Yes'm it's a 1/1.7x size 35mm Sigma with interchangeable lenses. These are inexpensive zooms on there BTW.

This is strictly a single-chip tech solution WITH NO FILTRATION OR PRISM that exactly duplicates color film in silicon. It's the only technology of the kind.

Check out the sky, fluffy clouds, nothing burned out, with smooth detail right down to the underbrush. That is way better tonal range than my G2 canon, but I can't swear that I couldn't do better with a 35 and kodachrome100 given the ideal lighting and possible filtration. But wow -- read the full review and do some research -- that is one amazing image for .6x the raw image size of 35.

I should also mention that there are no color artifacts in the smooth or textured details either because there is no color-pixel array interpolation & reconstruction. It looks like film!

JM

If you've got a couple of hundred grand you can buy a camera that shoots video just like that too. Do you have any idea how much data that camera stores per frame, even at fim frame rates remember you need to write that much data 24 times per second, I've got a camera that takes pretty much that quality of image, it stores 14 MB per frame and takes around 10 seconds to write ONE frame to flash memory.
Maybe such technology will one day be in the hands of mere mortals, if I'm lucky they'll get to shoot my funeral with it, more likely it'll be my great grandchildrens wedding.
Get a grip, better men than us have been struggling with this issue for a long time.
Bob.

The Foveon chip has been in development for a few years and available in a Sigma camera for around for a year now. I came darn near ordering one when I bought my Canon D-10 digital SLR. I couldn't find a store with one on the shelf to look at, and I have an aversion to version 1.0 of anything that expensive.

The chip is a three-layer CMOS device but it's too slow to be used in a video application.

Cool technology, but check out the conclusion of this review at http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/sigmasd10/page19.asp

They are saying that X3 is better than Bayer for the same number of pixels. Unfortunately other cameras are way ahead on the pixels already.

Check out the Canon EOS 20D review and samples on the same site. Simply astonishing quality, and a much more practical camera (faster, JPEG and RAW both, etc.).

I've got a Sony F828, probably according to the reviews not the best of the bunch but as I bought it to hire out it's good in that it has plenty of dummy modes. Great for taking stills that you can zoom way in on.
Now all I've got to do is find the time to make up my own kit for stop frame and time lapse, going to do it all in HD and I don't even need a video camera, probably go for 2.35:1 AR, 24fps, even better than CineAlta. Just so long as you don't mind spending an hour to shoot a second of footage.
Bob.

What a trip Bob, that's what I've been dreaming up myself, but I had to get a grip. 8^/
But what makes you think the processing on this image is large? It's actually smaller I think. Read on.

This camera has to compete with other cameras for image mix / hardware / price / performance. So I might prefer another camera myself, but that's not my mission in reporting (sir).

Tell you what guys -- I predict that the dream of same-as-film is upon us, and the proof-hurdle is behind us. I think that's the conclusion from this Sigma camera. We are now into the incremental improvement stage.

Here are what I think are the main factors on it:

1) Who wants to channel R&D into a fundamentally obsolete standard (if that is true)?

2) The direct sensing technology ELIMINATES A LOT OF PROCESSING OVERHEAD, which makes room for other kinds of processing -- for example pixel sensitivity adjustment (tonal range compression).

3) Love numbers? This chip is silicon. Silicon is notoriously slow for a sensor. Yet the physics properties on which the technology depends depend on silicon. As far as we know other materials are not equivalent. BUT -- what if galliium arsenide (or whatever) can be DOPED IN LAYERS -- just like film? GA is what, 1200X faster? Tech is so far beyond silicon -- but it makes a great still camera.

4) How many OTHER improvements can be combined using fundamental materials research? Fine-tuning the ratio of color absorption? Adding a forth layer like Sony's "emerald" sensor? (And if four is better, why not five, six, seven...?)

This thing could happen or it could be "the next rotary engine." But it is certainly on my list of top-ten-technologies to watch.

Over the last year Foveon has reported progress in speeding up certain of their multilayer chips to the point that they are now approaching video speed. So, your conclusion is correct. It MAY be just a matter of time.

Oddly, according to comments from Foveon, the chip and its limitations is not the primary reason for its slow adoption. It is the rewrite of all the software to handle this type of implementatoin. Don't know, myself, but that was one of their early comments.

One of the nicest things about this chip is its "block" control . That is to say, you can have one chip that acts, say as a 1000 pixel or a 4000 pixel chip. In video mode (Yea, Yea, I know these are the wrong numbers, but it is easy to understand with these), it would use blocks of 4 pixels for each pixel to appear on screen, thereby increasing light gathering and such. But, then when you switch it to still camera mode, it makes a simple electrical change and all 4000 pixels become separately active, giving a much higher pixel count for still photos. This obviates the SHARP approach of rotating the body to use two separate chips, and also the problem with all current combo camcorders/camera units. Yea, I know that there is some of that going on already, but supposedly this way, with transmissable chips, is better.

One other thing, you can switch it BACK to the 1000 pixel mode in VERY low light situations, and improve the quality of low light video by sacrificing video resolution. If there are enough pixels to start with, loss of resolution is not noticed because of the low light situation in the first place, and the overall result is a picture that still looks good with plenty of defintion and proper colors and saturation, and next to no noise.

So, who knows. It may be the next hot bread, or the next, what did you say? Rotary engine? Well, I LOVE my rotary engine RX-8.

Like you said, bears watching. "We can always dream, can't we Orville," said Wilber.

JVC has been showing a prototype of a 2/3" FOVEON chip camera in the style of the DV500/DV5000 form-factor. Priced around $20,000.

http://www.camcorderinfo.com/content/jvc-hdv-3ccd-nab-camcorder-04_20_04.htm

Foveon is the brand name for the CMOS imager. The creators took advantage of a characteristic of CMOS substrates to absorb different frequencies of light at different depths into the substrate - first red, then green, then blue. They figured out how to stack three image sensors at those depths.

Go to http://www.foveon.com/