Get three services for $100/moJune 13, 2007 9:00 PM PDT
Kodak boosts digital camera sensitivity
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The new technology, to be unveiled Thursday and used in products in 2008, increases light sensitivity of existing image sensors by a factor of two to four, said Mike DeLuca, marketing manager for Eastman Kodak's image sensor solutions group.
Translated into photography terms, that means a camera's shutter speed could be cut in half or a quarter, helping cut camera shake or motion blur problems. Alternatively, it could let photographers shoot in low light with less image "noise"--the pesky multicolor speckles that degrade photographs.
"That's the real bane, when you think about it. There's just not enough light to collect," said IDC analyst Christopher Chute. Of Kodak's new method, he said, "It's pretty revolutionary."
Light sensitivity has become a serious problem in digital cameras, particularly as higher megapixel counts have increased noise levels in image sensors.
And unlike some efforts to improve digital cameras, the new Kodak technique can be applied to any existing image sensor, leading Kodak to hope it will be able to license the high-sensitivity technology far and wide.
"We absolutely feel there is a big opportunity for this...to become a new standard in the industry," DeLuca said. "We really want to propagate this out as far as the market feels it should be taken."
Kodak's new method better reflects how human eyes actually work, separately registering color and brightness information--and devoting more pixels to brightness, where the human eye is sensitive to detail.
The company's technology doesn't require any new fundamental changes to the heart of the image sensor, where a grid of electronic detectors converts incoming light first into electric signals and then digital information. Instead, the new technology adds some neutral "panchromatic" pixels to the usual array of red, green and blue pixels in the grid, then uses a different software algorithm to reconstruct the full-color images from the sensor output.
Pixel patterns
In nearly all of today's digital cameras, each sensor pixel detects either red, green or blue, with those particular colors placed in a quasi-checkerboard arrangement called a Bayer pattern, after the Kodak engineer, Bryce Bayer, who developed it. Every second pixel registers green light, while the remaining pixels capture either red or blue.
With a 12-megapixel Bayer-pattern sensor, 6 million pixels are green, 3 million are red and 3 million are blue. Software reconstructs the full-color image so each pixel has a red, green and blue component through a process called de-mosaicing.
In the high-sensitivity pattern--as yet lacking a formal name--half the pixels capture red, green or blue color information, while the other half are panchromatic pixels that capture only the brightness. So a 12-megapixel sensor would have 6 million panchromatic pixels, 3 million green pixels, 1.5 million red pixels and 1.5 million blue pixels.
Different software algorithms, which typically run in an image processing chip within the camera, must be used to reconstruct a full-color image, DeLuca said. Today that software is a little larger than the Bayer demosaicing software, but with optimization that Kodak now is working on, it should become "comparable."
As a way to deal with low-light shooting problems, Chute said, Kodak's technology is a compelling alternative to expensive image stabilization, which moves lens elements or the sensor to counteract camera shake, or post-processing, which uses software to try to reduce image noise.
From prototype to product
Kodak plans to release the technology in several ways. First, it will build it into its own cameras, DeLuca said. Second, it will offer it and the accompanying software with the image sensors it sells to other camera makers--both the CCD (charge-coupled device) sensors it builds itself and the CMOS (complimentary metal oxide semiconductor) sensors that IBM and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) build for it.
And it could license the technology to other companies. "We will engage in conversations with other companies as appropriate," DeLuca said.
The first prototype sensors intended for production use are scheduled to arrive in the first quarter of 2008, he said. Typically, production-quality chips arrive three to six months after, he added.
Kodak's technology has the potential to spread widely, Chute said. "But first it needs to prove itself. It can't just be a lab rat." And another possible obstacle is intellectual property. Kodak hasn't been afraid to file patent infringement suits against camera makers Olympus and Sony.
It's good that it's relatively easily to add the technology to existing cameras, Chute added, but Kodak shouldn't expect its technology to spread like wildfire. "Camera manufacturers and the photo industry tends to be very conservative. They go with what they have and make it better."
Click here to hear Stephen Shankland in an interview with News.com's Charles Cooper:Help for the camera klutz is on the way.
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Thanks Kodak !
People have focused far too much on resolution in cameras and far too little on overall image quality. Clearly, at this point, resolution is not the gating factor in image quality, but rather things such as high sensitivity in low light situations, motion blur, and focus (if you have better light sensitivity you can get larger depth of field because you can use a smaller aperture). What I really like about the technique is that it addresses the problems of digital photography at the very basic physical level, providing in fact greatly more true light sensitivity. There's just no substitute for real improvements at a physical level.
What I find kind of interesting about the innovation is that it just as easily have been invented and implemented 20 years ago as now -- it's just another variant of a pattern like the Bayer pattern. My guess is that the new pattern really only adds value when resolution is no longer the gating factor -- probably somewhere in the multi-megapixel range. This would of course make it particularly relevant at this stage.
KODAK DOES NOT MAKE ANYTHING!
They fired every one who did and pays companies in Asia to design and manufacture the cameras. Last year the laid off the repair department. The cameras for repair or now sent to Texas (so you think it is getting fixed in the US, then trucked to Mexico (real quality work right).
Kodak is complete scum, all they do now is fire what is let of there work force (while they pay CEOs over 5 mill a year) and pays other companies to put the Kodak name on there crap cameras. The cameras ARE complete crap. The motorized lens constantly jams. The LCD will POP...crack for no reason or fault of the customer. The cameras have a bad habit of frying SD memory cards. Hell they had us fix cameras that we did not even have the calibration equipment for. They dual lens cameras have a great habit of frying out one of the two lenses with in a month of use. They are flagged as lead free but Kodak forced us to use lead solder when we fixed them. IF YOU BY KODAK YOU HAVE WASTED YOUR MONEY! Add another $200 to the price tag to have it repaired in the first year you own it.
Again...don't tell me I am wrong?I worked in building 318 and 605 in Rochester NY...now turn over that camera and see what it says....Manufactured and Designed in (SOME WHRE IN ASIA) for Eastman Kodak of Rochester. Also if you not White...look up all the problems they have had with minorities being passed over for raises and promotions.
It will obviously be called.....
GREEN-RED+ALGOTITHM-with-BLUE
GRAB for short.
Kodak has crappy cameras, poor build quality, and are not as "advanced" as they appear.