On 17 Dec 2004 at 10:33, Toralf Lund wrote: > Yes. The actual utilisation of the silicon has improved a bit over the > years, though, hasn't it.
Yes, but not so much in the realms of digital imaging, photo-sites can't be continuously made more dense without compromise to image quality. > Another question is how large a portion of the sensor price is raw > material cost, anyway, and also how much of what you pay for the camera > actually goes to the sensor producer. I haven't really tried to check > lately... Quite a bit I'd assume, even APS sensors are a whopping bit of silicon relative to most other VLSI products, though I don't have $$$ figures. > Yes. That's what I meant, more or less, when I said there isn't much in > it for the camera producers. However, what I'm also saying, is that > *maybe* you can hope that one of the camera makers will see > upgradeability as enough of a selling point to make (economic) sense for > that company, even though it's not "good" for the business as a whole. > (And if one vendor does it, the others will possibly feel obliged to > follow.) Well just citing our beloved Pentax it's pretty easy to see that they've pulled some stops to "encourage" us to buy new lenses and it's certainly not in the name of progress. > As for the traditional film makers, what I was referring to is that the > same companies are to a certain extent the ones that make the digital > sensors, but I guess they are not significant enough in that area to be > able to call the shots. The sensor makers (all but Canon) care not how the sensors are used as long as their sales volumes are sufficient to generate profit. I can't see any camera company producing a product that won't be deemed outdated in a a few short years, it just wouldn't make economic sense. This unfortunately is the bottom line. Rob Studdert HURSTVILLE AUSTRALIA Tel +61-2-9554-4110 UTC(GMT) +10 Hours [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://members.ozemail.com.au/~distudio/publications/ Pentax user since 1986, PDMLer since 1998
