It's here, but not for Leica cameras (yet): http://www.siliconfilm.com. Maybe Leica will surprise us at the 2002 PMA show.

-- Hoyin Lee (leehoyin@hutchcity.com), December 26, 2001

Answers

Hoyin,

Looks interesting. May take a while to further enhance the product and adapt it to work with manual cameras but improved future product versions may yet allow continued use of our beloved Leica manual R and M cameras. Perhaps technology can successfully merge the manual Leica camera world with the digital photography world. Wouldn't that be a nice alternative? The ability to use either traditional film or digital film in the same camera/lens would be great. LB

-- Luther Berry (lberrytx@aol.com), December 26, 2001.

I'd heard recently that Silicon Film had gone under as it ran out of funds. If true, this would be agreat pity. The first product was only a 1.3 Megapixel insert but my guess would be that it was just a starter. The concept of a flat, very thin plate with a CCD in it (preferably a full 6 megapixel 24mmx36mm CCD) and all the microelectronics in the "cartridge" so to speak could have indeed propelled Leica M series even further by bridging the film/ditital gap.

-- Phil allsopp (pallsopp42@attbi.com), December 26, 2001.

Don't hold your breath. Besides having to overcome the difficulties of fitting all the electronics, pick up, and storage in the area where a roll of film fit, the dimensions are different inside just about every camera, so they would have to be all custom made. Their pickup was only a small fraction of 24 X 36mm, and you'd have to guess the framing in the finder. The other thing is that one of the major benefits of digital is being able to review immediately what was shot on an LCD panal of some sort, and I can't see how that can be incorporated into this type of design. I don't think their investors could see it either, as after promising a product they couldn't deliver for several years, I read they lost most of their backing recently.

-- Andrew Schank (aschank@flash.net), December 26, 2001.

That company was doomed from its conception. The idea is simply not a good one. Hey, I got one, how about horse shoes with little wheels and a motor to turn your horse into a car!

-- Dan Brown (brpatent@swbell.net), December 26, 2001.

I don't think the idea is as dumb as some make out. And I'd bet that someone is working on thin-film CCD devices (hmm--a mylar version with .......same thickness and consistency as 35mm celluloid) with very large catchment areas and high resolution capabilities. I remember someone from Prime Computer way back in the mid 80s asking why anyone in their right mind would want to shoe-horn an entire CAD system into a puny little device like a PC. And in 1988, IBM bemoaned their investment in Apple because, after seeing Apple's "Knowledge Navigator" video about the world of computing in 2010, they complained that after all who had ever heard of a computer that you open like a book . Funny how inventive folks can be.

That's it from me on the subject.

-- Phil Allsopp (allsoppp@saic.com), December 26, 2001.

These guys have been hawking this thing forever! Do you see a working product you can buy? Shutterbug has had the same stupid pictures on their cover for years and yet you can never buy one. They just want you investment money. Don't bite.

cheers,

-- JDR (jrivera@vapop.ucsd.edu), December 26, 2001.

You are right about the "vapor-ware" quotient being pretty high with Silicon-Film's product. Its the idea that appeals, not the execution.

However, I do have better things to do with my money than invest in that particular company - like save up for a new lens for my M6TTL!\

Cheers

-- Phil Allsopp (allsoppp@saic.com), December 26, 2001.

This company went out of business a few months ago (notice the page was last updated Sept 15, 2001). I did have a link to that story, but can't seem to find it. Before that, they had been promising this product for a long time, always pushing the release date further and further back.

-- Richard (rvle@yahoo.com), December 26, 2001.

Oh, I forgot to add: even if this thing were available to Leica users, it would still suck. The sensor multiplies the focal length by 2.85. Think about it, your 35mm lens becomes a 100mm lens, and your 50mm lens becomes a 143mm lens. The actual coverage of the sensor is tiny (and there's no way to tell it's approximate coverage when in use). Plus it's only a 1.3 megapixel sensor. So forgot about any huge prints.

-- Richard (rvle@yahoo.com), December 26, 2001.

The only thing that is less likely to happen than the "e-film" is Leica coming out with a digital M camera sometime this decade.

-- Josh Root (rootj@att.net), December 26, 2001.

Bummer! Silicon Film's website was last updated on 15 September 2001, and here's a news article dated 17 September 2001 announcing the company's liquidation: http://www.dpreview.com/news/0109/01091702siliconfilmvaporizes.asp .

-- Hoyin Lee (leehoyin@hutchcity.com), December 26, 2001.

Leica Canada built a military version of the M camera with a vacm back. This was made possible by removing the hinged cover plate and replacing it with a hinged cover that contained the vacum system. This same idea could be used to hold the electronics if the desire was there by Leica to modify a M body to digital. But don't hold your breath.

-- Al Henry (J Henry@provide.net), December 26, 2001.

Yes, they went out of funds. There is a major problem with using CCD's and that is that you need a layer of color filters in front of the CCD. This corrupts the light beams from the lens and you need to correct for that. That's why digital camera's have mostly fixed lenses. I believe there is just one digital camera that can use the lenses from the analogue variant of the same camera. (Was it canon or Nikon?)

I think the company couldn't solve this problem (?)

Reinier

-- ReinierV (rvlaam@xs4all.nl), December 27, 2001.

Another hurdle to overcome would be the dust problem, which is not just a minor nuisance. Having an exposed pickup that replaced film or a camera back would be a dust magnet.

-- Andrew Schank (aschank@flash.net), December 27, 2001.

READ THIS PRESS RELEASE

http://www.dpreview.com/news/0109/01091702siliconfilmvaporizes.asp

-- Rob Schopke (schopke@attbi.com), December 30, 2001.