COBA 8th Meeting

Written: October 9, 2002
Last Updated: October 9, 2002

The Canon 1Ds and the Sigma SD9 are featured at the October COBA meeting.

Members of the Camera Owners of the Bay Area received first-hand looks at two exciting cameras Wednesday evening, the Canon EOS-1Ds and the Sigma SD9, featuring the Foveon X3 imaging sensor. Among the featured speakers were Jim Rose from Canon and Dick Merrill, Tim Whitehouse, and Eric Zarakov from Foveon. The meeting also featured a record crowd for a COBA meeting, as I counted over 85 people in attendance!

Jim was first up with his presentation of the EOS-1Ds. Many people were familiar with the camera, since it's largely based on the existing EOS-1D DSLR. Noted improvements included the 11-megapixel CMOS imaging sensor, extended battery life, and magnified image playback. While the quoted list price of the camera was $8,999, Jim mentioned that will likely sell for cheaper. With Kodak's DCS-14n at $4,000 and the SD9 at $1899 (list price), there's a big gulf for Canon to cover in the price range.

A number of people had comments for Jim to relay back to Canon including improving Mac OS X support, multiple image resolutions (6mp in addition to 3mp and 11mp), better firmware (ala Kodak), and using up-to-date battery technology (LiON instead of NiMH).

In addition to the 1Ds, Jim brought along the EF 400mm f/4.0 DO IS, which was an extremely light telephoto lens. I had the opportunity to test the lens in poor lighting conditions. All of the following images were shot handheld (albeit greatly assisted by image stabilization), ISO1600, 1/60th second at f/4.0.

Edgar with the 400DO

Tina

Spotted!

Altogether a very impressive lens! Tim brought along several Sigma lenses, including a gigantic telephoto that Hoon is admiring in the photo that graces the top of this entry. The meeting was a great opportunity to see the wide variety of equipment that's available for photographers, be they Canon users or Sigma users.

Projected shadow

Following Jim's presentation, Dick Merrill, Chief Sensor Designer, gave a detailed presentation on the history of photography and of the X3 sensor. His presentation was similar to the one given by Carver Mead back in May, although Dick's was tailored to a more technical audience. One of the slides showed what is generally considered to be the world's first photograph, by Joseph Nicephore Niepce. The photo is part of the Ransom Center's Photography Collection at the University of Austin, Texas. When I visited Austin last Christmas, I saw the photograph first-hand!

A number of questions flowed from the crowd, eager to learn more about the sensor and how it stacked up to existing products on the market. Erik mentioned that the SD9 camera would go on sale on October 21st in Japan and the Americas, followed by a rollout in Europe next year. He also explained that, contrary to rumors, there is no exclusivity pact with Sigma regarding the use of the Foveon X3 sensor. It would take a minimum of 6 months for a company to incorporate their technology into a new camera, as it's more than just a simple swap in and out of imaging sensors. The market really belongs to the consumer point-and-shoot cameras, not to expensive DSLR's, so I'm guessing that the next camera will be a 1.5-megapixel (with 4.5 million full-color photodetectors) X3-based point-and-shoot.

I found it interesting to note that the Sigma SD9 camera does not support in-camera creation of JPEG files. Tim and Erik mentioned that it was a time-to-market decision that also followed Foveon's general philosophy of generating the highest quality images straight out of the camera. This philosophy also led Foveon and Sigma to limit the camera's sensitivity from ISO100 to ISO400 (ISO800 was too noisy). Given time, however, we should expect the sensitivity to increase, which would be a boon for anyone who lives at high ISO ratings (i.e. sports, photojournalists, etc.).

The world's first photograph

Potato starch & Bayer sensors: separated at birth?

Sigma SD9

The prints that were displayed of both the Canon 1Ds and the SD9 were quite impressive. I was particularly impressed by the sharpness and color quality exhibited by the Foveon prints. Moiré was non-existent, and the images looked very film-like. I encourage people who came to the meeting to post their comments on the meeting using the comment system at the end of this entry. What are you thoughts and impressions of both cameras?

The next meeting of COBA is tentatively set for November 13th. See the COBA web page for additional information. Until then, enjoy some of the photos taken from the evening by clicking on the photo gallery link below!

Enter The Photo Gallery

Reader Comments

The Foveon presentation by Dick Merrill was an eye-opener. I understood the concept of the Foveon sensor, but when he indicated that it had no problem "seeing" colors as narrow as only 1 pixel as opposed to the way every other sensor kind of falls apart and guesses (creating color fringes and what-not), I was amazed. Looking at the results, seeing the clarity of the prints, makes me want to not wait till Canon wakes up. The SD-9 felt like a brick, and feel is very important in a tool that's meant to be responsive, but if I have to use a brick to produce images like the ones I saw at the meeting, so be it. That might be the only way to send a message to Canon. Vote with my money.

Adam, thanks for having the Foveon people come down. And yes, the 1Ds is an awesome machine. If it had a Foveon chip in it, I wouldn't be sleeping.

-- posted by Robert Burkhalter @ Thursday, October 10 2002, 14:49 pm EDT

The point I found most impressive in Dick Merrill's presentation is that with the Foveon sensor, you can correct for chromatic aberration in the digital domain. If an entire interchangeable-lens system geared towards APS-size sensors like the proposed Olympus-Kodak 4/3 system ever becomes comercially viable (a big if), they could choose not to correct lenses for chromatic aberration (thus giving themselves more headroom to optimize for other parameters like size, cost, weight, contrast or sharpness) and leave the correction to the X3F RAW mode converter (using focal length and aperture metadata to calculate the correction coefficients).

-- posted by Fazal Majid @ Thursday, October 10 2002, 14:58 pm EDT

Adam,
Outstanding, highly interactive meeting...it's always interesting watching a fledgling technology emerging into the harsh reality of "tunnel vision" and "legacy methodolgy". It will be interesting to see if, after the discussions that Foveon has with Canon, Nikon, and others, and if, after the SD-9 has been out a while, the CCD and CMOS technolgies fade away to the vertical sensor approach. I was truly amazed with the clarity of the pictures...Truly incredible. I certainly understand it a lot better than I did. And it was great catcing up with an old friend of mine, Eric Zarakov (Apple days...well gone by).
As for the 1Ds, it's a great looking machine, but I don't think it's on my list...For $9K, they OUGHT to have a FOVEON chip inside. ;)

Thanks for the pictures...

-- posted by Phil Williams @ Thursday, October 10 2002, 15:18 pm EDT

This org seems very cool and I truely wanted to see the new stuff at last nights meeting. However it's a long way for some of us Canon people in the East and north Bay. Any chance you can move the meetings around so we can all play? jonmc

-- posted by jon mcnally @ Thursday, October 10 2002, 15:45 pm EDT

I had a great time. The presentations were great, and the cameras were too!

I posted a summary on DPReview.

http://www.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1019&message=3546521

-- posted by Chris "Ozy" Johnson @ Thursday, October 10 2002, 15:50 pm EDT

Adam, as usual I really enjoyed this meeting. I was so happy to have the X3 presented in a more technical lecture style. This fit really well with the auditorium setting, and of course the right public speakers. It's pretty clear that the X3 sensor is here to stay. I don't characterize it as a Foveon versus Canon issue. Foveon sells sensors. Canon sells cameras. Sure they make their own sensors, but I'm sure they'll buy X3 sensors when they feel the time is right. All in all, an exciting and educational evening.

-- posted by Peter Epstein @ Thursday, October 10 2002, 18:01 pm EDT

Jon:

I think it's best to have one central location for all of the meetings. Early in COBA's history, we were in Mountain View, then Stanford. Finally we've settled down at SLAC, thanks in part to Stuart Metcalf's assistance. To move it around the Bay Area would only invite undesired confusion and logistical issues. Now this doesn't prevent North and East Bay'ers from organizing their own meetings!

-adam

-- posted by Adam @ Thursday, October 10 2002, 23:48 pm EDT

Adam, It was a terrific meeting. The interaction between the audience and feedback from Jim from Canon and Dick and the others from Foveon and Sigma were excellent. Dick Merril's presentation was great and made the differences between the "old" technology (CCD and CMOS) and the potential of Foveon X3 abundantly clear. The Sigma X3 photos were amazing for a so-called only 3MP sensor. It truly deserves to be recognized as a 6-10MP sensor. If, or more likely, when X3 gets into the lens and camera body quality of Canon/Nikon type systems and gets some of the additional development from them and others that it deserves, it seems that it will be hard to beat!

Thanks again for a great meeting.

Marshall

-- posted by Marshall Dinowitz @ Friday, October 11 2002, 20:34 pm EDT

Adam, thanks for arranging the great presentations by Foveon and Canon. Although I drove 87 miles to be there, it was well worth it IMO.

I knew most of the specs of the 1Ds since it's been well documented lately, but information about the X3 sensor used in the SD9 has been pretty sparse. Dick Merrill's presentation on the X3 sensor held my attention and enlightened me to a few of its characteristics that I had not seen explained anywhere on the net. Although I wasn't sure where he was going with the medium format asphalt and full color potato starch sensors at first :) , it finally came around to the X3. I did take issue with his comparison of the Sigma 8mm fisheye lens to the 14mm aspherical to offset the small sensor with WA lens problem, but decided not to confront him with it since it was my first time at one of your meetings and didn't know how confrontational one was allowed to get with invited guests :)

For those who don't know, Dick Merrill is not only the chief sensor design tech, he's also the co-founder of Foveon and was a top National Semiconductor scientist prior to that, but I don't think he's a photographer. He seemed to disappear shortly after his presentation, but Eric Zarakov stayed around quite a while and I was able to pick his brain a bit about a few questions and issues I had. He was quite responsive and amenable, and I felt quite comfortable asking him questions. I even got to look at some comparison prints done from a D60, D100, S2, and SD9. Guess which ones looked the best? OK, a bit baited but I was impressed nonetheless. BTW, Foveon did not produce the shots. It was done by a private photographer (Hmm... Independent lab).

As I left, I ended up in a conversation with Jim Rose and a few others about various Canon 1Ds subjects and even a few concerns about the D60 CF card and Microdrive problems. I also mentioned I thought the 1Ds prints in the non-gloss paper (Ilford) were quite soft and didn't show the camera in a good light. It seems that perhaps the ink may have migrated across the paper surface.

I had a great time overall and plan to attend again next month if you are able to get the guest you mentioned (it is 87 miles after all). Thanks again...

-------------------------
John Ray - jray@d30.info
-- posted by John Ray @ Saturday, October 12 2002, 5:18 am EDT

I appreciate the comparison, as I am currently a Nikon F5 film guy. I have read extensively of the Sigma chip and was happy to read some of comparing it to the Canon. Since these initial discussions after the meetings, any further feedback, comparisions?

How about to Nikon?? I've heard their R&D is not as extensive as Canon's. Other comments?? I originally switched from Canon's with no auto focus to Nikon w auto focus, yes years ago. I'm willing to switch again, when I go digital, not just blindly add a digital Nikon body to my non dig gear, so want more info on all three. I like the Sigma chip, Canon lens are better and the choices go on . .

look fwd to hearing more newer info of SD10 vs . .

thanks, cole

--posted by Cole Cameron @ Wednesday, February 23 2005, 13:57 pm PST