UPDATE: I will check the rumor with my other sources. I downgraded the rumor rating and I hope to give you an update soon. Anyway the source gave me good and correct news in the past. He is reading your comments and he will answer your questions!
The rumor:
As you may remember Thom Hogan “speculated” that Nikon is or will starting to produce their own sensors. A source told us that this is NOT going to happen:
“new D3100
CMOS is indeed Sony designed and manufactured, to Nikon specs. It is basically a Sony CMOS with some mainly cosmetic differences and since not all pixels are being normally used at the edges, it gives the manufacturers the leeway to make the specs change to make them look different. Sony’s policy, for over a decade, has been to sell its chips to competition with 6 months delay. Although Nikon had sample chips to design their products, they could not start making the products during the 6 months of Sony selling products with the same chips, unless Sony has a different arrangement with Nikon, which I doubt. Nikon does not have the expertise to design its own chips, never the kind that Sony designs. Nikon would never be able to achieve Sony’s expertise. See the video codec on the Nikon CMOS. Do you really believe that it is different than Sony’s. It’s just set at 24p; that’s all. Do you believe that Nikon could design chip with this codec? Do you think that Sony would licence them the technology to copy Sony’s design? Sony and Nikon have a strong relationship and work together in fighting Canon. Canon is really nervous about Sony camera releases. The NEX and the 33/55 cameras are and will be marketed totally differently than previous Sony cameras, where Sony just continued the Minolta tradition, until they developed their own cameras, which were from the beginning meant to properly integrate video and still photography, which is the future trend and it is where Sony expertise lies. Total misinformation is that Sony is getting out of FF sensor business. Sony’s future is no OVF on APSC and a pro FF line with OVF. That will be Sony’s main future emphasis. That will naturally include continuous design and manufacturing of FF CMOS sensors. Pentax tried Samsung sensors. They dropped tham and went quickly back to Sony. No company cam produce better sensors than Sony.”
P.S.: We from SonyAlphaRumors that Sonys next step is to satisfy the semi-pro and after that the pro market. So stay tuned!
Q
3 years ago |I am tempted by the a55, but what interests me about this camera is what spurs me to remain patient about Sony’s next generation of Pro camera’s. From the A550 till now, its been non stop excitement and I hope it all climaxes at the top of the line bodies. These new sensor’s are like hot cakes, and are busting photographers into new grounds of specifications that will surely rattle a few cages along the way AKA Thom Hogan, who’s writings I do appreciate.
lander240
3 years ago |Thank you admin, and thank you your trustworthy sources for all those you have done for us.
Thank you.
Edgars
3 years ago |“Sony’s policy, for over a decade, has been to sell its chips to competition with 6 months delay.”
Release dates:
Sony A900 September 2008 and Nikon D3X in December 2008
Sony A700 September 2007 and Nikon D300 August 2007
Not exactly 6 month.
Parci
3 years ago |This is not the first time you guys take something for (almost) granted, which is otherwise highly unlikely (to put it politely). Even without any background knowledge of sensor design and manufacturing the post is total BS. Just one simple example, without getting into anything technical: Nikon does not have the expertise to design its own sensor? The D3s is probably the most efficient sensor on the market today and it is Nikon’s very own. What do the new APS sensors know that are so impossible to design after having done the two Nikon FX sensors? It just doesn’t make any sense…
The quoted post is from a Sony fanboy that has no idea about sensor design and manufacturing and it is actually quite sad to read here without any critiqe and an SR4 rating… come on guys, you are better than this!
imaanyAieR
3 years ago |so, that means taht Thom Hogan is a nikon user that in fact knows nothing about nikon’s true story? blah… he did made nikon fan proud a little bit there… but finally the truth revealed.
Sahaja
3 years ago |_”Sony’s future is no OVF on APSC”_
Then why the A560 and A580?
lander240
3 years ago |Maybe we call them the “present”?
Sky_walker
3 years ago |Nikon fanboys gonna cook themselves.
eliot
3 years ago |This posting is just the ranting of a fanboy who is ignorant of Nikon’s chip design work over the years, including the D2H sensor in 2003. Bad rumor posting, you got suckered.
lander240
3 years ago |You are right, not in name of some fanboy.
We don’t know if it’s a bad rumor or not until Nikon speaks for themselves.
Not by some of the fanboy.
hannes
3 years ago |You wrote:
P.S.: We from SonyAlphaRumors that Sonys next step is to satisfy the semi-pro and after that the pro market. So stay tuned!
Do you have also a roadmap? I will know if the successor of the a700 will come within the next 3. month?
Thanks
Parci
3 years ago |“No company cam produce better sensors than Sony.”
How would one explain that when looking at the sensors that were indeed shared by Sony and Nikon, Nikon always managed to achieve visibly better image quality? Why is the D3x’s sensor better is both detail and sensitivity compared to the A900? Why is the same true for the D300 compared to the A700?
And anyway, what does the above sentence even mean? Would a grown up industry insider with some background knowledge and real info write anything so childish and behave like a fanboy?
Dr. Tom
3 years ago |I don’t think Sony will recover the pro market after not releasing any of the rumored firmware updates for the A850 and A900 to improve hi ISO resolution, but that is just my opinion.
Daemonius
3 years ago |Have you noticed that 3x times price difference between Sony A900 and D3X? It would be seriously bad, if A900 performed exactly as D3X. For Nikon ofc.
D3X still has Sony sensor, which means they PRODUCE best sensors. It doesnt have anything to do with them not being able to compete in final quality. I guess very different approach to pipeline is why its different. Processors and software makes difference too.
Nevertheless, best sensors for DSLR (not including Leica S2) are made by Sony.
My guess why A900 isnt 100% equal to D3X is, that Sony wanted somewhat affordable camera, why Nikon wanted absolute top-notch. Though, I think they overshot a bit.. you can get almost MF for price of that..
Dulaney Ward
3 years ago |nonsense–the pro market that Sony has values the color & the color range over high-iso noise reduction & realizes that without changing the sensor it’s a trade-off. A new camera just may be a different story.
Beaucoup
3 years ago |Why don’t you proofread before you submit rumors? It’s atrocious.
ABB
3 years ago |Rumor is something that you can never proof until it happens.
Craig G
3 years ago |Spelling and grammar on this site is often that way. :/
Froo
3 years ago |1) Nikon has better quality from the same sensors because they have better software people.
2) The D2H with its LBCAST sensor is the only one confirmed produced by Nikon. It took them ten years to design and was seriously underperforming compared to the competition. To think that Nikon has achieved competence to overtake the leading manufacturer in the world since then (without shouting it from the rooftops!) is fanboyism extraordinaire.
3) Sensor design and process technology is intimately interlinked. Nikon have no chip fabs. Someone must make the things! Sure you can get outside competence from a fabless company and then fab it at a Taiwanese foundry but do you want to take the risk of delays?
The only sane conclusions are that Nikon are still using Sony for their sensors, just without admitting it (90% certainty), or that they are indeed buying fabless designs but using an established foundry (Sony/Taiwanese) for manufacturing (9%). That they should in any way be responsible for the entire design/manufacturing process themselves is so unlikely (1%) it isn’t worth taking seriously. It would be an amazing achievement and they would do lots of marketing about it (as they did of LBCAST). Anyone saying “they design it completely by themselves!” must answer the question: “Then why are they not marketing it as they did LBCAST”?
Parci
3 years ago |Surely, you have heard of Renesas and many others… Nikon does not have a manufacturing plant, that’s a fact. That doesn’t mean they cannot design their own sensor. But let’s go with your 90% version: who designed the 12 mp FX sensors for Nikon? (Nikon did and the very reason that they were not advertising it with full force right away was exactly the D2h fiasco)
Adam Maas
3 years ago |Interesting logic, but also incorrect. Nikon’s done in-house designs for quite a while, most notably the underperforming LBCAST sensor in the D2H but the CCD sensors in the D1 series were also Nikon-developed (LBCAST was notable for being a Nikon-developed technology rather than being the first Nikon-developed Sensor) However the D3/D3S sensor is also a Nikon design. In fact the D2x and D3x remain the only cameras in the single-digit line to use non-Nikon sensors and the D2x sensor was a collaboration between Nikon and Sony, not an in-house Sony design.
Nikon’s also been involved in still digital and analog sensor design for longer than Sony has (Nikon developed the first DSLR in partnership with Kodak back in 1991 and was involved in much of the DSLR development of the 1990′s with both Kodak and Fujifilm).
The D3100 sensor is physically different from any of the Sony sensors as it is slightly smaller and slightly higher pixel count, therefore the pixel density is different from any of the Sony sensors. Considering that Sony recently released a new version of their 14MP CMOS sensor, it’s clear that it is not the D3100 sensor.
Nikon is likely having someone else do the fabbing for their sensors, but the design is clearly in-house.
Nikon has stated several times recently that they intend to bring all their sensors in-house and while they did not make a big deal about the D3 sensor being a Nikon design due to the D2H fiasco, it quite clearly is and their marketing has mentioned that. They’ve also been unusually specific about the D3100 sensor’s origin.
Craig G
3 years ago |What is this D2h fiasco about?
Adam Maas
3 years ago |Nikon serious promoted the LBCAST sensor in the D2H as the next step in sensor technology and as being able to outperform both the then-standard CCD sensors and the CMOS sensors which Canon was pushing at the time (this was before CMOS acquired a serious performance lead over CCD). However the LBCAST sensor proved to be no better than CCD and restricted to low pixel density. To this day the only LBCAST equipped cameras were the D2H and D2Hs
To make matters worse, the D2H proved to have fairly serious reliability issues, mostly related to the new Color Matrix Meter II, which wouldn’t be resolved until the D2Hs was introduced.
ChenAlan
3 years ago |Sony FTW!
LOL with Samsung. Just look at their cameras.
Colin
3 years ago |wot is the fuss about Nikon looking at there current line up and specs they are way behind and the prices are way over the top they need all the help they can get off sony and they know it. Despite the deluded nikon users and sensor tec, Sony are huge and can crush any electronics company if they want to
Myst
3 years ago |“The D3100 sensor is physically different from any of the Sony sensors as it is slightly smaller and slightly higher pixel count, therefore the pixel density is different from any of the Sony sensors. Considering that Sony recently released a new version of their 14MP CMOS sensor, it’s clear that it is not the D3100 sensor.”
check the sensors from canon 550d 60d and 7d it’s the same sensor but not quite.
i am curious how the d3100 will perform in regard to the a560 (if it’s almost the same there is no doubt it’s still a sony developed sensor)
and also the nikon d7000(d90 replacement) it has curiously a 16mp which the a580 also has and again i am curious to see the raw performance of both sensors.
in the end i don’t see it why you people are bugged that sony does/does not make nikon sensors? both nikon and sony users have something to win from this partnership.
GH
3 years ago |Parci, much of the difference between the D3x and A900 boils down to the CFA and better supporting electronics in an $8k camera. The A900 uses an mfdb-like CFA with the best color separation and hue resolution of any other 35mm camera. The cost of that is less light hitting the sensor due to the more opaque CFA, and that requires more noise-causing gain. The D3x has better shadow detail and the A900 has better color. It is a trade off.
Craig G
3 years ago |“The A900 uses an mfdb-like CFA with the best color separation and hue resolution of any other 35mm camera.”
I’ve seen people say this a lot, but I’ve not seen where they get this information from? Has this been proven somewhere?
Adam Maas
3 years ago |The difference between the 60D and 7D sensors is in sensor toppings (mostly the microlenses) and the output stages (7D has extra bandwidth). Same basic silicon, same pixel pitch.
The D3100 has a different pixel pitch than the Sony sensors which indicates that it is a completely separate design. The pixel pitch is the best indicator of whether or not two sensors are the same at the silicon level as it shows whether or not they’re using the same sensor site design.
anonymous
3 years ago |Although I believe the sensor of D3100 is possibly based on and manufactured by sony, this article has no credibility.
Sony a33 en a55 - Pagina 2 - Belgiumdigital forum - Digitale fotografie
3 years ago |[...] stop te zetten Na het berichtje van Tom Hogan verschijnt er nu weer een andere boodschap… http://www.sonyalpharumors.com/sr4-n…wered-cameras/ Ik ben wel lichtjes benieuwd hoe de realiteit er zal uit zien, maar ik lig er absoluut niet wakker [...]
Froo
3 years ago |1991? The DCS (100)? Yeah, that is a Kodak-only design from their Professional Photography Division, only using the F3 mechanics — all electronics and of course the sensor was made by Kodak. Way to prove Nikon’s independence from other vendors there.
The theory that Nikon would boast about their crap LBCAST technology, but not about actually releasing really good sensors, is of course interesting — although not based in any perceivable reality.
Of course Nikon has some input into actual Sony designs. For example, the Sony a100 and the Nikon D200 shared the same sensor platform, it is well known — the key difference is the four readout channels of the D200 sensor compared to two in the a100 one. Nikon developed sensor? Hardly.
Adam Maas
3 years ago |The DCS 100 was co-developed by Kodak and Nikon, Kodak did the sensor & processing side of things but Nikon was involved in that (note that Nikon’s other business is providing optics and steppers for chip fabs). The two companies had been working together since the early 80′s on the subject and actually had some development analog CCD cameras in the mid-80′s which never reached more than prototype stages.
Nikon had though that LBCAST was going to pan out somewhat differently. Note that when it was introduced nobody knew which sensor technology would prove dominant, this was before CMOS took the performance crown and forced both Nikon and Sony to doing CMOS sensors.
Note that I never said the D200 sensor is Nikon-developed, it clearly wasn’t. It’s only the single-digit line (D1 family, D2 family, D3 family) that used Nikon-designed sensors aside from the D2x and D3x. Nikon’s consumer bodies all have used Sony sensors except the D3100.
Parci
3 years ago |GH: the point of my post was trying to point out that it is rather ridiculous to assume what the poster did: Sony has the expertise, while Nikon doesn’t. Sony is the “sensor king” and for some strange reason Nikon sensors end up performing “better”.
But anyway, just the D3/D3s/D700 sensor alone is a clear example of a Nikon designed sensor (ones that noone has been able to match ever since), so I really see no point in trying to convince anybody who still “believes” in some Sony world domination.
Nikon designs some of its sensors and judging from the D3100 sensor (again: different physical size and readout…!!!), they are now doing this for DX, not just FX. Should this be true, this will put a price pressure on Sony (owning a fab might not be so fun if you cannot ramp up production near to 100%).
santela
3 years ago |I really don’t give a crap about who made what sensor. But this article has no credibility whatsoever.
imaanyAieR
3 years ago |why not just lock the comment when u going to delete them anyway? -_- grrrr
imaanyAieR
3 years ago |opps. i just saw the older comment button =.= sorry~~ (btw, why cant we delete our own comment?)
Antonio Rojilla
3 years ago |Looks either like Sony’s advertising or a fanboy’s rant, specially the “No company cam produce better sensors than Sony.”.
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3 years ago |[...] you remember we received an email from one of our sources about the future Sony Fullframe and Nikon partnership strategy. That email created a lot of heavy discussions. The source contacted me again and sent me following [...]