Well, this is disappointing and may scupper your future camera upgrade plans – it’s certainly scuppered mine. In an interview with PetaPixel, Sigma CEO Kazuto Yamaki has said that full-frame Foveon is still at least “a few years” away
Originally announced in 2018, the camera has essentially stalled completely since the last update in 2022. It’s essentially been stuck in Stage 2 of its development for the last two years, and Sigma doesn’t know when it can continue
The Story So Far…
2017 – Sigma developing video-centric Foveon camera
In November 2017, Sigma filed a patent suggesting that a new video-centric Foveon sensor was coming. Patents don’t always – or even often – mean that a new device is coming, but in this case, it looks like Sigma was planning ahead.
2018 – L Mount Alliance and FF Foveon Camera Announced
Sigma first announced that a full-frame Foveon camera was coming at Photokina 2018 in Cologne, Germany. It came at the same time as the announcement for the L Mount Alliance, and we expected to see a camera within a couple of years.
2019 – 60.9-megapixel sensor on hold indefinitely
In March 2019, several tweets from a presentation given by Kazuto Yamaki at CP+ said that it was coming in 2020 with a 60.9-megapixel sensor. It was hoped that there would be an official announcement at CP+ the following year.
The next day, however, Sigma announced that full-frame Foveon was on hold indefinitely.
2020 – No idea when it’s coming
In March 2020, the company announced that they were planning a launch for 2021, but maybe 2022. Before the year was out, however, Sigma said that they had no idea when it was actually coming.
2021 – They’re still working on it
In 2021, the company announced that it was still far from ready but that they were still working on it.
2022 – Development put on hold
In February 2022, Sigma offered some more insights into the full-frame Foveon sensor development process. They explained where they were at in that process and what was holding things up. Sigma is developing the sensor based on a three-stage process.
- Stage 1: Repeated design simulations of the new three-layer structure to confirm that it will function as intended.
- Stage 2: Prototype evaluation using a small image sensor with the same pixel size as the product specifications but with a reduced total pixel count to verify the performance characteristics of the image sensor in practice.
- Stage 3: Final prototype evaluation using a full-frame image sensor with the same specifications as the mass products including the AD converter etc…
Sigma believed that these are the three necessary stages before putting the sensor into a camera and bringing it to market. At the time, Sigma said they were at Stage 2, and nothing seems to have changed since then.
In July 2022, Sigma announced that they hoped to have the sensor ready by the end of the year, but not an actual camera. But in November, announced new delays with development, stating that the company was still waiting on the Stage 2 prototype.
The good news, however, was that when the camera does eventually come, it would most likely have Phase Detection Autofocus (PDAF).
What’s new?
Well, not a lot, really. Since then, the company has pretty much maintained radio silence on the Foveon sensor. But now, in an interview with PetaPixel, Mr Yamaki has said that the sensor is still stuck in stage 2 of development.
There have been several hold-ups in the sensor’s development. They’ve switched sensor manufacturers and restarted the design from scratch several times over the last five and a half years. Not to mention the obvious struggles caused by the global covid pandemic.
Sigma is still waiting for a stage 2 prototype that they’re happy with. This is a sensor that is smaller than full frame but contains pixels of the same size that a full-frame sensor would have. In 2016, Sigma was in touch with a US-based company, but that contract was terminated in 2020 due to the company’s inability to produce a viable sensor.
Overall, it’s been one heck of a journey. And it doesn’t look like Sigma will reach its destination soon. In the interview, Mr Yamaki said that the project started in 2016. We’re now eight years along and not really any better off.
Mr Yamaki says that the camera is still “a few years away” from reality. But, he says that their engineers “are still working hard to make it happen”.
Too little, too late?
It’s unfortunate that Sigma hasn’t yet been able to deliver on its promises from Photokina 2018. I know quite a few photographers who’ve held off switching to mirrorless waiting for this camera – and I’m one of them.
I bought into Panasonic MFT mirrorless for video in 2020 but held onto my Nikon DSLRs for stills. I was hoping the full-frame Foveon would’ve come by the end of 2022 (at the latest). It would’ve made my transition easy. Sell all my Nikon DSLRs and Panasonic MFT mirrorless and go full-frame L mount. Panasonic for video, Sigma for stills.
At this point, I think it’s better to just assume full-frame Foveon is never coming. Of course, it probably will. Eventually. But “a few years away” is no good to people who need to upgrade now or in the next year. By the time the full-frame Foveon is released, it may be too late for many potential customers.
There’s also the fact that it’s already been six years since the announcement at Photokina. Camera technology has come a long way since then. We’ve got 8K resolution video, and stills up to 120fps with global shutter, and 400-megapixel sensor-shift images.
So, Sigma is facing many challenges. They need to not only get to what they promised in 2018. They also need to go way beyond that. They need to produce something much better than what was announced at Photokina. Or they’re not going to catch up to the competition.
Of course, it does have the advantage of being a Foveon sensor. However, if Sigma wants to make a statement, it needs to kick ass in other ways, too. It needs to be fast. It needs to shoot video. Good video. These are all things the SA Mount Foveon bodies could not do. They were slow and didn’t shoot video at all.
With Panasonic only having a single stills-oriented full-frame camera with Phase Detect Autofocus, I guess I’m going with the non-L-mount competition. To say I’m disappointed is something of an understatement. I hate to say it, but I might have to start looking at Sony.
[via PetaPixel]
