Journal: News & Comment

Meaningless megapixels

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Sigma's new SD9 digital SLR camera is the first to use a new type of digital light sensor, the Foveon X3. Lots of buzzwords there. But here's the proof in the pudding: the photos on the left are markedly sharper than the ones on the right. The sharper ones are from the new Sigma camera, which is a 3.4 megapixel model. The blurrier ones on the right are from a 6 megapixel Canon digital SLR, using an identical lens but a traditional digital light sensor, like those in every other digital camera on the market.

Read the rest of the review to find out more. Foveon's sensor technology is measurably superior to the previous types, and if the company can get up to the 10 and 14 megapixel resolutions of the current top-of-the-line digital SLRs quickly enough, they could own the market with a superior product.

Foveon's innovations mean that "megapixels" is going to become as meaningless as MHz is in computer processors. And, for most photography applications, from grandma's snapshots to news and even art photography, film's days are numbered.

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