Had a good weekend in Rochester. Didn't get to do everything I wanted but did have some interesting talks with various friends from Kodak. Morale is really at rock bottom there, I'm afraid. Last week Lisa and I were talking about plans for when I finish my masters degree next year and I realized I wouldn't even consider a job at Kodak because I don't have any confidence in their prospects for long term survival. I mentioned this to one of my friends and he confirmed that this attitude is common and is causing them real problems. He said the only way they can get experienced engineers to work for them is to recruit from overseas, effectively going for people just use Kodak as "a way to get a green card", as he put it. :(
I do have some good news, though. What's more it's on-topic for this list! One of my marathon training friends noticed my Pentax camera and said "Hey' we're making stuff for Pentax". Turns out he's in the imaging chip division and is familiar with the 18 megapixel chip going into the 645D. He says the sensor is really good. It's undergoing final design tweaks at the moment, but nothing that affects operation, so Pentax engineers probably have prototypes to work with and won't have to change anything for production chips. The sensor should go into production late this year or early next year. That means the 645D should go into production shortly thereafter or possible even simultaneously. -- Mark Roberts Photography and writing www.robertstech.com
