Sigma buys Foveon

dpr has reported that Sigma Corporation, a maker of cameras and lenses, has purchased 100% of the stock of Foveon, Inc., the developer of the "true tricolor" sensors used in the flagship Sigma cameras.

http://www.dpreview.com/news/0811/08111101sigmafoveon.asp

Unlike the "color filter array" (CFA) sensors found in most other digital still cameras, the Foveon sensor actually reports, for each pixel location in the basic image, a tristimulus description of the color at that point (from which both luminance and chromaticity can be determined explicitly, on an individual pixel-by-pixel basis).

In contrast, in a CFA sensor system, the luminance and chromaticity at each pixel location is inferred by considering the outputs of a cluster of sensels, sited both at the pixel location of interest and at surrounding pixel locations, having different spectral sensitivities, each giving a single output. The resulting "demosaiced" image does not necessarily truly represent either the luminance nor chrominance of the scene at any given pixel location (although the result is amazingly "realistic" in most cases).

I think work in this direction continues to be extremely important to the improvement of digital photographic technique.

Doug_Kerr said:

dpr has reported that Sigma Corporation, a maker of cameras and lenses, has purchased 100% of the stock of Foveon, Inc., the developer of the "true tricolor" sensors used in the flagship Sigma cameras.............I think work in this direction continues to be extremely important to the improvement of digital photographic technique.

Click to expand...

Doug,

This is indeed great news! If Sigma has the cash to take this forward, I can see a DP-2 with a Digic like processor from such as Texas Instruments and a really great full frame sensor that will set the bar for professional
compact cameras.

About time!

Asher