Splitting Light

I haven't seen the patent, but from the description here I can tell that it makes use of techniques that have been around for years. Using separate monochrome Red, Green, and Blue images to make a color composite image has been around almost since the dawn of photography. It goes back well into the 1800s.

Likewise the use of an R, G, B splitter cube has been around for a while. Some of the high-end digital projectors were using this technology back in the 1990s.

Ultimately, the rendering of color comes down not just to how well the camera can capture the colors in a scene, it equally depends on how well the image is reproduced. Most people now view images on LCD monitors with white LED lighting. The color palette of these devices is very limited, not only compared to what the camera can capture, but especially to what the eye can see.

Here's an image of the color palette of a typical display. The area filled with colors attempts to show the range of colors visible to the eye for a given scene brightness. The black triangle shows the NTSC range of colors of an old color CRT TV monitor. This is the 'de facto' standard used for comparing most LCD monitors. In general most LCD monitors with white LED lighting are not even this good. (And note that the monitor you are probably using to view this image is not rendering the colors accurately. There are many hues of Green, Red, and Blue that you are not seeing due to the limited palette of your monitor.)

That's why wide-gamut monitors are used by serious photographers.

While the technique Apple is trying to apply to their camera phone may improve IQ it still is a long shot from a good DSLR camera.

Not only is sensor IQ a factor, but the engine that renders the data is equally important. That doesn't include the features such as ISO, autofocus, etc., that DSLRs clean camera-phones' clocks with. Let's not forget the lens, either. Optics are a critical function for squeezing out the best IQ and very good lenses can easily cost thousands of dollars each.

Nevertheless, camera-phones have killed the point-and-shoot market for casual photography and created that nasty word called selfies. Point-and-shoot used to be the lion's share of the camera market until a number of years ago.

What you say is true, but in some cases the 'wide gamut' monitors actually just give the user more shades of gray (10 bits instead of 8 bits per color) within the same triangle; the vertices of the triangle aren't expanded into the 'corners' of the CIE diagram.

The user will need to look for a monitor that has RGB LED backlighting instead White LED backlighting. The Red, Green, and Blue LEDs produce more saturated colors and can push the color gamut wider - even larger than NTSC. (And I've seen some that used R G B lasers to get even 'purer' colors.)

In regard to the sensor array,Foveon uses an array that combines all 3 colors on one CCD.

This is an improved sensor, and has simplified processing,but the processing and display are still lagging behind for "true" color.

Everyone interprets colors differently,and some people can see millions of colors that others cannot.

Exactly why is not fully understood,but men and women usually disagree on

colors,especially green.(There's a pun in there somewhere )

I miss the tint control of the old NTSC(Never The Same Color twice) CRT's

And only men are color blind.

Some claim being color blind is an asset when hunting,making it harder for animals

to camouflage themselves.

I think it will be a long time before digital can match the resolution and true rendition

capability of the chemical processes.

What is needed is a molecular sized CCD that responds to a wide range of colors on one diode.

And a very powerful processor engine.

A Nano-CCD Foveon-type array would do it.

"I think it will be a long time before digital can match the resolution and true rendition capability of the chemical processes."

Those sensors have long exceeded the MK I eyeball. Not the ones in most cameras as far as total resolution goes, but it's no trick to exceed the dynamic range of the human eye.

It's the brain that does all the magic. When you look at a scene the eye does not simply stare at it, there are micro-movements of the eyeball that take multiple "snapshots" of the scene so that the brain can artificially expand the dynamic range of the scene.

Sensor sensitivity to light's frequency far exceeds the human eye's spectrum.

As far as the Foveon sensor goes. First, they are actually CMOS, not CCD. There are a few camera sensors out there still using CCD, but the low light performance of CCD is poor compared to CMOS.

Foveon does not seem to hold any magic for producing superior results over conventional Bayer matrix designs. All the high-end cameras still use a Bayer matrix and for good reasons.

One reason may be that the Foveon sensor well height is about five times deeper than a Bayer matrix CMOS sensor (n-well/p-well depth is about 1.2 microns for Bayer designs versus the Foveon's 5 micron depth).

The problem with increased well depth is the ray angle for the exit optics of the lens becomes critical at the edges and corners of the lens. Some sensors use microlenses on top of the sensor to help correct for this, but everything has its price.

Lastly, when comparing sensors you are almost always comparing apples to oranges because no sensor comes with out a processing engine to produce an image and those engines are all different for different manufactures and different among the various models they make. The processing engine is at least 50% of the game when it comes to image IQ. So, claiming one sensor is superior over another can be a little misleading, but marketing and reviewers like to do that just like they do when they tell you the number of megapixels in a camera sensor.

When someone tells you they have a 36 mp camera they have 12 mp of red, 12 mp of green, and 12 mp of blue photoreceptors. The actual resolution is 12 mp if you think of it as a single photo-site containing one of each, however, that isn't exactly true either as many if not most sensors use two green photocells for a total of four (Red, Green, Green, Blue) for a single photo-site. They will mix the order of how the cells are constructed, but the true resolution is less than what is claimed and this holds true for the Foveon, I believe. Images are rendered on the display using interpolation (demosaicing) to give you the claimed size of 36 mp.

The one exception is a true monochrome sensor, but there are not too many of those out there as most people want to shoot color and not black & white.

Thanks for the enlightenment! I am an omnivore for new information that adds to or obsoletes my previous knowledge.

I agree that the sensors have exceeded the natural eye's sensitivity and range,such as brightness, contrast, infrared,UV,etc.

And you are correct,the modern sensors use CCD's,I just used the term out of old habit,I guess(telling on myself).

There will always be an area of unscanned area between the elements,and although this blank area is filled in by processing,and for general purposes does not really matter,the smaller the element the better the true resolution.

And you are correct about the brain playing a large part of what we see.

For instance,look at this link:

https://www.google.com/search?q=what+color+is+the+dress%3F&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8

It is typical for a Bayer array to have twice as many green as red or blue elements.

Just how fine is the typical resolution of a chemical film?

I really appreciate your feedback on this.

My opinion is that it depends on the observer and his monitor.

No argument from me on that.

But the dress in the link has puzzled researchers.

On the same monitor,people see it as two different colors.

My wife and I also see it as two different colors.

I see it as Gold and White,she sees it as Brown and Gray.

Just for curiosity,Click on it and see if your wife sees it the same as you.

Also of interest, a woman has the ability to see many colors not usually visible to otheres.

She has a 4th type of cone in her eye that allows her to see 100 times more colors than normal.

http://elitedaily.com/news/world/woman-condition-can-see-million-colors/802286/

So it really is not what you see,it's how you look at it.

Correction on previous post:

(Oops! I did it again...) change CCD to CMOS.