At 10:36 AM 2/19/04, you wrote:
Stephen said:
>The ultimate problem for Nikon and Pentax is that they don't make their >own sensors, unlike Canon. This is a real disadvantage if the company >supplying sensors becomes a competitor. If you're a minor player >(Pentax) you're just a source of extra revenue, but Nikon could >experience supply interruptions that hurt its marketability. I wonder >how many companies make sensors, and how much flexibility is out there?
Nikon now makes its own sensor for the D2h, presumably precisely to avoid this problem. It has caused other problems for Nikon as the sensor technology appears to be a tad immature. Canon has a HUGE edge here in having made their own sensors a while back an now being able to bring their technology to maturity. Nikon has said that future pro DSLRs will have the new nikon sensor technology, but amateur ones may not. This suggests that Nikon expects to be able to get new sensors from SOMEBODY--probably sony--for a while.
Otherwise, there is still foveon who might be about to die from lack of sales, or who might be about to appear with a bigger chip in new DSLRs when their exclusive agreement with Sigma expires this year.
There is sony who make the D100/*istD chip, and have not put out a successor for quite a while--I'd expect one soon. Sony also makes a lot of DP&S sensors that go in non-sony cameras.
Kodak makes its own sensors, or at least did, for Nikon and Canon bodied cameras, and presumably for its DP&S cameras.
Who made the full-frame sensors for the (not) MZ-D and the (not long) Contax N1D? Not Pentax, I'll bet, and probably not Contax. Perhaps the same sensor?
and Dario said:
>However, since I expect rather soon new midrange DSLR's from C & N to >replace 10D & D100, I think they will feature 8MP class sensors. If so, >can >a *ist D super stick to 6 MP, surpassed by most prosumer cameras?
If they dropped the price... Realistically, 8 sounds much bigger than 6, but 3500x2300 does not give that much improvement over 3000x2000. There would be something special though about a 3600x2400 8.6MP sensor!
>Yes, I know that resolution is not everything, that pixel size does >matter a >lot about picture quality, and so on. However, I expect that mid level >DLSR's will have to set around 8-9 MP in the near future (one year or >so).
I don't expect Canon to replace the 10D all that soon, as it is still a fairly new camera, plus Canon has presumably been working hard on the EOS1DmkII. Rumor has it that the D100 is out of production and the D70 has clearly been made fairly competitive with it so a D100 successor would seem likely. Pop photo suggests that 8+ to 9 Megapixels is the correct number based on Nikon's comments.
Pop photo also seems to agree on the one big, one little DSLR from Pentax idea. I'd suggest that photokina might be interesting this year. At some point Nikon has to introduce a D2X or watch all their users switch to Canon. It'd be interesting if PENTAX were to put out an 8MP DSLR before Nikon gets off its ass. Perhaps they are both waiting on Sony for the new sensor.
There is rumbling from major manufacturers about new FILM cameras too, which suggests that even if Japanese analysts think that most of the market growth will be in digital somebody clearly still thinks that they can make money selling film cameras.
DJE
I drink to make other people interesting.
-- George Jean Nathan
