Remember the Sigma SD9? Nope, thought not. How about the SD10? These were both very interesting DSLRs produced by Sigma a few years back (SD10 came out in late 2003 - SD9 a little earlier). They were so exciting because not only did they have a different sensor from all other cameras on the market - they had a different kind of sensor.
First a bit of science. The pixels in a DSLR can't see colour at all. In fact it's not the pixel at all it's the photosite but since in most cameras there's one photosite per pixel we usually let the distinction slide. These see light or its absence. Some of them (usually half) have a green filter over them and so see green light, one quarter see blue and one quarter see red. The camera then interpolates (or “makes up”) a full colour image using the aggregate of the photosite readings. A company called Foveon invented a new kind of sensor which uses stacks of photosites (one for each colour) at each pixel location. A 6 million pixel camera with a regular sensor would have 3 million green “pixels”, 1.5 million red and 1.5 million blue. A camera equipped with a Foveon sensor would strictly speaking have 6 million green, 6 million red and 6 million blue. You've probably guessed by now that the SD9 and SD10 had Foveon sensors. By a piece of marketing trickery (OK, to make them level with other manufacturers) the SD10 was a 3.43 MP DSLR, which put it at a class leading effective 10MP.
It has always been a bit of a mystery why the SD9 and SD10 didn't sell very well. The sensor offered better dynamic range than others, more pixels than anyone else had on the market at the time (once you decipher the marketing speak) and was capable of amazing results. Owners of the SD10 were extremely passionate about their cameras and always claimed they were better than any of the competition. But still they didn't sell in volume. Maybe it was the lens mount (though Sigma produce some very high quality optics), maybe it was because the camera only shot a customised raw format (and no jpegs), maybe the world just wasn't ready for it.
Whatever the reason - Sigma are mounting a fightback. There's a teaser video running on their website which promises that the SD14 is on the way. Details are very scarce (OK there are just some veiled soundbites) but it seems clear that the SD14 will feature a 14 megapixel Foveon sensor. Yep, 4 more than the Alpha 100, 400D or D80. And a couple more than even the D2X.
Expect to see a big launch at Photkina in late September - the ThinkCamera crew will be there to bring you all the news as it happens.
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