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my take on Kodak downfall
having worked there
consumer film was where the big money was too often consumer systems were developed and then a professional system was hacked out of it as opposed to developing professional systems and watering them down for consumer applications would have taken some quick work too keep up with the consumer demand, but Kodak was big enough to keep up with that I think then there is the general USA/UN/WTO issue of fair trade versus free trade allowing cheap imports from places with less consideration of workers and environmentalism, etc. but Kodak had plants in Mexico after NAFTA, so they should have been able to invest that consumer film money better I think -- Dale |
my take on Kodak downfall
In article , Dale
wrote: having worked there consumer film was where the big money was the key is the word *was*. although kodak pioneered digital photography, they completely failed to manage the transition to digital and went bankrupt. |
my take on Kodak downfall
On 02/10/2014 07:42 AM, nospam wrote:
In article , Dale wrote: having worked there consumer film was where the big money was the key is the word *was*. although kodak pioneered digital photography, they completely failed to manage the transition to digital and went bankrupt. it isn't too late for Kodak, it might make the investments in digital across the imaging board, staarting with their focus on commercial and prepress labs and going to other focuses might be some hybrid stuff out their too, they could use/license intellectual property maybe even some analog stuff that they could use/license intellectual property too they might not be a propreitary closed system dealer in all areas, but starting with open standards they might be an open systems player, and eventually perhaps develop themselves into intellectual property for ne propreitary systems I think they should start with capture though, professional cameras/lenses lighting, etc. -- Dale |
my take on Kodak downfall
On Mon, 10 Feb 2014 00:28:28 -0500, Dale
wrote: having worked there consumer film was where the big money was too often consumer systems were developed and then a professional system was hacked out of it as opposed to developing professional systems and watering them down for consumer applications would have taken some quick work too keep up with the consumer demand, but Kodak was big enough to keep up with that I think then there is the general USA/UN/WTO issue of fair trade versus free trade allowing cheap imports from places with less consideration of workers and environmentalism, etc. but Kodak had plants in Mexico after NAFTA, so they should have been able to invest that consumer film money better I think There was a story going around about the Kodak CEO making a statement about the digital threat: "how can we stop this digital thing?" Or something like that. If true, well... Kodak's management screwed the pooch. Some of the earliest digital SLRs were Kodak conversions. Kodak sold the first full frame DSLR! Granted, it wasn't great, but they had the tech and just let it die. No excuses, this is a business school case study now. |
my take on Kodak downfall
In article , nospam wrote: In article , Dale wrote: having worked there consumer film was where the big money was the key is the word *was*. although kodak pioneered digital photography, they completely failed to manage the transition to digital and went bankrupt. The second mouse gets the cheese. -- "Remember when teachers, public employees, Planned Parenthood, NPR and PBS crashed the stock market, wiped out half of our 401Ks, took trillions in TARP money, spilled oil in the Gulf of Mexico, gave themselves billions in bonuses, and paid no taxes? Yeah, me neither." |
my take on Kodak downfall
On 02/10/2014 10:55 AM, Paul Ciszek wrote:
In article , nospam wrote: In article , Dale wrote: having worked there consumer film was where the big money was the key is the word *was*. although kodak pioneered digital photography, they completely failed to manage the transition to digital and went bankrupt. The second mouse gets the cheese. Reminds me of working for Bell Labs. They invented the transistor, for goodness sake. Yet they could not manufacture them very well. I got the ones I needed when working there, from Philco, RCA, and Texas Instruments. Raytheon made them too. Once I absolutely had to get a Western Electric point contact transistor. A guy I knew at a nearby military research and development site stole a bunch for me. Inside the company, none were available. Xerox PARC pretty much invented the first Apple computer but management was afraid it would bring on the paperless society (remember that) and they were in the paper-copying business, so they refused to go on with it. Corporations have a lot to answer for. -- .~. Jean-David Beyer Registered Linux User 85642. /V\ PGP-Key:166D840A 0C610C8B Registered Machine 1935521. /( )\ Shrewsbury, New Jersey http://linuxcounter.net ^^-^^ 12:30:01 up 5:25, 2 users, load average: 4.33, 4.48, 4.64 |
my take on Kodak downfall
On 10/02/2014 14:04, Bowser wrote:
On Mon, 10 Feb 2014 00:28:28 -0500, Dale wrote: having worked there consumer film was where the big money was Which was surprising as anyone who tried Fuji film never went back! too often consumer systems were developed and then a professional system was hacked out of it Kodak astronomical emulsions and plates were specialist products but largely out evolved by digital imaging and ever more sensitive CCDs. as opposed to developing professional systems and watering them down for consumer applications would have taken some quick work too keep up with the consumer demand, but Kodak was big enough to keep up with that I think then there is the general USA/UN/WTO issue of fair trade versus free trade allowing cheap imports from places with less consideration of workers and environmentalism, etc. but Kodak had plants in Mexico after NAFTA, so they should have been able to invest that consumer film money better I think There was a story going around about the Kodak CEO making a statement about the digital threat: "how can we stop this digital thing?" Or something like that. If true, well... Kodak's management screwed the pooch. Some of the earliest digital SLRs were Kodak conversions. Kodak sold the first full frame DSLR! They had too many MBAs. Granted, it wasn't great, but they had the tech and just let it die. No excuses, this is a business school case study now. The core patent for consumer single shot colour was by Kodak employee Bryce Bayer and still bears his name. Obituary shows how far advanced Kodak was along the digital imaging line. My first very early digital camera was a Kodak DC-120 which was useful for scientific work as you could access the raw Bayer array. Note the date of the patent 1976!!! (They had a phenomenal technical lead at one point) http://www.imaging-resource.com/news...meras-has-died Even then they demonstrated a tremendous facility for shooting their foot by releasing a similarly named DC-210 shortly afterwards. My dealer was convinced he'd be stuck with the earlier and in some ways better DC-120 so I got it at a knock down price. It was quite a cool looking thing rather like a StarTrek tricorder and hammered its batteries drawing nearly 2A out of a set of 4x AAs worst case. But it was a damn good camera and served me well as backup and to do various web photos even with its ~1Mpixel limitations. A bit like the later Kodak launch confusing professional grade PhotoCD scanning .PCD with the newer poxy consumer grade PictureCD with the same acronym. You only got caught out once and went and bought your own scanner. Shame as PhotoCD was a very good service until they ruined it, but you could not afford to take the chance of getting a disk with toy low quality consumer grade scans half the time. -- Regards, Martin Brown |
my take on Kodak downfall
In article , Dale
wrote: having worked there consumer film was where the big money was the key is the word *was*. although kodak pioneered digital photography, they completely failed to manage the transition to digital and went bankrupt. it isn't too late for Kodak, it might make the investments in digital across the imaging board, staarting with their focus on commercial and prepress labs and going to other focuses it's too late for kodak. might be some hybrid stuff out their too, they could use/license intellectual property maybe even some analog stuff that they could use/license intellectual property too that's about all they have now. they should sell their patents to someone and call it a day. they might not be a propreitary closed system dealer in all areas, but starting with open standards they might be an open systems player, and eventually perhaps develop themselves into intellectual property for ne propreitary systems I think they should start with capture though, professional cameras/lenses lighting, etc. what could they possibly do in that space that existing players haven't done? nothing. kodak never made cameras that were any good, although some were quite popular such as the instamatic. the kodak dslr hybrids were retrofitted canon/nikon cameras. |
my take on Kodak downfall
In article , Bowser
wrote: There was a story going around about the Kodak CEO making a statement about the digital threat: "how can we stop this digital thing?" Or something like that. If true, well... Kodak's management screwed the pooch. Some of the earliest digital SLRs were Kodak conversions. Kodak sold the first full frame DSLR! Granted, it wasn't great, but they had the tech and just let it die. No excuses, this is a business school case study now. yep. kodak pioneered digital photography and knew it one day would replace film, but management didn't want to do anything to impact the revenue from film. very stupid. |
my take on Kodak downfall
In article , Martin Brown
wrote: A bit like the later Kodak launch confusing professional grade PhotoCD scanning .PCD with the newer poxy consumer grade PictureCD with the same acronym. You only got caught out once and went and bought your own scanner. Shame as PhotoCD was a very good service until they ruined it, but you could not afford to take the chance of getting a disk with toy low quality consumer grade scans half the time. photocd was doomed from the start. it was proprietary and kodak was restrictive on licensing it. few companies supported it and never gained traction. plus, nobody wanted to buy a special player to watch photos on a tv. |
my take on Kodak downfall
On Mon, 10 Feb 2014, Paul Ciszek wrote:
In article , nospam wrote: In article , Dale wrote: having worked there consumer film was where the big money was the key is the word *was*. although kodak pioneered digital photography, they completely failed to manage the transition to digital and went bankrupt. The second mouse gets the cheese. Sometimes the third or fourth. But that's a good analogy, the computer mouse didn't take off till the Macintosh in 1984, when it had been demonstrated in 1968 (so it had to exist before that) and work done on it at PARC. Michael |
my take on Kodak downfall
On 02/10/2014 01:13 PM, Martin Brown wrote:
the raw Bayer array should never be used, an XYZ related array should be used -- Dale |
my take on Kodak downfall
In article , Dale
wrote: the raw Bayer array should never be used, an XYZ related array should be used what is an xyz related array?? bayer is the best solution that exists today and will be for the foreseeable future. foveon's layered approach has been a disaster. |
my take on Kodak downfall
On 10/02/2014 19:13, Dale wrote:
On 02/10/2014 01:13 PM, Martin Brown wrote: the raw Bayer array should never be used, an XYZ related array should be used The raw data is what you actually measured at each sensor site - there is *nothing* more fundamental than that. You are showing your ignorance. We can conclude that the reason Kodak failed was because they were daft enough to employ people like you and the other ****wits in marketing that managed to launch products almost simultaneously with names that were anagrams, homophones or synonyms of each other. Kodak at one time had world leading digital technology but chose to squander their advantage to milk the analogue film cash cow until dry. They succeeded but the cash cow died as a direct result. -- Regards, Martin Brown |
my take on Kodak downfall
On 10/02/2014 18:36, nospam wrote:
In article , Martin Brown wrote: A bit like the later Kodak launch confusing professional grade PhotoCD scanning .PCD with the newer poxy consumer grade PictureCD with the same acronym. You only got caught out once and went and bought your own scanner. Shame as PhotoCD was a very good service until they ruined it, but you could not afford to take the chance of getting a disk with toy low quality consumer grade scans half the time. photocd was doomed from the start. it was proprietary and kodak was restrictive on licensing it. few companies supported it and never gained traction. At the time it was very good if you needed existing material digitised. plus, nobody wanted to buy a special player to watch photos on a tv. I agree. That TV player part was dead in the water. The PCD file format and the archive quality of the media was for its time very innovative. I suspect that without the train wreck that was PictureCD the professional scanning service would have made it at least in the UK. The technical quality was excellent and painless until they started randomly returning crappy PictureCDs when you needed PhotoCDs. -- Regards, Martin Brown |
my take on Kodak downfall
In article , Martin Brown
wrote: A bit like the later Kodak launch confusing professional grade PhotoCD scanning .PCD with the newer poxy consumer grade PictureCD with the same acronym. You only got caught out once and went and bought your own scanner. Shame as PhotoCD was a very good service until they ruined it, but you could not afford to take the chance of getting a disk with toy low quality consumer grade scans half the time. photocd was doomed from the start. it was proprietary and kodak was restrictive on licensing it. few companies supported it and never gained traction. At the time it was very good if you needed existing material digitised. plus, nobody wanted to buy a special player to watch photos on a tv. I agree. That TV player part was dead in the water. The PCD file format and the archive quality of the media was for its time very innovative. I suspect that without the train wreck that was PictureCD the professional scanning service would have made it at least in the UK. The technical quality was excellent and painless until they started randomly returning crappy PictureCDs when you needed PhotoCDs. photocd might have been innovative for the time but it was poorly designed and poorly marketed and quickly obsoleted. the clueless management had no idea what to do with it. |
my take on Kodak downfall
On 2014.02.10, 00:28 , Dale wrote:
having worked there consumer film was where the big money was IMO they should have broken up the company into oldco (Kodak) and newco (DigKo). Use oldco to milk the brand in film, paper, chemicals and related products and the newco, completely divorced from oldco, to invest cash (from oldco and IPO) into new digital oriented imaging. Eventually oldco would quietly wind down while newco developed new markets without brand confusion. That later bit could include new sensors, camera systems, printers, inks, paper, processing, etc. Instead they took an approach that underserved the milkable market (FujiFilm have soaked that up by diligently serving it) and failed to leverage their R&D in digital markets. -- Those who have reduced our privacy, whether they are state or commercial actors, prefer that we do not reduce theirs. - Jaron Lanier, Scientific American, 2013.11. |
my take on Kodak downfall
On 02/10/2014 01:36 PM, nospam wrote:
yep. kodak pioneered digital photography and knew it one day would replace film, but management didn't want to do anything to impact the revenue from film. very stupid. for the record I worked in R&D as a systems engineer it really wasn't the money, it was the people Rochester's nickname is "smug-town" existing connection circles prevailed over performance and even organizational responsibility there were all kinds of groups vying too do the new stuff film had the money, film people got the careers remember this is entertainment technology careers for the most part and entertaining work as opposed to necessity work, fun prevailed too the last job I had was hybrid systems integration on the film side we couldn't have the word integration in the name of our group, since there was an equipment group was responsible for integration,, but we got the budgets and careers, while the equipment people had "jobs" doing not much if it weren't an entertainment business that didn't really matter too much, in much cases, the money and performance would have prevailed there is your business case study this was a publicly held company, public means socialism whether you think so or not, and the public suffered, there needs to be better law for socialized business private companies can set pecking orders however you want socialized companies have a trust, and pecking orders other than by performance should be called anti-trust, in fact I can't think of any other anti-trust that is worse -- Dale |
my take on Kodak downfall
In article , Dale
wrote: film had the money, film people got the careers which is why they went bankrupt. they knew digital was going to replace film, but they refused to let go of the film business. had they invested in digital, like their competitors did, they'd still be a player. |
my take on Kodak downfall
On 02/10/2014 05:52 PM, Dale wrote:
there is your business case study want some verification? they tried George Fisher from Motorola as CEO with a BIG pay to shake things up, he left they tried Dan Carp from equipment side to shake up film probably, I don't know where he went might want to hear what these two have to say about their experience -- Dale |
my take on Kodak downfall
On 02/10/2014 05:52 PM, Dale wrote:
there is your business case study and cheap overseas products is not an excuse, they had NAFTA and were making consumer digital cameras in Mexico -- Dale |
my take on Kodak downfall
On 02/10/2014 06:20 PM, nospam wrote:
In article , Dale wrote: film had the money, film people got the careers which is why they went bankrupt. they knew digital was going to replace film, but they refused to let go of the film business. had they invested in digital, like their competitors did, they'd still be a player. they had NAFTA and a consumer camera plant in Mexico, they were right on time I tell you, it was not an accounting problem, or a strategic problem, it was a corporate culture problem -- Dale |
my take on Kodak downfall
In article , Dale
wrote: film had the money, film people got the careers which is why they went bankrupt. they knew digital was going to replace film, but they refused to let go of the film business. had they invested in digital, like their competitors did, they'd still be a player. they had NAFTA and a consumer camera plant in Mexico, they were right on time I tell you, it was not an accounting problem, or a strategic problem, it was a corporate culture problem none of that matters. what matters is as you say, corporate culture. the management were a bunch of clueless ****s, who despite claiming that digital was going to replace film, did not invest in digital. |
my take on Kodak downfall
In article , Dale
wrote: On 02/10/2014 05:52 PM, Dale wrote: there is your business case study and cheap overseas products is not an excuse, they had NAFTA and were making consumer digital cameras in Mexico other than the dslr hybrids which cost more than a car and were basically a technology demo more than a commercially viable product, kodak's digital cameras were *horrible*. it doesn't matter where they were made (nobody really cares). they were basically junk. i remember trying one of them at a trade show, and to change the shutter speed or aperture, you had to wade through *four* levels of menus (no joke). who the hell thought that was a good idea? |
my take on Kodak downfall
In article ,
says... On 10/02/2014 19:13, Dale wrote: On 02/10/2014 01:13 PM, Martin Brown wrote: the raw Bayer array should never be used, an XYZ related array should be used The raw data is what you actually measured at each sensor site - there is *nothing* more fundamental than that. You are showing your ignorance. We can conclude that the reason Kodak failed was because they were daft enough to employ people like you and the other ****wits in marketing that managed to launch products almost simultaneously with names that were anagrams, homophones or synonyms of each other. Kodak at one time had world leading digital technology but chose to squander their advantage to milk the analogue film cash cow until dry. They succeeded but the cash cow died as a direct result. An old story. American electronics manufacturers dinked around with overpriced transistor radios. Then the Japanese introduced transistor radios for cheap and followed up with transistor TVs and a bunch of other solid-state consumer electronics products for not cheap and ate their lunch. |
my take on Kodak downfall
On 11/02/2014 01:01, nospam wrote:
In article , Dale wrote: On 02/10/2014 05:52 PM, Dale wrote: there is your business case study and cheap overseas products is not an excuse, they had NAFTA and were making consumer digital cameras in Mexico other than the dslr hybrids which cost more than a car and were basically a technology demo more than a commercially viable product, kodak's digital cameras were *horrible*. Have you ever used one? The Kodak DC-120 served me well from the time I got it shortly after launch until the second generation digital Ixus came out. It had a wide range of shutter settings and a fast f2.5 lens of reasonable quality. It was perfectly good enough for website work back them and it was about as sensitive as the human eye on its 16s button setting. It did have a warm corner but you could fix that with darkframe subtraction. It was widely used in early digital scientific imaging because you could get it to return the raw Bayer sensor array a feature not present on any other camera at the time or since. it doesn't matter where they were made (nobody really cares). they were basically junk. They were not junk. Mine is still going although an only just a megapixel camera now is nothing to write home about back in the late 1990's it was impressive (it also cost about £1000 back then). i remember trying one of them at a trade show, and to change the shutter speed or aperture, you had to wade through *four* levels of menus (no joke). who the hell thought that was a good idea? The only problem I ever had with mine was that batteries didn't last very long at all in it and it would eat a set a couple of hours use. -- Regards, Martin Brown |
my take on Kodak downfall
On 02/10/2014 02:52 PM, nospam wrote:
In article , Dale wrote: the raw Bayer array should never be used, an XYZ related array should be used what is an xyz related array?? bayer is the best solution that exists today and will be for the foreseeable future. foveon's layered approach has been a disaster. XYZ is CIE-XYZ unless bayer used an used big-CIE-RGB he made an assumption on the RGB and the doubling of G cells that is not an assumption of the eyes response like CIE-XYZ or CIE-bigRGB -- Dale |
my take on Kodak downfall
On 02/10/2014 10:01 PM, J. Clarke wrote:
In article , says... On 10/02/2014 19:13, Dale wrote: On 02/10/2014 01:13 PM, Martin Brown wrote: the raw Bayer array should never be used, an XYZ related array should be used The raw data is what you actually measured at each sensor site - there is *nothing* more fundamental than that. You are showing your ignorance. We can conclude that the reason Kodak failed was because they were daft enough to employ people like you and the other ****wits in marketing that managed to launch products almost simultaneously with names that were anagrams, homophones or synonyms of each other. Kodak at one time had world leading digital technology but chose to squander their advantage to milk the analogue film cash cow until dry. They succeeded but the cash cow died as a direct result. An old story. American electronics manufacturers dinked around with overpriced transistor radios. Then the Japanese introduced transistor radios for cheap and followed up with transistor TVs and a bunch of other solid-state consumer electronics products for not cheap and ate their lunch. USA has NAFTA available, this is not an excuse Kodak had a plant in Mexico making consumer digital cameras under NAFTA -- Dale |
my take on Kodak downfall
On 02/10/2014 08:01 PM, nospam wrote:
In article , Dale wrote: film had the money, film people got the careers which is why they went bankrupt. they knew digital was going to replace film, but they refused to let go of the film business. had they invested in digital, like their competitors did, they'd still be a player. they had NAFTA and a consumer camera plant in Mexico, they were right on time I tell you, it was not an accounting problem, or a strategic problem, it was a corporate culture problem none of that matters. what matters is as you say, corporate culture. the management were a bunch of clueless ****s, who despite claiming that digital was going to replace film, did not invest in digital. no, I tell you it was people -- Dale |
my take on Kodak downfall
In article , Martin Brown
wrote: other than the dslr hybrids which cost more than a car and were basically a technology demo more than a commercially viable product, kodak's digital cameras were *horrible*. Have you ever used one? The Kodak DC-120 served me well from the time I got it shortly after launch until the second generation digital Ixus came out. It had a wide range of shutter settings and a fast f2.5 lens of reasonable quality. It was perfectly good enough for website work back them and it was about as sensitive as the human eye on its 16s button setting. It did have a warm corner but you could fix that with darkframe subtraction. It was widely used in early digital scientific imaging because you could get it to return the raw Bayer sensor array a feature not present on any other camera at the time or since. the dc120 might have been ok, but it came out very early in the game. their later cameras were pretty bad, especially with the easyshare nonsense, and at that point, there were a *lot* of competitors and kodak had nothing compelling to offer versus the competition. |
my take on Kodak downfall
On 2/10/2014 2:52 PM, nospam wrote:
In article , Dale wrote: the raw Bayer array should never be used, an XYZ related array should be used what is an xyz related array?? bayer is the best solution that exists today and will be for the foreseeable future. foveon's layered approach has been a disaster. facts? -- PeterN |
my take on Kodak downfall
In article , PeterN
wrote: bayer is the best solution that exists today and will be for the foreseeable future. foveon's layered approach has been a disaster. facts? oh, where to start. with a market share of under 1% and shrinking, sigma's cameras have been a complete disaster. not only do they not sell particularly well, but they are a money loser for the company. foveon originally was backed by two venture capital firms, who soon realized they'd been had and what a ****up it was, so they bailed. that left foveon, whose only customer was sigma, without any money and about to file for bankruptcy. had that happened, sigma would have been completely screwed, so sigma bought foveon at firesale prices and has been sinking money into it ever since. the cameras are utter crap (and yes, i've used them). they're anything but consistent. two photos in a row might look totally different, despite the settings being identical. the sd14 was pig slow (around 6 seconds write time) and you actually had to wait until it finished, or the camera could lock up and you'd lose photos. the sd14 was *really* buggy and sometimes locked up even if you weren't taking photos one after another the sd14 originally was $2000 msrp ($1600 street), which quickly dropped due to slow sales, and around a year later, it was being sold off for $300-400, new, and even at that price, people still weren't buying all that many. the sd1 originally was pitched at a ridiculous $9700 msrp (~$6000 street) which was complete insanity for a 15 megapixel camera. even the fanbois were stunned. not surprisingly, sigma did not sell very many cameras at that price. as best as i can tell, they sold about 10, total, based on posts in the sigma forum and serial number analysis (which is encoded in every photo, btw, so it's easy to track). after tens of thousands of unsold cameras sat in warehouses, sigma slashed the price by roughly $4000 in one day, and the price has dropped even *further* since then. the dp1/2/3 series have been riddled with lens motor failures, where the lens just gets stuck extending out or back in, along with all the usual problems with the sensor. sigma tries to claim more accurate colour, but the delta-e is much higher than bayer, which means *less* accurate colour. sigma claims 'no guessing' of colour data, yet there's more 'guessing' than bayer because they don't actually capture rgb at every location (another lie of theirs). the spectra of the layers overlap by quite a bit and there's a ****load of very complex math to extract rgb from it, which is one reason why the software is slow and the results are noisy and with weird colour casts. the first foveon camera, the 3.4 megapixel sd9, did not sell well, so they decided to lie about the number of pixels in the sd10 because 'bigger numbers are better', despite the camera having the same sensor. normally that's called fraud, but somehow, they managed to get away with it. sigma's software is slow and buggy and there aren't any viable options from third parties. even adobe has given up supporting it. part of the 'sigma look' is heavy sharpening. if you set the sigma software to 0 sharpening, you're actually getting a wallop of sharpening. you have to set it to -1 to -2 to get 'none', depending on version. foveon sensors are theoretically interesting, but they are riddled with problems and actually don't offer anything the eye can see anyway. it's a solution in search of a problem. foveon sensors have substantially higher noise, lower colour accuracy, lower resolution, worse high iso performance and higher manufacturing cost. that's a huge price to pay for 'full colour', something humans can't even see anyway. three layer sensors sound like a good idea on paper, and one day they might be feasible without significant tradeoffs, but they sure as hell are not now. if that day comes, the technology won't need lies to market it. it will sell itself because it's actually better. on the other hand, bayer is a very clever design based on how the human eye works. it's cost-effective to manufacture and works exceptionally well for creating photos that humans look at. |
my take on Kodak downfall
On 2/13/2014 5:38 PM, nospam wrote:
In article , PeterN wrote: bayer is the best solution that exists today and will be for the foreseeable future. foveon's layered approach has been a disaster. facts? oh, where to start. with a market share of under 1% and shrinking, sigma's cameras have been a complete disaster. not only do they not sell particularly well, but they are a money loser for the company. foveon originally was backed by two venture capital firms, who soon realized they'd been had and what a ****up it was, so they bailed. that left foveon, whose only customer was sigma, without any money and about to file for bankruptcy. had that happened, sigma would have been completely screwed, so sigma bought foveon at firesale prices and has been sinking money into it ever since. the cameras are utter crap (and yes, i've used them). they're anything but consistent. two photos in a row might look totally different, despite the settings being identical. the sd14 was pig slow (around 6 seconds write time) and you actually had to wait until it finished, or the camera could lock up and you'd lose photos. the sd14 was *really* buggy and sometimes locked up even if you weren't taking photos one after another If you are saying Sigma markets crap, I agree. If you are saying that Foveon is not ready for prime time, you are probably right. What I am saying is that Foveon has potential worth exploring, if only for scientific purposes. the sd14 originally was $2000 msrp ($1600 street), which quickly dropped due to slow sales, and around a year later, it was being sold off for $300-400, new, and even at that price, people still weren't buying all that many. the sd1 originally was pitched at a ridiculous $9700 msrp (~$6000 street) which was complete insanity for a 15 megapixel camera. even the fanbois were stunned. not surprisingly, sigma did not sell very many cameras at that price. as best as i can tell, they sold about 10, total, based on posts in the sigma forum and serial number analysis (which is encoded in every photo, btw, so it's easy to track). after tens of thousands of unsold cameras sat in warehouses, sigma slashed the price by roughly $4000 in one day, and the price has dropped even *further* since then. the dp1/2/3 series have been riddled with lens motor failures, where the lens just gets stuck extending out or back in, along with all the usual problems with the sensor. sigma tries to claim more accurate colour, but the delta-e is much higher than bayer, which means *less* accurate colour. sigma claims 'no guessing' of colour data, yet there's more 'guessing' than bayer because they don't actually capture rgb at every location (another lie of theirs). the spectra of the layers overlap by quite a bit and there's a ****load of very complex math to extract rgb from it, which is one reason why the software is slow and the results are noisy and with weird colour casts. the first foveon camera, the 3.4 megapixel sd9, did not sell well, so they decided to lie about the number of pixels in the sd10 because 'bigger numbers are better', despite the camera having the same sensor. normally that's called fraud, but somehow, they managed to get away with it. sigma's software is slow and buggy and there aren't any viable options from third parties. even adobe has given up supporting it. part of the 'sigma look' is heavy sharpening. if you set the sigma software to 0 sharpening, you're actually getting a wallop of sharpening. you have to set it to -1 to -2 to get 'none', depending on version. foveon sensors are theoretically interesting, but they are riddled with problems and actually don't offer anything the eye can see anyway. it's a solution in search of a problem. foveon sensors have substantially higher noise, lower colour accuracy, lower resolution, worse high iso performance and higher manufacturing cost. that's a huge price to pay for 'full colour', something humans can't even see anyway. three layer sensors sound like a good idea on paper, and one day they might be feasible without significant tradeoffs, but they sure as hell are not now. if that day comes, the technology won't need lies to market it. it will sell itself because it's actually better. Not true. think VCR & Betamax. think WordPerfect & Word Both are examples of the triumph of marketing over quality. -- PeterN |
my take on Kodak downfall
In article , PeterN
wrote: If you are saying Sigma markets crap, I agree. ok If you are saying that Foveon is not ready for prime time, you are probably right. not only am i right, but foveon is never going to be ready for prime time because it's not physically possible. not even sigma can break the laws of physics. What I am saying is that Foveon has potential worth exploring, if only for scientific purposes. exploring the technology is one thing. there's nothing wrong with that. many companies are looking into multilayer sensors, including nikon, canon and fuji and i think sony too. the difference is that those companies are working on perfecting the technology so that it actually *is* better than what exists now and *then* turning it into a product. what sigma is doing is taking half-baked technology that is clearly worse than what exists now, lying about what it can and cannot do, faking some of it in software and claiming it does stuff that is not physically possible. |
my take on Kodak downfall
On 2014-02-10 18:36:46 +0000, nospam said:
In article , Dale wrote: having worked there consumer film was where the big money was the key is the word *was*. although kodak pioneered digital photography, they completely failed to manage the transition to digital and went bankrupt. it isn't too late for Kodak, it might make the investments in digital across the imaging board, staarting with their focus on commercial and prepress labs and going to other focuses it's too late for kodak. might be some hybrid stuff out their too, they could use/license intellectual property maybe even some analog stuff that they could use/license intellectual property too that's about all they have now. they should sell their patents to someone and call it a day. they might not be a propreitary closed system dealer in all areas, but starting with open standards they might be an open systems player, and eventually perhaps develop themselves into intellectual property for ne propreitary systems I think they should start with capture though, professional cameras/lenses lighting, etc. what could they possibly do in that space that existing players haven't done? nothing. kodak never made cameras that were any good, although some were quite popular such as the instamatic. the kodak dslr hybrids were retrofitted canon/nikon cameras. I disagree with you about Kodak never making cameras that were any good. In the days before the SLRs captured the attention and money of every amateur photographer as well as the pros, Kodak made some decent cameras under their Retina Brand. Most of the good ones were made in Germany with decent lenses and shutters. They were rangefinder cameras with (usually) non-interchangeable 50mm lenses, but they were optically and mechanically good and took good pictures for their day. Their day ended when every wannabee bought a Nikon F or a Nikkormat. On the otherhand, all those "wannabees" learned what f stops were and how to properly expose pictures and focus lenses, something today's DSLR "wannabees" don't bother to learn because the automation makes it unnecessary if all they want is an expensive and pompous point and shoot. Sorry for rambling a little bit OT. -- Michael |
my take on Kodak downfall
[[ This message was both posted and mailed: see
the "To," "Cc," and "Newsgroups" headers for details. ]] In article 2014021500570875641-adunc79617@mypacksnet, Michael wrote: I disagree with you about Kodak never making cameras that were any good. In the days before the SLRs captured the attention and money of every amateur photographer as well as the pros, Kodak made some decent cameras under their Retina Brand. Most of the good ones were made in Germany with decent lenses and shutters. They were rangefinder cameras with (usually) non-interchangeable 50mm lenses, but they were optically and mechanically good and took good pictures for their day. Their day ended when every wannabee bought a Nikon F or a Nikkormat. On the otherhand, all those "wannabees" learned what f stops were and how to properly expose pictures and focus lenses, something today's DSLR "wannabees" don't bother to learn because the automation makes it unnecessary if all they want is an expensive and pompous point and shoot. Sorry for rambling a little bit OT. -- Michael Indeed. While many of the Retina series were overly complex (they were German, after all) and mechanically troublesome, you cant say they didn't take a hell of a picture. Some of the best pictures I've ever taken were with the utterly manual Retina IIa I used to carry everywhere. Granted, that was 40 years ago, and the camera wasn't new even then - but Kodak had their glory says. At one time, I could open the Kodak catalog at my camera store, and order every single thing a serious photographer could need, from film, through cameras, to darkroom and on to mounting supplies. |
my take on Kodak downfall
On 2014-02-15 17:27:23 +0000, Scott Schuckert said:
[[ This message was both posted and mailed: see the "To," "Cc," and "Newsgroups" headers for details. ]] In article 2014021500570875641-adunc79617@mypacksnet, Michael wrote: I disagree with you about Kodak never making cameras that were any good. In the days before the SLRs captured the attention and money of every amateur photographer as well as the pros, Kodak made some decent cameras under their Retina Brand. Most of the good ones were made in Germany with decent lenses and shutters. They were rangefinder cameras with (usually) non-interchangeable 50mm lenses, but they were optically and mechanically good and took good pictures for their day. Their day ended when every wannabee bought a Nikon F or a Nikkormat. On the otherhand, all those "wannabees" learned what f stops were and how to properly expose pictures and focus lenses, something today's DSLR "wannabees" don't bother to learn because the automation makes it unnecessary if all they want is an expensive and pompous point and shoot. Sorry for rambling a little bit OT. -- Michael Indeed. While many of the Retina series were overly complex (they were German, after all) and mechanically troublesome, you cant say they didn't take a hell of a picture. Some of the best pictures I've ever taken were with the utterly manual Retina IIa I used to carry everywhere. Granted, that was 40 years ago, and the camera wasn't new even then - but Kodak had their glory says. At one ti haser every single thing a serious photographer could need, from film, through cameras, to darkroom and on to mounting supplies. Sitting on the desk next to me are a Kodak Retinette 1A that I bought for $8 last year in an antique store- sadly inoperative and not worth restoring, but it has a 45mm f/2.8 Schneider Kreutznach lens. And next to it is a VERY functional Kodak Retina Automatic III. The automatic part doesn't work but it's a good manual camera with a Retina-Xenar f/2.8 45mm Schneider Kreutznach. It takes fine pictures, currently has my very last roll of Ektachrome in it. I got it as part of a 4-camera lot at auction a few months ago for $22. -- Michael |
my take on Kodak downfall
On 2/10/2014 12:28 AM, Dale wrote:
having worked there consumer film was where the big money was too often consumer systems were developed and then a professional system was hacked out of it as opposed to developing professional systems and watering them down for consumer applications would have taken some quick work too keep up with the consumer demand, but Kodak was big enough to keep up with that I think then there is the general USA/UN/WTO issue of fair trade versus free trade allowing cheap imports from places with less consideration of workers and environmentalism, etc. but Kodak had plants in Mexico after NAFTA, so they should have been able to invest that consumer film money better I think this thread isn't from me ... -- Mystery - https://www.dalekelly.org/ |
my take on Kodak downfall
On May 19, 2021, Dale wrote
(in article ): On 2/10/2014 12:28 AM, Dale wrote: having worked there anchient this thread isn't from me ... Then the mystery, as to why you chose to post this seven year old, obviously dead, cross posted screed to sci.engr.color, sci.image.processing, rec.photo.darkroom, rec.photo.digital, and comp.soft-sys.matlab remains. -- Regards, Savageduck |
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