[iNicole]

Hi,

I heard that many new companies are going to have mirrorless ff cameras with curved sensors, and I'm just wondering, will normal lenses work with curved sensors (via an adapter or something) or is there not chance for that happening?
Because I'm hoping to buy a mirrorless ff when it comes out (2014?) and I want to know if I should sell some of my lenses...

Thanks,
Nicole

[bobpur]

Probably they will have dedicated lenses because of the small distance between the lens and sensor, or possibly the lenses will
not be removable like the Sony.
Just another marketing ploy like the almost useless without a viewfinder ones already made. They must thing that because people use
a lot of phones making a camera that looks like one it will sell ! Waiting to see how long it is before a camera will have a phone in it .

[boriscleto]

Might as well ask if your lenses would be compatible with a honeycomb sensor...

Sony patents honeycomb image sensor | Photo Rumors

[Louicio]

I already have an imaging device with a curved sensor, its called a retina.

[LowVoltage]

Might as well ask if your lenses would be compatible with a honeycomb sensor...

...well?!

[ElJamoquio]

Hi,

I heard that many new companies are going to have mirrorless ff cameras with curved sensors, and I'm just wondering, will normal lenses work with curved sensors (via an adapter or something) or is there not chance for that happening?
Because I'm hoping to buy a mirrorless ff when it comes out (2014?) and I want to know if I should sell some of my lenses...

Thanks,
Nicole

You could force some solution to work with an adapter but the results would likely be poor.

I'd wait until the first curved sensor camera before I'd even think about selling any of my lenses. I doubt it'll happen in 2014 but we'll see.

[JinDesu]

I cannot imagine your initial statement that many companies are going to go curved full frame sensors soon. Full frame sensors are very expensive, and are the reason why full frame cameras are expensive. To imagine that full frame curved sensors are going to come out and make your current lenses obsolete is not likely.

At best, curved sensors might come out in much smaller sizes with fixed lenses (as another member has stated).

[lytrytyr]

Curved "sensors" are nothing new.
Kodak used to make box cameras,
with simple lenses,
where the film track was curved,
essentially making a cylindrical "film plane."
There were two advantages.
The curvature matched the film
to the lens's field curvature,
at least in one direction,
and the curve helped to keep the film located very precisely,
like the vacuum back on some Zeiss cameras.

[Fogel70]

I don't think curved sensors will work very well on ILC, unless the curve on the sensor can vary with focal length. And if it is possible to vary the curve on the sensor it will probably be possible to make it flat too, and then old types of lenses would be possible to use. But I don't see this happening anytime soon on large sensor cameras.

Otherwise a solution like Ricoh GXR lensor modules would be needed, where each sensor use different curve to be optimized for each specific lens.

[MMVIII]

I don't think curved sensors will work very well on ILC, unless the curve on the sensor can vary with focal length. And if it is possible to vary the curve on the sensor it will probably be possible to make it flat too, and then old types of lenses would be possible to use. But I don't see this happening anytime soon on large sensor cameras.

Otherwise a solution like Ricoh GXR lensor modules would be needed, where each sensor use different curve to be optimized for each specific lens.

Agreed. Methinks this is a far too theoretical question to base any decision in present on it. I can not imagine curved sensors will become first choice for interchangeable lens systems. To correct a lens to a flat focal plane may be a challenge, but to do that for a curved one does not give you any advantage in lens design. As far as I am aware the field curvature - thus the needed radius of the curve - for newtonian lenses is directly related to focal length. I would guess that this might get only more complex for other optical designs in photographic lenses and I really have a hard time to imagine a one-fits-all curved sensor which would be necessary for an interchangeable system. Of course, as Fogel70 said, things might be different for closed systems, like the Ricoh "lensors".

[mikemike]

I doubt any lens designed to focus light on a flat sensor plane would work well with a curved sensor. A curved sensor should make it possible to make high quality, cheap, fixed focal length lenses though if you can fit the curve of the sensor to match the lens instead of the lens to match the sensor. I don't think semiconductor manufacturing is very good at making curved chips.

[Racer X 69]

I already have an imaging device with a curved sensor, its called a retina.

[wanderography]

Just another marketing ploy like the almost useless without a viewfinder ones already made. They must thing that because people use
a lot of phones making a camera that looks like one it will sell ! Waiting to see how long it is before a camera will have a phone in it .

still dont understand this viewfinder debate. when not using a viewfinder you are not fixed to eye level shots, reason why shooting from the hip became so popular in the hey days of photography. oh look we have live view now, no more wasting film for a few hopeful waist level shots, no more having to buy an expensive right angle view finder (which are worse than looking through a view finder). I have 20/20 vision and I still get dizzy looking through my MX viewfinder for too long (my main film camera I use for photography school), so your gonna tell me the little view finders you find on DSLRs are an advantage over live view? I honestly believe internet photographers are more in love with the equipment and the act of taking a photo than actually taking photographs, hence the lifting to the eye, you fill incomplete without it and can't comprehend the advantages of live view over the view finder. Like most people who use the K-01 say, they tend to shoot lower to the ground instead of eye level and tend to experiment with composition and angles a lot more. I like to take long exposures on film, sometimes if I have my K-01 on me I'll shoot the image first to see how it looks, I had to buy one of those insanely priced pentax-a right angle finders so I would be able to recreate the compistions and angles I can hit using the K-01's live view, now live view with a tilting screen is a whole other story.

[jogiba]

Probably they will have dedicated lenses because of the small distance between the lens and sensor, or possibly the lenses will
not be removable like the Sony.
Just another marketing ploy like the almost useless without a viewfinder ones already made. They must thing that because people use
a lot of phones making a camera that looks like one it will sell ! Waiting to see how long it is before a camera will have a phone in it .

Samsung announces EK-GC100 Galaxy Camera with Android Jelly Bean, massive 4.8-inch display, 21x zoom, WiFi and 4G connectivity (hands-on)

Use Skype to make video phone calls.

[fisheye freak]

Existing lenses will not work with curved sensors. Mind you, the advantages of curved sensors will make ALL the old glass nearly worthless. Many elements are used to correct for flat field-will not be needed anymore. Spherical aberration will be almost cured. Corner and central performance will be the same and ironically, sharpest performance will be wide open.All elements can be spherical, reducing costs from asphericals. If the sensor is made a bit oversized, algorithms should be able to correct for a bit of shake. Kind of crazy to have to put on an adapter to de-correct field flattening.
From what I gather, a curved sensor will tolerate a 3x zoom. When the time comes, small motors will be used to change the curvature of the sensor to allow wider ranging zooms that maintain super sharpness. This is already being used in astronomy for professional rigs, but just starting to hit the amateur market. It is called adaptive optics.The sky is the limit here (pun intended.) The only serious limitations will be the size of the front element for raw light gathering(same as with astronomy) and how sensitive the sensors can get to keep them as small as possible to maintain great results. I would hazard a guess that when the time comes, a FF sized sensor will give results comparable to the old 4x5 cameras, but with extreme ease of use and very compact, except for extreme sports lenses.
In all realism, the revolution will be as radical as digital photography eventually smothering 35mm film. At first film killed digital, but with the inexorable improvements, it was inevitable that digital was going to hit the magical resolution(megapixels) that made film obsolete. Just as the old 35mm lenses are not ideal for digital(to do with the rear nodal point being often too close to the sensor plane), current digital lenses will just not do justice to the advances that curved sensors will bring with time.
At first the technology will be expensive, but in time, it will be commonplace to have adaptive sensors with megazooms of 50x and greater for cheap consumer cameras with truly professional results. 35mm size sensor will be all that any pro would ever need to use, even for some building sized billboard.
Please wake me up when it all becomes reality.