Polaroid x530 w/Foveon sensor will ship - finally.

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"True211" <true211@gmail.com> wrote:

> Remember this little "work of art"?
>
> Foveon technology in a compact point & shoot body.
>
> http://www.dpreview.com/news/0502/ [...] _avail.asp

$398.46 at Walmart, for what is essentially a 1.5 megapixel camera?
I'll pass.

http://www.walmart.com/catalog/pro [...] id=3340264

--

Bill

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Randall Ainsworth <rag@nospam.techline.com> wrote:

> Just what the photographic world needs...more junky hardware.

It will still be interesting to read the technical reviews.

Rose Parchen

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In article <a56e5710.0502240750.5123ce58@posting.google.com>, ittsy
<leicarose@yahoo.com> wrote:

> Randall Ainsworth <rag@nospam.techline.com> wrote:
>
> > Just what the photographic world needs...more junky hardware.
>
> It will still be interesting to read the technical reviews.

If it has the Polaroid name attached and uses Foveon
technology...really...who cares at this point?

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"The PhAnToM" <victorthecleaner@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1109376253.587248.102460@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
>
> Randall Ainsworth wrote:
>> In article <a56e5710.0502240750.5123ce58@posting.google.com>, ittsy
>> <leicarose@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>
>> > Randall Ainsworth <rag@nospam.techline.com> wrote:
>> >
>> > > Just what the photographic world needs...more junky hardware.
>> >
>> > It will still be interesting to read the technical reviews.
>>
>> If it has the Polaroid name attached and uses Foveon
>> technology...really...who cares at this point?
>
> Can someone again summarize why the lingering hatred of Foveon? Thanks.

Those of us who use Foveon sensor cameras quite like them. There's honest
criticism of the sensor and then there's dishonest crtiticism from the likes
of Randall and Steven Scharf who never used the camera. Sort of like
telling someone how a steak tastes without ever tasting one for themselves.
It's best to discount what they say and stick to the posts from those who
are more objective even if they don't like the Foveon sensor.

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"The PhAnToM" <victorthecleaner@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1109376253.587248.102460@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...

> Can someone again summarize why the lingering hatred of Foveon?
Thanks.

There is no hatred.

There was a lot of disappointment when the Sigma D-SLRs, produced
relatively mediocre results compared to all other digital SLRs (and
compared to many compact digital cameras for that matter). This has
translated into healthy skepticism that the 1.5 megapixel sensor in the
Polaroid x530 will produce good results (this camera is nearly a year
late, with no explanation ever provided for the delay, making many
people very nervous about it, but who knows, it could be a sleeper).

What upset a lot of people about Foveon was how the 3.4 megapixel X10
sensor somehow morphed into a 10.2 megapixel sensor. This stemmed from
an attempt to re-define a pixel from a spatial input element into a
photo-detector. Terms such as "pixel sensor" were invented, in an
attempt to confuse the consumer. Foveon decided not to adhere to the
JCIA GLA03 standard regarding the definition of a pixel, claiming that
the standard did not adequately address X3 technology (it actually
does). Fujitsu, who has a non-standard sensor design, takes great pains
to be accurate in terms of the JCIA GLA03 standard, even noting the
standard in their specifications (i.e. see
"http://home.fujifilm.com/products/digital/lineup/f810/performance.html" ).

Now we have the 1.5 megapixel Polaroid x530 being marketed as a 4.5
megapixel camera. But what can WWL do, since if they tried marketing it
as a 1.5 megapixel camera it would surely fail. This camera will likely
be about as good as a current 3 megapixel compact camera, but it isn't
3 megapixels either, it's a 1.5 megapixel, 4.5 megasensor camera. The
problem is that many consumers look only at megapixels, just as when
buying computers many look only at megahertz; this is unfortunate, but
it requires education of the consumer into accepting a different
standard for product selection (can you imagine if a company tried to
redefine megahertz?!).

Some ill will may have been created by a few people, posting under many
aliases, on rec.photo.digital, who promulgated a tremendous amount of
mis-information about Foveon and Sigma. But most people realized that
these individuals were not speaking on behalf of Sigma or Foveon, so
their actions didn't have a lot of effect (and of course, in the big
scheme of things, Usenet means nothing). These people were basically
trying to justify their purchase of a specific product, and got
extremely upset whenever anyone pointed out any flaws (I'll never
understand this attitude, yet it certainly is not limited to digital
cameras). They've disappeared from Usenet for the most part, and we all
want to believe that they didn't represent the majority of Sigma camera
owners!

Personally, I have many excellent photographs in my home that were
taken with Foveon technology, and they are indistinguishable from 35mm
(at least to me). But these were all taken with the Foveon studio
camera, which is a very different animal (and in most cases I don't
know how much time the photographer spent on post-processing).

So "hatred" is definitely not the right word. Disappointment that what
appeared to be a great concept hasn't worken out commercially, at least
on the high end, is more like it. (you'll probably soon see Foveon
sensors in a lot of new applications, since they do have some inherent
advantages).

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"David J. Littleboy" <davidjl@gol.com> wrote in message
news:cvotc9$52q$1@nnrp.gol.com...

> One is that the mathematics of discrete sampling tells us that to
correctly
> sample a signal, that signal must be bandlimited. But Foveon tells us the
> Foveon sensor doesn't need an antialiasing filter. This is simply wrong.
> It's a lie.
>
> The reason Foveon needs it's customers to believe this lie is that with an
> antialiasing filter, the Foveon's resolution would be no better than a
Bayer
> camera of the same pixel count. So they leave out the AA filter and hope
no
> one's bothered by the aliasing.

What's amazing is that there actually customers that not only believe this
lie, but that help spread it. It's not like they don't know it's a lie
either, as it's been pointed out for at least two years, by most
reviewers.An incorrect image, with artificial "sharpness" in order to make
the sensor appear to be higher resolution than it really is. I just don't
get people that believe things that are demonstrably untrue. Then again, I
think that something like 1/3 of Americans still believe that Iraq was
linked to 9/11.

> Another problem Foveon has is that Bayer is so good.

I don't think that anyone expected Bayer to advance so rapidly in terms of
pixel density and noise. Canon has really done amazing things with their
CMOS sensors. Everyone remembers when CMOS sensors were looked down on as
inferior to CCDs.

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In article <cvotc9$52q$1@nnrp.gol.com>,
David J. Littleboy <davidjl@gol.com> wrote:
>
>The reason Foveon needs it's customers to believe this lie is that with an
>antialiasing filter, the Foveon's resolution would be no better than a Bayer
>camera of the same pixel count. So they leave out the AA filter and hope no
>one's bothered by the aliasing.

That, and they sharpen it 'till it screams in RAW conversion. They even had
the "0" setting for sharpness in their raw convertor correspond to a level
of sharpening that, if applied to an imported raw file in CS, would be
considered moderately heavy.

And it has pretty poor colour response as well - the channels have a lot of
redundnacy in them, in that the green channel, for example, isn't actually
that fussy about not capturing red and blue as well, so you end up having to
subtract out weighted versions of each channel from the others. This has
unpleasant results for the signal/noise ratio (noise stays the same, signal
gets smaller).

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"Larry" <larrylynch3rd@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:MPG.1c899b62c563e35c989710@news.individual.NET...
> In article <1109376253.587248.102460@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com>,
> victorthecleaner@gmail.com says...
>>
>> Randall Ainsworth wrote:
>> > In article <a56e5710.0502240750.5123ce58@posting.google.com>, ittsy
>> > <leicarose@yahoo.com> wrote:
>> >
>> > > Randall Ainsworth <rag@nospam.techline.com> wrote:
>> > >
>> > > > Just what the photographic world needs...more junky hardware.
>> > >
>> > > It will still be interesting to read the technical reviews.
>> >
>> > If it has the Polaroid name attached and uses Foveon
>> > technology...really...who cares at this point?
>>
>> Can someone again summarize why the lingering hatred of Foveon? Thanks.
>>
>>
>
> I wouldn't call it hatred, just a lack of repect for a good idea that
> didn't
> work, but still gets promoted and sold as if it did work.
>
> The photos from that sensor are pretty bad.
>
>
> --
> Larry Lynch
> Mystic, Ct.

You've obviously never used a Foveon sensor camera or have seen the photos.

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In article <_3%Td.9$K84.0@fe12.lga>, ntotrr@optonline.net says...
> "Larry" <larrylynch3rd@comcast.net> wrote in message
> news:MPG.1c899b62c563e35c989710@news.individual.NET...
> > In article <1109376253.587248.102460@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com>,
> > victorthecleaner@gmail.com says...
> >>
> >> Randall Ainsworth wrote:
> >> > In article <a56e5710.0502240750.5123ce58@posting.google.com>, ittsy
> >> > <leicarose@yahoo.com> wrote:
> >> >
> >> > > Randall Ainsworth <rag@nospam.techline.com> wrote:
> >> > >
> >> > > > Just what the photographic world needs...more junky hardware.
> >> > >
> >> > > It will still be interesting to read the technical reviews.
> >> >
> >> > If it has the Polaroid name attached and uses Foveon
> >> > technology...really...who cares at this point?
> >>
> >> Can someone again summarize why the lingering hatred of Foveon? Thanks.
> >>
> >>
> >
> > I wouldn't call it hatred, just a lack of repect for a good idea that
> > didn't
> > work, but still gets promoted and sold as if it did work.
> >
> > The photos from that sensor are pretty bad.
> >
> >
> > --
> > Larry Lynch
> > Mystic, Ct.
>
> You've obviously never used a Foveon sensor camera or have seen the photos.
>
>
>
Wrong on BOTH counts, I have used BOTH SD9 and SD10, and though some of the
shots were quite nice, the flesh tones were unusable in all but the most
perfect lighting conditions.

My opinions are MY opinions.

In my opinion the Foveon Sensor is LOUSY at color rendition, and especially
lousy at skin tones.

But then, Ive only been taking pictures on a daily basis since 1959, so what
the hell is my opinion worth... Not one whit more (or less) than yours.

The OP asked a question, I answered with my opinion, would you rather I
answered with someone elses opinion??? I'm sure you would rather I answered
with your opinion, but it doesn't work that way.






--
Larry Lynch
Mystic, Ct.

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"Brian C. Baird" <nospam@please.no> wrote in message
news:MPG.1c8a8139e18394ce98a6c8@news.verizon.net...
> In article <_3%Td.9$K84.0@fe12.lga>, ntotrr@optonline.net says...
>> You've obviously never used a Foveon sensor camera or have seen the
>> photos.
>
> That would put him at an advantage, "Preddy" Stavrakoglou.
> --
> http://www.pbase.com/bcbaird/

Please Brian, you can do better than that.

Archived from groups: rec.photo.digital (More info?)

"Chris Brown" <cpbrown@ntlworld.no_uce_please.com> wrote in message
news:ao36f2-9i5.ln1@narcissus.dyndns.org...

> And it has pretty poor colour response as well - the channels have a lot
of
> redundnacy in them, in that the green channel, for example, isn't actually
> that fussy about not capturing red and blue as well, so you end up having
to
> subtract out weighted versions of each channel from the others. This has
> unpleasant results for the signal/noise ratio (noise stays the same,
signal
> gets smaller).

If only silicon color separation were more exact, the whole three-layer
sensor concept would have been wildly successfuly.

Archived from groups: rec.photo.digital,rec.photo.digital.point+shoot (More info?)

Oh, God, Preddy's back.

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Steven M. Scharf <scharf.steven@linkearth.net> wrote:

> Used equipment of any genre doesn't fetch much more than 60%
> of the new price, usually closer to 50%. People look at what they paid for
> something, and figure that they are entitled to get 75% of what they paid
> back when they sell it used.

You'll probably find that ('any genre') to be untrue in a couple
of cases:
- items old enough to have quite some historical value
- collectors' items no longer freely available
- well-treated, undamaged items of high quality workmanship ---
while you probably won't make any money, you can get much closer
to a break even. I hear-tell Canon L lenses are in that class.

-Wolfgang

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"Peter A. Stavrakoglou" <ntotrr@optonline.net> wrote in message
news:JB5Ud.73$Eh7.63@fe11.lga...
> "Brian C. Baird" <nospam@please.no> wrote in message
> news:MPG.1c8a8139e18394ce98a6c8@news.verizon.net...
> > In article <_3%Td.9$K84.0@fe12.lga>, ntotrr@optonline.net says...
> >> You've obviously never used a Foveon sensor camera or have seen the
> >> photos.
> >
> > That would put him at an advantage, "Preddy" Stavrakoglou.
> > --
> > http://www.pbase.com/bcbaird/
>
> Please Brian, you can do better than that.
>
>

Ahhh yes, George/Georgette. The sexually ambiguous Foveon flag-waver. Now.
I remember that name. Couldn't find it because it was in my killfile. Oh
well, I guess there's another name to add now.

Ron

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Randall Ainsworth wrote:
> In article <a56e5710.0502240750.5123ce58@posting.google.com>, ittsy
> <leicarose@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> > Randall Ainsworth <rag@nospam.techline.com> wrote:
> >
> > > Just what the photographic world needs...more junky hardware.
> >
> > It will still be interesting to read the technical reviews.
>
> If it has the Polaroid name attached and uses Foveon
> technology...really...who cares at this point?

Obviously a number of people, including Phil of DP Review. That doesn't
mean that we are interested in buying it though.

Rose Parchen

Archived from groups: rec.photo.digital.point+shoot (More info?)

The PhAnToM wrote:
> Can someone again summarize why the lingering hatred of Foveon?
> Thanks.

There is not hatered for Foveon IMHO.
Just sound technical criticism. The
Fovoen based cameras do not deliver
what they promise. The competition
is much better.

This is a pity really. We need competing
technologies toget rapid advancemants.


/Roland