First of all, there's two companies: Semiconductor and Imaging. Sony opens some of their technologies to other customers by transferring Imaging unit's patents to Semi and allows them for re-licensing. So, not everyone is using the same sensor even if they are coming out from the same fab.
Second, there's customer tailored sensor business. Sony can provide a customer a baseline to start and, customer can customize this sensor according to their needs and got it produced for themselves.
Lastly, there's strict division between customers in semiconductor side. So Sony Imaging can't access to specs and design of other customers' sensors.
How it works in real life?
- Sony A7 series use Sony's sensors with all their secrets at their disposal but, not with Nikon's and Fuji's secret sauces.
- Nikon orders customized, "Designed by Nikon" sensors to Sony Semi. Sony Imaging cannot access them (unless they buy and disassemble a Nikon Z).
- Same for Fuji. They have less rolling shutter in XT-4 for example, and it's again built by Sony, for Fuji. No, Sony Imaging can't play with them.
- Canon R5's sensor is "Designed by Canon". I'm not sure they are producing it. Sony or Tower Jazz maybe producing it. I don't know.
At the end of the day, the fab is almost one but, designs are many and diversified and, nobody can see each other's design. Like TSMC and Global Foundries.
Some of the code I've written can speed up 3x just by using newer SIMD instruction sets and bigger caches. It's unbelievable until you see it.
I also manage HPC clusters, so we see strange effects when developers excessively hand-tune their code for a specific architecture.
It's not very very different in the bigger picture if you ask me.
Please correct me if I'm wrong.
You forgot Samsung as one of the big fabs.
It occurred to me that Kingston probably has its own fab too.
Memory is fairly easy to fab; in fact memory was one of the first things we saw Asian fabs rise up and overtake US/EU fabs on.
In a perfect world, It'd be nice for Nikon to build a fab with the lithography equipment they already produce.
Hope their fab lives on.
The fact is that there is a completely different technology on the market which produces very different – and arguably far superior – image quality and colour reproduction compared to 99% of digital cameras on the market. The Sigma system can be clunky and the sensor tech has its drawbacks (eg almost unusable above 200 iso), however given the right conditions the images they produce can be stunning.
I mainly use an Olympus em5 mkII so I’m saddened by the OP news, although I will wait to see how it plays out before switching to Ricoh and/or Pentax. Guess I have a thing for the underdogs.
https://petapixel.com/2020/06/05/towerjazz-hints-that-nikon-...
Nikon has also used Toshiba in the past but probably 80% of Nikon's DSLR sensors were made by Sony.
Aptina's sensors were pretty spectacular from an AF perspective in that they had phase-shift AF on-sensor in 2011. The AF was as close as you could get to DSLRs on a mirrorless camera for quite some time. It's just too bad that Nikon came up with a weird set of 1st generation Nikon 1 cameras that made no sense to anybody.
IIRC, Aptina ended up cross-licensing their patents to Sony.
Sony sinks tons of money in their tech because other companies use them as a factory, so that makes total business sense (and along with samsung and a few others, they do have cutting edge imaging tech). Canon is different in that its much more vertically integrated so it rarely makes sense to drop millions of dollars on sensor fab upgrades unless they're going to make the money back. They have dozens of filed patents on all the technology that the competition is using, so I don't think they're lacking on the IP front.
I don't think photography is where the concern lies these days. All medium/flagship cameras from major brands today are more than good enough for photography, commercial, sports, landscape, advertising, editorial, or whatever...
It's more about the video...
https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnarcher/2017/01/23/samsung-f...
It's a little early to state this. Once the R5 and R6 come out we'll have a better idea of their capabilities as those are slated to have their new tech (8K video etc etc).
(Dual-pixel AF doesn't just give way better AF, it also avoids artifacts from dedicated phase detect pixels that other cameras have.)
If I were making video, I suspect I'd be singing the same tune. DPAF is excellent.
While they've been a newer player in the Camera industry, they've been doing professional digital video for far longer (SW EP2 was shot on Panavision-modified Sony cameras.) That's on top of their long lineage in the pre-digital-recording TV Market.
On an unrelated note, I do believe that Canon has also pulled a patent on quad-pixel AF. Patents being awful aside, quad-pixel AF would be awesome: every pixel becomes a cross-type focus sensor.
(For the uninitiated, focus sensors are usually either horizontal or vertical, and cannot detect features that are perpendicular to them. Cross-type sensors are a combination of the two to increase the detection capability.)
However, in less optimal situations (e.g. low light, low contrast, and contrast perpendicular to the detection direction), it's my personal experience that current non-cross-type PDAF solutions fail, requiring 90 degree rotation to focus, which wouldn't be needed for cross-type. That, or use of an alternate focus subject if one is available.
It's more of an issue on smaller, less light sensitive sensors. The super high-end sensors are more likely to find something to focus on even when things are suboptimal.
But, alas, I'm a hobby photographer, and the 4500 USD an A9II costs is a bit more than I'm willing to spend.
Of course it does. PDAF needs to observe a feature (a phase difference) in the image, which requires light and contrast.
In strong light, there are usually plenty of features available, making PDAF seem borderline magic, especially for something like DPAF where almost every single pixel can be used as a focus point.
In lower light and contrast, fewer features are available. Subjects are rarely perfectly symmetric, so there are different features are available across the different sensor axis (e.g. a striped shirt).
As subjects are not symmetric, the chances of you running out of features to focus on due to reduced contrast along two axis is much lower than running out along just one. Cross-type allow both axis to be used simultaneously, while non-cross can only use one.
This means that, with the same sensitivity, cross-type is much more likely to be able to detect a feature in an area than non-cross, as there are more features available to it. As features turn to noise and AF becomes difficult, this leads to increased focus ability at lower light.
For non-cross, a 90 degree rotation of the camera is needed to reveal those features.
> For e.g. Outer focusing points on a poorly made "consumer" lenses, generally, are not very accurate when you're close to MFD, and the focusing system tends to hunt a lot.
I see what you're trying to say ("inner focus point is not just cross-type, it's also the sharpest point on the lens"), but that's not really relevant here. I'm making the observation on a camera without cross-type at all, dead-center or thereabout.
One can also use the zebra MF assist feature to highlight this, at least for DPAF cameras.
> I have the A9II and it has the best focusing system I've ever used. I thought the 1DX II was accurate, but this blows it away. Haven't tried the 1DXIII though.
This is the beauty of on-sensor focus - you measure exactly what you see, instead of measuring something else entirely and hoping that the calibration data is good enough...
There's a good reason for it -- they appear to make the very best sensors (edit: in terms of dynamic range and noise) in the commercial-camera market. Canon makes their own sensors, which are good in absolute but not relative terms, which appears to hold them back in performance. I don't know if it is patent-related or process-related.
While I use Canon imaging systems, I don't see the choice to use other brands as better or worse. Each manufacturer's line has strengths and weaknesses; you pick the best tool for the job. Essentially every camera and optical system on the market, in absolute terms, is a wonderful instrument for imaging.
This reality is intensely freeing -- it means you can focus more on the image and less on the instrumentation. "f/8 and be there" is still wonderful advice.