Nikon buys Red?

[JulioD]

PDAF isn’t owned by Sony. 

Dual gain sensors are on some canon cameras and some Blackmagic sensors too.

https://www.canon-europe.com/pro/stories/dgo-sensor-explained/

 

 

[D Verco]

4 hours ago, mercer said:

My original question was about Sony's PDAF technology and if it was possible for Nikon to use it in a Red camera. Obviously, Nikon licenses it from Sony but do they pay an overall licensing fee to Sony for multiple cameras... or do they pay per sensor design/manufacture.

why do you think sony owns autofocus, or that nikon licences it from them? 

[mercer]

3 minutes ago, D Verco said:

why do you think sony owns autofocus, or that nikon licences it from them? 

Jesus man... I didn't say Sony owns autofocus. I said they have PDAF IP and I assumed Nikon licenses it from them.

It seems Nikon uses/used Aptina for their on sensor AF which cross-licenses their PDAF tech with Sony.

Again the point of the original question was based on an assumption other forum members made about Red cameras getting AF.

I then wondered if Nikon does license their AF from Sony, would Red cameras need to switch to Sony sensors to have access to it.

Again I meant no disrespect to Nikon... they're the best.

[mercer]

41 minutes ago, JulioD said:

PDAF isn’t owned by Sony. 

Dual gain sensors are on some canon cameras and some Blackmagic sensors too.

https://www.canon-europe.com/pro/stories/dgo-sensor-explained/

 

 

Dual Gain uses PDAF but PDAF isn't necessarily DPAF.

Again I didn't say Sony owns PDAF, but I assume... just an assumption... that they use their tech on the sensors they manufacture, especially if the competition's AF infringes upon their IP.

Sony holds patents regarding PDAF specifically regarding AF points that are usable up to the array edges.

Obviously, this is more complicated than I intended. I should have opened with... Does Nikon license their AF from Sony? My original thought was if Sony manufactured sensors would end up in Red cameras eventually.

[mercer]

57 minutes ago, JulioD said:

 

[mercer]

55 minutes ago, JulioD said:

[mercer]

Sorry there were duplicate posts for sone reason. 

[JulioD]

It’s just not how it works.  Sony semi sells and DESIGNS sensors.  They don’t hold back tech from any customer who is willing to pay.  They also do business with Sony direct competitors.
 

They all co-operate a lot more than us consumers realise   

Think of them as a seperate company to Sony cameras.  

[mercer]

1 hour ago, Eric Calabros said:

I'm not sure pixel shield PDAF IP is totally owned by Sony, since Nikon has a lot of patents related to that technique. Of course many cross licencing is happening in this industry. Dual gain was invented by Aptina, now part of ONsemi, which doesn't provide sensor for any of Japanese ILC makers, but everybody is using the tech. However if they want to add AF capabilities to RED, I don't think they would use pixel shield technique, cause it degrades image quality a little bit (the shielded pixel has lower S/N ratio than the rest of the pixels). Dual pixel and quad pixel is the way to go. Nikon has some interesting patents about that too. People put too much emphasis on sensor license fees. The fees are not really a big deal. The fab costs is. 

Thank you for this reply! Good points regarding DPAF. I agree about licensing fees vs fab costs which is one of the reasons I was wondering if Red would have Sony sensors eventually. I can only assume that customers get quantity discounts with sensors.

[mercer]

1 hour ago, JulioD said:

It’s just not how it works.  Sony semi sells and DESIGNS sensors.  They don’t hold back tech from any customer who is willing to pay.  They also do business with Sony direct competitors.
 

They all co-operate a lot more than us consumers realise   

Think of them as a seperate company to Sony cameras.  

I understand that, thanks. This wasn't the intent of my original musing, but since we're here I'll ask...

Do you think it's cheaper for Nikon to implement their tech, say AF, into a Sony manufactured sensor, or is it cheaper for Nikon to license Sony's version?

[EspenB]

10 hours ago, JulioD said:

Yes you can by doing a minor tweak and then applying for a new patent.  Pharma companies do this all the time just changing the delivery method for the same drug.  
 

I don’t agree with the practice, but it’s naive to think this patent runs out when the new one RED just posted sounds awfully similar. 
 

“A 2018 study by Robin Feldman, a professor at the University of California Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco, found that 78 percent of new drug patents between 2005 and 2015 were for existing drugs.”

https://undark.org/2021/06/16/how-patent-extensions-keep-some-drug-costs-high/

 

The new patent is only for the specific tweak, not the old stuff.

Like I said, evolving CD into Blu-Ray doesn't prolong the patent for CD.

[EspenB]

3 hours ago, mercer said:

I understand that, thanks. This wasn't the intent of my original musing, but since we're here I'll ask...

Do you think it's cheaper for Nikon to implement their tech, say AF, into a Sony manufactured sensor, or is it cheaper for Nikon to license Sony's version?

It's perfectly unclear here what kind of Sony sensors Nikon use or to what extent any modifications are made by Sony sensor engineers or team Nikon themselves. And neither will tell you the truth.

[Ilkka Nissila]

3 hours ago, mercer said:

I understand that, thanks. This wasn't the intent of my original musing, but since we're here I'll ask...

Do you think it's cheaper for Nikon to implement their tech, say AF, into a Sony manufactured sensor, or is it cheaper for Nikon to license Sony's version?

Economies of scale would benefit the cost of producing more samples of the same design, so if considering the combined economies of Nikon and Sony, likely it would be cheaper to produce the same sensor for both Nikon and Sony cameras. But, there is the brand identity thing, and Nikon want to do their own thing so e.g. the 45 MP sensor that Nikon use in the Z8, Z9, Z7 series and D850 is not used in any Sony camera. Nikon could be doing that because they want to maintain their own brand identity or they want specific features that Sony do not want in their cameras, such as the ISO 64 which was developed first for the D810 and D850, and Nikon engineers interviewed by imaging resource felt it was the most significant thing they achieved, a true ISO 64. Originally this was implemented reportedly to allow sports photographers (e.g. in motorsports) to pan with slower shutter speeds without having to use an ND filter to get to the right shutter speed. But of course landscape and other photographers can also use it and benefit from the larger number of photons captured (increasing color sensitivity & tonal range), and for photographers who want to use very large apertures in bright sunlight as well. In those ISO 64 capable sensors the high ISO PDR seems to have experienced a slight drop compared to equal ISOs on the 36 MP sensor that had a base ISO of 100 (D800), as well as compared to some Sony models. So there is a tradeoff that Nikon wanted to make to achieve this base ISO and it's not a clear win for general-purpose use, rather it's useful for specific applications. I believe a part of the reduction of ISO was achieved by using a different color filter array (there are some published measurements on DPR and nikongear) which had a more flat blue curve maybe improving colour accuracy (?). Anyway this is an example of a feature which Nikon claims is their sensor designers' achievement. Of course, no one outside of Nikon and Sony know exactly how they work within their partnership, and this shouldn't really matter. Only how the cameras work for the users matters in the end.

[Davide DB]

18 hours ago, EspenB said:

Also, RED is run like a surf shop which now meets japanese corporate culture. What could go wrong.

hahahaha

[cpc]

20 hours ago, John Matthews said:

Redcode RAW was initially implemented in the early 2010s, but the filing was December 28th 2007. I imagine the patent will only last a few more years. This must have also played a role in the acquisition. Nikon will have a very short window to leverage it.

This might be premature. Red has a bunch of newer raw/compression related patents which are "continuation" of the old patents or merge a few of the old patents in a new one. E.g., 10531098 (issued 2020), 11076164 (issued 2021), 11503294 (issued 2022), 11818351 (issued 2023), etc. I have no knowledge of the legal implications of these, but won't be surprised one bit if they actually extend the in-camera raw compression monopoly.

[Clark Nikolai]

2 hours ago, cpc said:

 won't be surprised one bit if they actually extend the in-camera raw compression monopoly.

At some point both costs of SSDs will be so low and data transfer rates will be so high (Thunderbolt 4, etc.) that it won't matter much in practical terms if raw files are not compressed. I could see new cameras saving internally in uncompressed raw, (ProResRaw or uncompressed BRaw) which would not be subject to the patent.

At one time shooting HD was super expensive, now it's super cheap, the same with 4K and other things. If the cost of media is within the budget of a production, and the transfer times for copying the cards is short enough for the shooting schedule, then it doesn't matter.

[newfoundmass]

People keep talking about the patent, but I really don't think it is the reason behind the purchase at all.

Nikon wants to get into the video/cinema market. Their recent releases are evidence of that. They have very little chance though of getting a foothold in the market on their own. Purchasing RED, even though it lags behind ARRI and probably even Sony, makes a lot more sense than creating something on their own from scratch that will likely fail.

Major blockbusters and shows are filmed using RED cameras. Tons of independent films are shot on RED cameras. It has a loyal user base. Those are reasons enough for any company looking to get into the cinema/video market to purchase them instead of starting from scratch. Will it work? Who knows, but it's a better building block than what they had to work with. Better to own the company whose camera was used to film blockbusters like Guardians of the Galaxy and Aquaman than to release a cinema camera that will see minimal adoption,

[Django]

I think if we look at the Komodo which is around the price of a C70, uses RF mount and has AF, it gives us basis to speculate that future entry level RED cams with Nikon tech and Asian manufacturing could venture out of the high-end cine market and compete with Canon & Sony C/FX line.  

And reverse wise Nikon high-end cams will benefit from Redcode and other ciné savoir-faire like color science, anamorphic support, open gate etc.. it also finally gives Nikon users an upgrade path to a cine line and creates a more viable ecosystem. 

That is great news for consumers and further increases my desire to switch to Nikon. 

[Emanuel]

1 hour ago, Django said:

(...)

That is great news for consumers and further increases my desire to switch to Nikon. 

Consumers? Prosumers? Or craftsmen/professional players? ; )

 

I usually tend to mistrust of corporate goodwill... Really : )

Jim and Jarred have been camera passionate manufacturers. Who else now?

[Emanuel]

*passionate camera manufacturers (pardon my dyslexia : D) but passionate manufacturers, well, you can guess it will hardly be forgotten and found so soon again ;- )