Polaroid Digicam Sports Foveon Chip

LAS VEGAS -- Polaroid has unveiled a digital camera that is the first consumer-level model to incorporate Foveon's 4.5-megapixel X3 image sensor, which the companies tout as capturing sharper detail.

The Polaroid x530 is being shown as a joint announcement by Polaroid and Foveon at the Photo Marketing Association conference here this week. It is scheduled to ship in June priced at $399, which is on the affordable side for a 4.5-megapixel model. It will be manufactured by World Wide License, and distributed by Uniden in the U.S.

The x530 will have a 2-inch LCD, a 3X optical zoom, and a slot compatible with SD card storage.

Image Quality Boost

The Foveon technology made its debut in 2002 in Sigma?s professional-level SD9 camera. The chip is designed to capture better detail than other digital cameras of the same megapixel range, says Eric Zarakov, Foveon vice president of marketing. He says the resulting image textures are more realistic and the pictures crisper. Even small text, which often blurs in digital photos, is sharper thanks to the technology.

The sensor that's in the Sigma camera is different from the one that will be in the Polaroid, however, Zarakov notes. It is a physically smaller chip and supports smaller pixels, but still has many of the same capabilities.

Foveon?s X3 image sensor captures color in three layers, each of which senses one of the three primary colors of light--red, green, or blue. Current digital cameras use either a complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) or--more commonly--a charge-coupled device (CCD) sensor whose pixels have one layer of photo detectors. To capture color, a filter for one of three colors (red, green, or blue) is placed on top of the pixel in a grid that looks like a three-color checkerboard.

Image-Editing Options

Polaroid's x530 camera will be able to capture the proprietary X3F raw file format, but also can save images as JPEG files--an omission from the earlier implementation. Only Foveon's own image-editing software can manipulate the X3F file format, but of course JPEG images can be edited by any number of applications. Polaroid will bundle Foveon's image-editing software with the x530.

However, Foveon's editing application supports the X3 Fill Light tool, which Zarakov says simulates the photographic method of "dodge and burn" by adding extra light to shadows, while maintaining highlight detail. Users will be able to adjust both overexposed and underexposed areas of an image with one control.

The camera can also record video clips. Zarakov says Foveon expects the capacity to hit 30 frames per second in 640-by-480 resolution by the camera's release. It records the videos in motion JPEG format--MJPEG--chosen because it emphasizes image quality, he says.

Polaroid expects to market the Xe in a number of retail chain stores, including Best Buy, Wal-Mart, and Fry's.