digital camera horizon

[Robert A. (Bob) Morris]

Eastman Kodak and a young company named Foveon have each announced
image acquisition chips and prototype digital cameras with resolution
of 4096x4096 on a 22mm x 22mm chip, i.e. about 16 million pixels per
square inch at the imaging surface. This is approximately the
resolution of conventional photographic film. (A brief informative
article comparing film resolution to digital image resolution is at
http://www.luminous-landscape.com/pixels_vs_film.htm)

Foveon's founder is Carver Mead, who is more or less the inventor of
chips for image acquisition.

Foveon's home page is http://www.foveon.net/

Kodak's 4k x 4k sensor is described at
http://www.kodak.com/country/US/en/digital/ccd/kaf16800.shtml
it's on a slightly bigger surface and is likely more expensive to
produce (different technology) than Foveon's.

Both devices are monochrome, so it might be another year before we see
color of this resolution, but both companies behave, and speak, as
though they do not expect silver halide technology to be
around much longer for capturing images.

--Bob

[Apologies to tdwg mailing list if this is far off topic. I know that
many of you are interested in the subject]