Bill Piefer was good enough to write: ". . . OK, so if you want a color sensor array, you have a few design options.... Option (1): Throw out all of your existing lens designs, and redesign from scratch. . . . Option (2): Keep all your time-tested lens designs, and save all the money you'd spend on new designs, new tooling, etc. Spend this savings on designing a better lenslet/filter array to incorporate on top of a monochrome CCD. I think I'd go with Option (2) if I were that worried about light falloff with extremely short focal-length lenses."
I was very interested in your reply. Thanks for taking the time--and thanks, too, to Mark, who may have nudged you in our direction. Perhaps electronics companies might believe optical companies like Pentax should choose option 1, while camera manufacturers might prefer the second; it could be easier if it was a matter of shifting a pot of money within one company ; ) Other options might include (3) redesign only problematic (wide angle) lenses to accommodate the sensor arrays; (4) retain dedicated conventional camera bodies to mount those lenses which work sub-optimally with digital SLRs; (5) accept fall-off, color fringing, etc. as "good enough"--perhaps the choice of casual users, who might, anyway, be unlikely to own wide-angle lenses. I think option 3 is more appealing. Digital aficionados already seem willing to invest in new wide-angle lenses designed to circumvent issues associated with current Canon and Nikon-based digital SLRs; even die-hard Pentaxians might be content to replace only a few lenses if it meant that they could happily exercise the rest of their treasure troves with a digital body. I am worried about light fall-off with wide-angle lenses. That the wide lenses I favor are largely symmetrical designs which nearly reach the film plane (and which feature obvious light fall-off with film) has something to do with my preference for option 4, but I wouldn't have a problem with purchasing a newly-minted, CCD-friendly wide lens in small format, if I needed one. (Can I get one of those monochrome CCDs in a Pan-F version?) - This message is from the Pentax-Discuss Mail List. To unsubscribe, go to http://www.pdml.net and follow the directions. Don't forget to visit the Pentax Users' Gallery at http://pug.komkon.org .
