The Polaroid X530 may be the least expensive raw camera on the market, but don't let it's size and price fool you ($149). The camera features RAW image acquisition (unheard of in a point-and-shoot camera) and the revolutionary Foveon image sensor.

UPDATE: Sigma has just announced the successor camera to the Polaroid X530. As I mentioned earlier, the Polaroid corporation has been destroyed by corrupt management. The new Sigma DP1 promises to be the best introduction to the revolutionary picture quality of the Foveon image sensor. And it's a RAW camera to boot. I can't wait!

UPDATE: After what seems to be months of waiting for a reliable vendor to list Polaroid x530 on Amazon.com, I finally was able to pick one up. The camera is not without quirks, but it takes amazing photos in RAW format. Here's three of mine. (16-bit TIFF).

Labels: polaroid, sigma

Personally, I am holding out for the Sigma SD-14, which was announced at Photokina and will be shipping sometime this spring.

The reasons for this I covered in my post about image quality.

Labels: dslr, foveon, sigma

Foveon is a company trying to bring the world of digital cameras to the level of analog film ("kodachrome"). Currently digital still photography is held prisoner by an ageing, obsolete approach to capturing ("image sensor") light in the camera. Foveon has, over a period of some 20 years, produced a remarkable digital technology which rivals analog film in it's ability to capture light in the photographic process.

Currently, this technology is available in the following digital cameras that I am aware of: Polaroid X530 (also the least expensive RAW camera on the market), Sigma SD9 (digital SLR "pro camera"), Sigma SD10. Sigma has also recently announced two new cameras based on new image sensors from Foveon, the SD-14 and the Sigma DP1.

So prevalant is the use of "video camcorder imaging-style" image sensors in professional digital still cameras (by this I mean YCrCb image capture using a CCD and pixels captured with some kind of bayer mosaic arrangement), that Adobe refers only only to this arrangement of pixels in it's DNG (digital negative) specification.

The photographs taken with cameras featuring the Foveon sensor are, in a word, stunning in their clarity and detail. Here's some quick links I dug up:
http://www.pbase.com/mjmorrison/sigma_sd10
http://www.pbase.com/cameras/sigma/sd10

If you are interested in picture quality, and ESPECIALLY if you like to manipulate photos with Photoshop and want to get the state of the art, get a camera with a Foveon image sensor.

There is a great book about Foveon's quest. Along the lines of "Soul of a New Machine", "The Silicon Eye" - I found it a fascinating read. I can't wait to try the video capabilities of the Sigma DP1 (30fps 640x480). We're looking at a camera that captures RGB at the sensor level.

Labels: foveon, lightzone, photoshop, sigma