New Implementation for DPAF Technology?
- By jrista
- EOS Bodies
- 8 Replies
StudentOfLight said:I've heard of a pellicle (pelican) mirror but haven't read up about it, so thanks for the feedback.
My thoughts were that if an image sensor was used then it could do RGB metering as well (instead of having a separate metering sensor on top of the pentaprism) thereby freeing up space for a Wifi or Radio module. However, as you say since the sensitivity/precision is not on par it with traditional PDAF there is no justification. No one would want to compromise AF performance unnecessarily.
I think it will be a good while before we see focal-plane AF systems comparing to dedicated AF systems. Right now, in the case of Canon's DPAF, they basically turned the whole sensor into one giant line sensor. That's about as advanced as Canon's first AF sensor back in the 80's, which was also a single strip line sensor. Were going to need to see DPAF evolve into QPAF, where the sensor can be read twice, once for a horizontal line sensor and once again for a vertical line sensor (now were up to the late 80's/early 90's); beyond that were going to have to see advancements that bring us multi-orientation phase detection at the focal plane (horizontal, vertical, and both diagonals in directions 90° perpendicular); were going to need to see significant improvements in the speed and accuracy of focal plane AF (at this point, I believe the low-light edge will disappear, and fall behind that of dedicated AF sensors, since right now the sensor can be exposed for longer to support very low light AF...but when speed becomes critical, image sensors are WORSE than the huge pixels of dedicated AF line sensors at sensing in the dark), etc.
Focal-plane AF is in it's infancy. It's trendy and cool right now, and it brings new capabilities to the table for a new class of digital camera. But that new class of digital camera is demonstrably at least a couple generations behind DSLRs in terms of critical functionality. It will mature, and at some point mirrorless cameras will ultimately become superior to DSLRs in every way, including AF, but that is a very long way of into the future (especially with the bulk of western economies, the US and Europe, effectively rejecting mirrorless at a mass scale at this stage.)
DPAF, as much as everyone here loves to talk about it (probably because it's really the only key sensor innovation from Canon in quite some time), is really a very simple, minor EVOLUTION of prior focal-plane AF technology. Canon took the next logical step, but overall the technology is in it's infancy. DPAF, if one were to rank sensor innovations from the last three years, ranks pretty low overall. It isn't the kind of magical technology everyone hopes it is...it's just a basic evolution of technology that already existed in a simpler form.
Canon really needs to be radical with their sensor innovation to really make anyone start thinking about them as an innovative leader in sensor technology again. They need to move to a fully on-die image processing pipeline (move ADC onto the sensor die), preferably go hyperparallel, also preferably move to either a dual-stage CDS (analog and digital) or at least a digital CDS, etc. All of this would really require a die shrink...which means Canon needs to move to a 180nm process. Even if Canon does that...it still isn't going to make DPAF a particularly intriguing or compelling technology in the world of CMOS image sensors. Even if Canon moves to QPAF (I haven't seen any such patents yet), that would still be a minor evolution of DPAF...it still wouldn't rank high among all of the radical innovations that are constantly occurring in the image sensors world.
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