Winsor Crosby wrote:
> Do you mean the 6MP sensor from the F30 or from the DSLR?
>
I was thinking about a design that would take advantage of existing
design, parts and tooling to minimize development time and cost. That
means a 1 1/7" or 1 1/6" sensor. Nice as the DR of the S5 sensor is,
chopping a small sensor out of it's very low density design just
wouldn't have enough ability to resolve detail. I assume the exceptional
DR comes from the very low pixel density, so shrinking the design would
likely defeat the whole purpose.
Building a whole new body for the big sensor would be costly and time
consuming, all to compete in what must be a very small volume niche.
I was thinking more along the lines of taking the 50fd or 100fd
body/lens and IS and creating a new 6+mp sensor for it, using their
latest sensor and processor technology to make a better sensor system
than the original F30/31fd. To the extent that the S5 sensor might
provide knowledge/means to improve DR in the smaller sensor sites, so
much the better.
The point would be to piggy back off the IQ rep of the F30/31fd that
caused prices to jump way up when it was discontinued. One of these
days, SOMEBODY is going to create a new niche for small digicams that
emphasize overall IQ over MPs. How big it will be, I don't know, and
marketing will be crucial.
Fuji seems a natural, as they already have some rep and most of the
camera already in the parts bin. Thus, even as a smaller player, they
can get into it quickly and with modest investment. When a strategy like
this works, the quality image can then be leveraged to the rest of the line.
Both to widen the niche, pick up some DP-1 types and add to the quality
image, take the same camera, stick on a fast prime, high tech body
look* in black or some cool, subtle, very dark gray and a couple of pro
features. A 40mm eq. f2.0 lens has the same FE diameter requirement as
the 105mm eq. long end of the 3x zoom - and would be much shorter. A
retrofocus design without the need to telescope might even be possible.
And be sure not to price it too cheap. This is the model that one hopes
pays for its own low volume and additional development cost while
pulling up sales of the bread and butter model.
As to which lens to use for the initial zoom model, I'm not sure. The
3x, 35-105 is certainly excellent at 6+ Mps. I don't know how the 5x,
28-140 would measure up. One could say it was designed for 12MP. The
truth is, in my tests comparisons, the 12MP sensor of the 50fd actually
resolves only a tiny bit more detail than the old 6.3MP of the F30/31fd
at base ISO ( and less at higher ISOs). That's probably enough, if its
corner sharpness and linear distortion aren't too bad.
The extra wide end is a big draw to the target market, I believe, but
less speed at the wide end is a drawback. I've done all the hard work,
I'll leave that detail to Fuj to determine. :-)
Moose
* Too bad Samsung killed the terrific look they created for the NV
series with lousy performance. I wouldn't go too close to that for a while.
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