Digital BW, The Print

> From: Adam Maas
>
> This depends on the sensor. Some of the newer DSLR's do have the filter
> integrated (I believe the 20d is this way) while most older DSLR's have
> a seperate filter which can be removed.

You're confusing two filters. The Bayer pattern filter, which is what gives
each sensor its color, is built right on the chip, as part of the
semiconductor fabrication process. Remember, the individual pixels are on a
grid of only a few microns (about 7um in the 20D, much smaller in
point-and-shoot digicams), and the filter itself is much thinner than
plastic food wrap. There's no way they could ever fabricate that as a
separate filter and then align it to the chip.

The filter you're thinking of is the anti-alias and IR block filter. This is
a solid glass filter, not patterned, that fits over the chip. I'm told that
in the 10D it's glued on, but in many cameras it isn't. That's the filter
that gets removed in order to make the camera sensitive to IR.

--

Ciao,               Paul D. DeRocco
Paul                mailto:pderocco@...