On 12/21/05, savvo <zuiko@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> But isn't that the same for anyone's sensor? Any one pixel can only see
> one colour, the rest is 'fixed in the software'?
Not exactly. With the Foveon sensor you get a 2268x1512 pixel image,
or 3.4 million pixels (okay, it's really 3429216 pixels). Keeping the
same aspect ratio, a 10.2 megapixel sensor (okay, really 10287648
pixels if you're doing exactly 3x the number of pixels) would give you
a 3928 x 2619 image (roughly, there's a bit of error because of the
rounding).
Let's use 150ppi as our print resolution, it's debatable what
resolution you need so this is just an arbitrary value. With the
Foveon sensor, that gives you a print that's 15.12" x 10.08". With the
theoretical 10.2mp sensor, you get a print that's 26.19" x 17.46".
That's with no upsampling for either image.
My concern is that the way Foveon markets their sensor can confuse
users. A lot of people throw around statements like, "you need x
megapixels to make 8x10 prints." You can really insert any size you
want in that statement. So say you were told that you need at least 5
megapixels to print at a certain size, you could easily make the
mistake of thinking that your "10.2 megapixel" Sigma camera would have
no problem printing at that size and be disappointed with the results.
Now don't get me wrong, it's more complicated than that. The Foveon
sensor would certainly be good for capturing fine detail in changes of
colour and may be equivalent to the higher res sensor in that regard.
But you'd still end up seeing pixelization when you blew that up to
the same size as you could with the 10.2mp sensor.
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