Foveon
 

Anyone here have a camera that uses the Foveon chip? I think Sigma is the only one using it thus far.

http://www.foveon.com/

I remember downloading a prototype shot once and bringing it into photoshop, and seeing a remarkable amount of levels to work with - much more than your average digicam image.

But I've heard that cams outfitted with this chip are slow to shoot, and are very unworkable in low light. I'm curious as to how the real world experience might be with this technology.

I believe people have been reading about the technology for about a year. It is very promising and when developed will like allow the reduction of parasitic optical elements.

It was/is a good design, but I think bad implementation. Didn't Sigma discontinue the SD9? I wonder in what arena they'll focus on. With Canon making their presence known by stepping up CMOS production, Nikon producing it's own chip and Sony continuing with their own efforts. I think it's going to be one of those should've, could've, would've things.

Foveon is located right across the street from my work site (nVidia) in Santa Clara. I've been watching this company for a while. Carver Mead is an incredible guy. So far, none of the
major companies are picking up these chips. I suspect that
it's difficult to sell a quality 3MPixel chip in a mega-pixel quantity
market. Zoom factor wars make even less sense. While
the Foveon chip looks great on paper, it may simply not perform as well as advertised. One review noted excessive red noise.