Regardless of the field, there always seems to be at least one name that represents "the best" - a person, or a company, or something else that provides the highest level of quality and performance that others strive to meet.

For automobiles, it's names like Rolls-Royce and Ferrari. For timepieces, Rolex. For jewelry, Tiffany.

In sports, you can talk about Ruth and Gehrig. Or Jordon and Dr. J. Or now, Phelps.

For fashion, it's Gucci or Armani (unless it's Project Runway). Violins? Stradivarius. Paintings? Picasso (although personally, I'm partial to Seurat).

Of course for imaging, it's Kodak.

But since imaging is such a broad area, there are other names that take on a special significance here as well. In the manufacture of cameras, for example, there is one name that has stood out for over 80 years as representing the highest levels of quality and craftsmanship - helping to make photography not just a science, but an art.

Leica.

Leica I camera

Leica actually invented the 35mm camera with the introduction of the Leica I, a handheld camera that was compact, convenient to use, and very reliable. Instead of working with bulky equipment, photographers now had the freedom to carry a high-quality camera with them almost anywhere, completely changing photojournalism and bringing stories to life in a way not possible before. In the 1950's, Leica introduced the M3, the first in a series of M cameras that are famous for their simplicity, and that work with a series of lenses legendary for their sharpness and quality. Leica cameras essentially become an "extension" of the photographer's hand and eye, allowing them the freedom to capture what they saw, rather than worry about how to actually take the picture.

LEICA M8.2 camera

In 2006, Leica brought their flagship M-series cameras into the digital age with the launch of the M8 - a digital rangefinder camera compatible with almost every M-series lens ever manufactured. And to make sure the image quality from this camera lived up to the demanding expectations of their customers, Leica built it around the best image sensor they could get.

One from Kodak.

Two years later, Leica has now made another breakthrough announcement - a new flagship product that is helping to establish a new era for the company.

Want to guess whose image sensor they are using?

KODAK KAF-37500 Image Sensor

The new KODAK KAF-37500 Image Sensor was developed specifically for use with the new Leica S2. Incorporating Kodak's latest CCD advancements (the same core technology that was used to develop our new 50 million pixel image sensor), the sensor clearly provides outstanding image quality, excellent color, and superb performance. But we added a few other things too - like microlenses to increase the sensor's light sensitivity, and an IR-absorbing glass in the sensor package. To say nothing of laying the pixels out in a completely new optical format for photography - one that is over 50% larger than traditional 35mm film.

As Leica moves to develop a new generation of digital products, there is one thing they can't afford to compromise - the quality that has been their hallmark for years. For the M8, they protected that legacy by working with KODAK Image Sensors, resulting in a camera that provides the image quality for which Leica has become famous. And for the S2, we were happy - and honored - to be able to work with them again.

Leica is known as being one of the best, a reputation they got over many years by working with the best.

Especially for their image sensors.

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Remember when watching TV meant leaving time to let tubes warm up, banging the side of the set to make sure everything was working right, and then adding some aluminum foil to the antenna to try to make the picture a little better? When I was growing up in Buffalo, NY, if you used just the right amount of aluminum foil, shaped just the right way, on a day with just the right weather, you might be able to get Channel 12 in Erie, PA - so you could watch the Bills play at home on a Sunday (because back then, all home games were blacked out).

We've come a long way - aluminum foil has been replaced by cable, satellite dishes, and DVDs (and Blu-Ray); the tubes are all integrated circuits; and screens have grown from standard definition to 1080p, 16:9 widescreen displays. All in the search for better pictures - more natural, more lifelike, more realistic.

The move to HD resolutions has been a big part of that change - at 1080p resolution, televisions now have about 6 times the screen resolution of a standard resolution sets That's one of the reasons TV pictures look so much better today, especially on large screen sets - with so many more pixels on the screen, details in the image are sharper and more realistic. Just image how fast Golden Wheels Dubenion would have looked in HD.

But just having more pixels isn't enough - it's also important to know how each of those pixels perform. For a display, that's things like contrast ratio and refresh rate. But for the image sensor used to capture the image, it's understanding things like dynamic range, frame rate, image smear, and color fidelity. The specific requirements will vary by application - what's needed in a professional camera is more than what's needed in a consumer camcorder. But understanding these requirements up front is really important - otherwise, you end up with a sensor that has the right number of pixels, but the wrong overall performance.

The easiest way to deal with this is to develop the best technology you can - to meet the needs of the most demanding markets, and exceed expectations in others.

Last year, Kodak introduced a new technology platform for Interline Transfer CCDs that incorporates Kodak's best practices in image sensor design. This new platform reduces pixel size by almost 50%, doubles frame rate, and significantly improves image quality compared to the previous generation of technology. At that time, we also announced the first product to use this new technology - a 1k x 1k sensor targeted to industrial markets. Now, we're announcing the second - aimed right at HD applications.

The new device - the KODAK KAI-02150 Image Sensor - fully meets the 1080p standard for image capture: 1920 x 1080 pixels, progressive scan (that's the "p" in 1080p), and 60 frame per second readout (which is actually twice the frame rate of standard 1080p signals). Plus, it has the dynamic range, imaging performance, and color fidelity needed for high quality video - whether for broadcast or applied markets like medical imaging or traffic monitoring. And all at a size (2/3" optical format) that matches with lenses commonly used in these applications.

Developing the right technology base at the start makes it easy to leverage it across a number of markets. We've now announced two products based on this new technology platform, and might even have some more news about it before too long. But for now, we're pretty excited about being able to bring this new technology to HD markets.

And keeping the aluminum foil in the kitchen where it belongs

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