what has the new sensor got to do with B&W photos? It is after all a colour sensor and not a B&W sensor.

I do have a rudimentary understanding of the workings of digital sensor.

I was replying to the comment by sharf that "film as a medium is completely dead".

What I am trying to say was that the capture medium will be very very good, and for practical purposes, little difference between film and digital. And I think that for color imagery, digital is the way to go, even though many still prefer the optical output instead of digital output.

But there is another large genre of photography which uses B&W as an expression. What I was trying to say is that in the B&W output, there will always be a difference in the output media. And despite great advances in the digital techology sensors and software, inkjet will not be silver etc.

And therefore there will always be a role for film. And the main reasons are

1 Esthetic preferences
2 Cost of new technology
3 Obsolescence

 

[Verywierd]

<snip> But I quite sure that one day, digital technology will do quite well in capturing images for B&W.

However, it will still not replace film B&W. <snip>

There is a very real possibility that most (if not all) manufacturers will stop making film of any kind, leaving the market to some small specialist businesses. This would be pure economics and have nothing to do with quality. The cost of using film would then put it out of the reach of almost everyone.