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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

Jim should check this out, new type of sensor

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Francesco

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Hey guys, has anyone seen this or heard anything about this new type of sensor? It's called a Quantum film sensor and apparently it's 4x more sensitive than the most sensitive film grain out there. There cheaper to make than CMOS sensors and it looks like they havn't been put in anything yet.

Could this be something a future Red could have?

Here's the link to the article.

http://www.eetimes.com/news/design/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=224000253

Frank
 
Wow, looks pretty promising.. "Our quantum film even looks like photographic film—an opaque black material that we deposit right on the top layer of our image chip."

Whenever I hear the word "quantum" I get all warm and fuzzy.. I'll take one Scarlet 2/3rds with the Mysterium X Quantum chip please : )
 
There's a lot more to sensors that sensitivity, but they didn't really talk about much else, so we'll have to see.

These kind of technologies always seem to take 10 to 20 years from announcement to actually coming out in a product though. For example, I've been hearing about all these new carbon nanotube batteries and the like that last twice as long as conventional batteries for at least five years now, but nothing has come to market...
 
I'm sure there are a lot of questions to be answered before it can truly "threaten" CMOS sensors, but still, looks pretty neat. Maybe RED should buy them out just in case. Before Canon or someone else does :)
 
Right, I just got an email to that article this morning too. At first my knee jerked into "no, that means all my dreams of shooting Epic are already dated", until I remembered Red's component system.

Once Quantum film sensors are here, and if they really turn out to be the greatest thing, I have no doubt that Red will offer at least one of the most competitive options as a new "brain" unit for my existing camera system.
 
Yeah we'll see. The Foveon sensor of a few years back was supposed to be The Next Big Thing but nowadays they can barely give it away and CMOS equals it.

Noah
 
They come out with new kinds of sensors every now and then (remember the Black Silicon sensor?) and while they're all very clever, the problem is very early versions aren't going to look as nice as existing technologies. Look at how long it's taking RED to dial in the M-X sensor, which is based on tried-and-true technologies.

Why is this important? Because no company in their right mind is going to want to try something like this. It could wind up being a colossal waste of money. Plus, in this case, the name is going to work against it. The point of anything "quantum" is it is unstable, and nobody is going to invest in something unstable.

Now, this is not a university that is doing this. These guys may have different plans, perhaps to build their own cameras. But in the likely event they don't, they had better have something good to show, because I friggin' wanna see this too.
 
I love this. The fact that it uses existing (mature, even dated) technology will speed up its integration. While colourimetry will have to be developed, like any new chip, I could see this being implemented within 3 years easily... with the right partnerships. No doubt they will lease out rights to the tech, like Kodac and CMOS, or perhaps do their own manufacturing. I see they are in-bed with TSMC. I don't see them developing their own cameras, they have enough hurdles to jump at this point. Perhaps a high sensitivity RED module in the future? Man, ND filter wheels will have to make a comeback unless the technology has some cool way of throttling the relays.

Go U of T!
 
Noah Kadner said:
Yeah we'll see. The Foveon sensor of a few years back was supposed to be The Next Big Thing but nowadays they can barely give it away and CMOS equals it.

Noah
Click to expand...

Are there any video cameras using a Foveon sensor? Out of all the research I did, the only camera I could find was a Sigma still frame. I wonder if the problem is the company that seems to be the big seller of it has made the licensing too restrictive? I cannot for the life of me imagine the the Foveon is not more expensive to manufacture than the CMOS sensor since it uses multiple depths of transistors and CMOS technology has one depth essentially. The Foveon would require even more special steps in the fab process which is one of the things CMOS technologies try to avoid.

The one thing that bothered me about this new sensor design is no pictures on their website. If your technology is so great, don't you think you'd want to show pictures?!?
 
Foveon sensor is 5fps full frame, hence useless for video. The rest of it is just a trade off - getting rid of the bayer pattern demosaic issues by introducing chroma noise reduction issues because silicon is a poor colour filter.

Graeme
 
you think you found out about this before Jim? A man who literally lives and breathes the industry and has put his personal wealth on the line to completely change the future of digital cinema?

ha...just messing around while we await scarlet news....

KO
 
lol, yes your probably right!

But if he hasn't I hope he does just buy them out and can make it work. it would be very cool to see these sensors in a Red if they are that much better.

Kevin Olsen said:
you think you found out about this before Jim? A man who literally lives and breathes the industry and has put his personal wealth on the line to completely change the future of digital cinema?

ha...just messing around while we await scarlet news....

KO
Click to expand...
 
JD Holloway said:
I love this. The fact that it uses existing (mature, even dated) technology will speed up its integration. While colourimetry will have to be developed, like any new chip, I could see this being implemented within 3 years easily... with the right partnerships. No doubt they will lease out rights to the tech, like Kodac and CMOS, or perhaps do their own manufacturing. I see they are in-bed with TSMC. I don't see them developing their own cameras, they have enough hurdles to jump at this point. Perhaps a high sensitivity RED module in the future? Man, ND filter wheels will have to make a comeback unless the technology has some cool way of throttling the relays.

Go U of T!
Click to expand...

They are talking about using these quantum film sensors in cell phone cameras as early as next year. Be interesting to see how well they perform there.
 
albert rudnicki said:
inovation and marketing don't go hand in hand. Sadly.
Click to expand...

Well, they don't always... but I'd point to RED as a company where they do. And, IMHO, Oakley, Apple and, perhaps arguably, BMW as well. I am sure there are many more but these came to mind. Sometimes companies actually do more than one operational function well! (admittedly, rarely, though.)
 
There are pictures and diagrams on this news report on Quantum dots/ Quantum film on DPreview http://www.dpreview.com/news/1003/10032201quantumfilm.asp

If it does prove worthwhile for Full larger sensors in professional imaging applications this will be interesting to watch, especially as it seems to offer cheaper manufacturing which could mean cheaper large sensor cameras for everyone.

As others have pointed out there would be so much more than this higher sensitivity needed to make this worth considering for professional imaging. Colorimetry, noise floor, dynamic range - especially clipping with such high sensitivity, read reset etc.

At the end of the article it states "QuantumFilm is ideal for a wide range of image-sensing technologies including security cameras, automotive cameras and military applications. The first QuantumFilm image sensors, targeting high-end mobile handsets and smartphones, will sample in Q4 of 2010."

No mention of Digital SLR's or video cameras, this suggests to me that the developers at InVisage may have seen problems that would preclude it's use in these applications though I hope I'm wrong on that assumption because the stated benefits of the technology sound attractive.
 
Interesting times...
i think a mx sensor upgrade is a must have...

but in a year or so...
there will be some serious options coming out that your average 16 year old can buy..

quality images that use to cost 200k for under 3 grand.
 
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