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The Foveon sensor is different - the claimed benefit there has to do with stacked silicon and lack of debayering, and the benefit is having better resolving pow

by dharma1 11y ago

The Foveon sensor is different - the claimed benefit there has to do with stacked silicon and lack of debayering, and the benefit is having better resolving power with the same pixel count. Sony is now researching similar stacked chips so we'll probably see this idea return. The innovation with the tech in the article is in the dynamic range, current CMOS sensors have a fairly limited maximum dynamic range because of the well saturation described in the article, usually around 12-14ev DR. For high contrast situations that isn't enough, and photographers will definitely appreciate increased dynamic range, not to mention the other applications they listed, like astronomy. On the display side most displays also have fairly limited DR and cannot reproduce the dynamic range in HDR images, so we end up having to tonemap images to get the perceived dynamic range back - however I think HDR monitors will break through in the next couple of years as many HDR TVs are hitting the market this year.

ancientworldnow 11y ago
Worth noting that those "HDR" televisions are still only Rec709 which is limited to about 6 stops of dynamic range. Sure some are approaching rec2020 color gamut, but we're still cramming all that gamma down into 6-9 stops. Even a consumer DSLR can shoot 12. I work in post and have moved our workflow over to the Academy Color Encoding Specification (ACES) which supports up to 27 stops (more than the eye can see which is about 24 best case scenario). ACES allows us to dynamically change our output to rec709, rec2020, P3 etc and while 2020 has better colors, it's definitely still a highly compressed image (in terms of dynamic range).
- dharma1 11y ago
  Interesting, will look into ACES. What do you use for the files, openEXR? Yep first "HDR" tv's will be rec709 but higher DR is definitely coming, both to home TVs and cinemas (via super bright laser projectors) http://blog.abelcine.com/2015/03/06/high-dynamic-range-explained/ http://blog.abelcine.com/2015/03/06/high-dynamic-range-expla... I'm actually not convinced most people will want 5-100x brighter pictures than we currently have! Dynamic range of the human eye is also related to foveal/peripheral vision, so dynamic range in the real world probably doesn't map 1:1 to a small screen experience - if that makes sense. http://www.rags-int-inc.com/PhotoTechStuff/CameraEye/ http://www.rags-int-inc.com/PhotoTechStuff/CameraEye/ I am very interested in "natural", halo free tone mapping algorithms, squeezing that extended DR into current displays. I really like the results Adobe is getting with laplacian pyramids in Camera Raw for highlight/shadow recovery. Do you know of other tone mapping algos that look natural?
  - ancientworldnow 11y ago
    I don't work with much HDR so I can't help you there. As for file formats, it varies entirely on the show. Higher end, fx heavy shows tend to use DPX and occasionally openEXR while lower end shows are typically some flavor of ProRes (422HQ and 4444 being nosy common). DNxHD 175 or 220 are also occasionally used. Some people are trying to move to the new ProRes high quality (4444XQ or DNxHR). Delivery specs for whatever network are almost always ProRes 422HQ 720p or 1080p. Features we'll output to DPX or TIFF which will be converted to DCP (JPEG2000) in the P3 color space (XYZ instead RGB or YUV). I'm excited to see higher bitrates for delivery, but it's going to be a long time on the broadcasters end. They're wary to upgrade so soon - especially when a lot of people already have trouble telling 720p from 1080p.
dr_zoidberg 11y ago
Indeed, I know what you've written and I agree with it -- writing it all in the first place would've resulted in a wall of text! I'm still unsure if there's a real benefit in this technology, or if the same result can be obtained by increasing the bit precison in the ADC stage of a "normal" sensor. Even if there were, I pointed at the Foveon X3 as an example of a very good technology that was regardarded as a breakthrough but didn't really make it commercially. Another "revolutionary" idea that was marketed as something that "would change the way we take photographs" were the Lytro cameras, with their unique focus technology, that works by taking the picture in a different way than a classic camera, wich allows to change the focus of the picture working with the "raw" file. Even though that technology is also very interesting, it has remained in a niche market and only offered by one company -- more novelty than "mainstream" photography.
- dharma1 11y ago
  Yes, it's a shame Foveon wasn't a commercial success, the quality in some areas is close to medium format. You can pick dp Merrill's up on ebay for about $300, would be tempted if it could do half decent video too. I don't think Lytro will ever take off in the way they intended, but light field capture will be very hot for 3D360 VR in a couple of years, when we start seeing first light field goggles (like Magic Leap)

by dharma1 11y ago

ancientworldnow 11y ago

Worth noting that those "HDR" televisions are still only Rec709 which is limited to about 6 stops of dynamic range. Sure some are approaching rec2020 color gamut, but we're still cramming all that gamma down into 6-9 stops. Even a consumer DSLR can shoot 12. I work in post and have moved our workflow over to the Academy Color Encoding Specification (ACES) which supports up to 27 stops (more than the eye can see which is about 24 best case scenario). ACES allows us to dynamically change our output to rec709, rec2020, P3 etc and while 2020 has better colors, it's definitely still a highly compressed image (in terms of dynamic range).

dharma1 11y ago
Interesting, will look into ACES. What do you use for the files, openEXR? Yep first "HDR" tv's will be rec709 but higher DR is definitely coming, both to home TVs and cinemas (via super bright laser projectors) http://blog.abelcine.com/2015/03/06/high-dynamic-range-explained/ http://blog.abelcine.com/2015/03/06/high-dynamic-range-expla... I'm actually not convinced most people will want 5-100x brighter pictures than we currently have! Dynamic range of the human eye is also related to foveal/peripheral vision, so dynamic range in the real world probably doesn't map 1:1 to a small screen experience - if that makes sense. http://www.rags-int-inc.com/PhotoTechStuff/CameraEye/ http://www.rags-int-inc.com/PhotoTechStuff/CameraEye/ I am very interested in "natural", halo free tone mapping algorithms, squeezing that extended DR into current displays. I really like the results Adobe is getting with laplacian pyramids in Camera Raw for highlight/shadow recovery. Do you know of other tone mapping algos that look natural?
- ancientworldnow 11y ago
  I don't work with much HDR so I can't help you there. As for file formats, it varies entirely on the show. Higher end, fx heavy shows tend to use DPX and occasionally openEXR while lower end shows are typically some flavor of ProRes (422HQ and 4444 being nosy common). DNxHD 175 or 220 are also occasionally used. Some people are trying to move to the new ProRes high quality (4444XQ or DNxHR). Delivery specs for whatever network are almost always ProRes 422HQ 720p or 1080p. Features we'll output to DPX or TIFF which will be converted to DCP (JPEG2000) in the P3 color space (XYZ instead RGB or YUV). I'm excited to see higher bitrates for delivery, but it's going to be a long time on the broadcasters end. They're wary to upgrade so soon - especially when a lot of people already have trouble telling 720p from 1080p.

dr_zoidberg 11y ago

Indeed, I know what you've written and I agree with it -- writing it all in the first place would've resulted in a wall of text! I'm still unsure if there's a real benefit in this technology, or if the same result can be obtained by increasing the bit precison in the ADC stage of a "normal" sensor. Even if there were, I pointed at the Foveon X3 as an example of a very good technology that was regardarded as a breakthrough but didn't really make it commercially. Another "revolutionary" idea that was marketed as something that "would change the way we take photographs" were the Lytro cameras, with their unique focus technology, that works by taking the picture in a different way than a classic camera, wich allows to change the focus of the picture working with the "raw" file. Even though that technology is also very interesting, it has remained in a niche market and only offered by one company -- more novelty than "mainstream" photography.

dharma1 11y ago
Yes, it's a shame Foveon wasn't a commercial success, the quality in some areas is close to medium format. You can pick dp Merrill's up on ebay for about $300, would be tempted if it could do half decent video too. I don't think Lytro will ever take off in the way they intended, but light field capture will be very hot for 3D360 VR in a couple of years, when we start seeing first light field goggles (like Magic Leap)