The Sports Photo Guy

Japanese lens & camera maker Sigma has acquired Foveon, the California-based company that has developed the unique “X3″ sensor technology.

In a press release, Sigma Japan announced the acquisition of the company that designed the sensors in Sigma’s latest DSLRs and the unique DP1.  Unlike most sensors, whose pixels capture a single color (R, G, or B) from which full color is interpolated, the Foveon X3 sensor measures the full R, G, and B values from each pixel.  Sigma & Foveon claim this yields image quality of a much higher megapixel count sensor than a traditional sensor – claims I can’t really comment on as I have no experience with the Sigma/Foveon sensors.

It’s hard to tell whether Sigma plans to keep Foveon all to itself, or leverage its obvious success in the 3rd party lens market to help bring the X3 technology to other manufacturers.  I’m in favor of anything that brings new products and technologies to the broader market, however – this will help all shooters in the long run.