Ask HN: Insider history of the demise of Kodak?

Re:Ask HN: Insider history of the demise of Kodak? by Syzygies on Sunday July 17, 2016 @05:41PM (#12111995)

My dad devised the "Bayer filter" used in digital cameras, in the 1970's in the Kodak Park Research Labs. It is hard to convey now exactly how remote and speculative the idea of a digital camera was then. The HP-35 calculator was the cutting edge, very expensive consumer electronics of the day; the idea of an iPhone was science fiction. Simply put, my dad was playing.

This was the decade that the Hunt brothers were cornering the silver market. Kodak's practical interest in digital methods was to use less silver while keeping customers happy. The idea was for Kodak to insert a digital step before printing enlargements, to reduce the inevitable grain that came with using less silver. Black and white digital prints were scattered about our home, often involving the challenging textural details of bathing beauties on rugs.

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Re:Ask HN: Insider history of the demise of Kodak? by zfedoran on Sunday July 17, 2016 @06:59PM (#12112323)

I wish he would have designed it to be easier to remove ;)

A few of us adventurous armature astrophotography nerds have been trying to remove the bayer matrix off our DSLRs, without destroying the sensor, for a while now. It's unfortunate that there are so few options for true monochrome sensors.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1Lgju9L23c

https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/166334-debayering-a-dslrs...

Interestingly, the kodak KAF-8300 is still a very popular option for commercial monochrome sensors.

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Re:Ask HN: Insider history of the demise of Kodak? by emmelaich on Sunday July 17, 2016 @07:18PM (#12112379)

"armature" Nice pun :-)

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Re:Ask HN: Insider history of the demise of Kodak? by icelancer on Sunday July 17, 2016 @07:58PM (#12112509)

>My dad devised the "Bayer filter" used in digital cameras

What? That's amazing! I work in high-speed videography and your father's filter is a part of my daily live. Awesome!

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Re:Ask HN: Insider history of the demise of Kodak? by rplst8 on Sunday July 17, 2016 @10:10PM (#12112892)

Your dad is Bryce Bayer?

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Re:Ask HN: Insider history of the demise of Kodak? by jonahrd on Monday July 18, 2016 @12:20AM (#12113205)

Sometimes things are made by teams of people

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Re:Ask HN: Insider history of the demise of Kodak? by Syzygies on Monday July 18, 2016 @09:00AM (#12114771)

My dad Bryce Bayer (Kodak Rochester) worked closely with Phil Powell (Kodak England) throughout this period. I don't know what Phil Powell specifically contributed to the 'Bayer filter'. I do know that my dad would have liked to have shared credit for all related work on digital photography, but that Kodak Rochester did not want to share credit with Kodak England. I'm also a mathematician, and I see how the details may be beside the point: When one grows a tree together, one wants to view all fruit of the tree as shared.

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Re:Ask HN: Insider history of the demise of Kodak? by Syzygies on Monday July 18, 2016 @08:46AM (#12114711)

Yes

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Re:Ask HN: Insider history of the demise of Kodak? by rplst8 on Monday July 18, 2016 @03:07PM (#12117375)

That is cool. While I think it's sad that Kodak and it's employees were displaced by digital imaging, I also think part of the role of technology is to bring a better life to all, through its use in medicine or by reducing the cost of "things." I think society owes a great amount to your father's work in this regard.

Any thoughts on Fuji's "re-interperetation" of the Bayer-filter in their work on X-Trans?

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