October 27, 2003 Foveon, Inc., a technology leader in high-quality digital image capture, today announced the release of X3 Fill Light, a powerful new technology that
dramatically improves the quality of digital images affected by difficult lighting conditions. The technology is incorporated as a new software feature in the Sigma Photo Pro 2.0 application for the Sigma SD10 digital Single-Lens Reflex (SLR) camera.

The X3 Fill Light feature simulates the photographic method of "dodging and burning" adding extra light to shadow regions, while preserving highlight detail. It is a powerful method for simultaneously adjusting overexposed and underexposed areas of a digital image with a single simple control. The feature is bundled exclusively with the new Sigma SD10 digital SLR (Single-Lens Reflex) camera, which uses a Foveon X3 direct image sensor.

......................Original Image ............................X3 Fill Light applied.........


X3 Fill Light is designed for images taken under lighting conditions such as indoor-outdoor scenes, backlit portraits, or scenes with mixed lighting. Use of the X3 Fill Light feature creates natural-looking images that can be faithfully reproduced in a print.

"Challenging lighting conditions, such as backlighting from a window or subjects in front of snow, can result in disappointing images. The X3 Fill Light technology allows photographers to make excellent prints from poorly exposed images which otherwise would have been discarded due to poor lighting and exposure." said Eric Zarakov, Foveon's vice president of marketing.

X3 Fill Light is implemented as a simple slider interface that allows the user to control the amount of correction. By increasing the amount of X3 Fill Light, the brightness and contrast of the shadow regions are increased to add visibility into areas that have been underexposed. Simultaneously, the contrast in highlight regions is automatically increased and the brightness is adjusted to avoid saturation.

The Sigma Photo Pro 2.0 software, incorporating Foveon's X3 Fill Light, is shipping with the Sigma SD10 digital Single-Lens Reflex (SLR) camera from Sigma Corporation (www.sigma-photo.co.jp).


About Foveon
Since its establishment in 1997, Foveon has focused on developing image-capture technologies and products for digital cameras. The most recent innovation by Foveon is the Foveon X3’…’‚‚® direct image sensor, the world's first direct image sensor that captures red, green and blue light at every pixel location.

Foveon is a privately held company. Investors include: National Semiconductor Inc., Synaptics Inc., New Enterprise Associates, and Franklin Templeton Investments.


Press and Media Inquiries:
Foveon, Inc.
www.foveon.com
Steve Rosenbaum, S.I.R. Marketing Communications, Inc.,
Tel: 631-757-5665; Fax: 631-757-5448
Email: sir@sironline.com

Sigma Corporation
Kazuto Yamaki, Sigma Corporation,
Tel: 011-81-3-3480-1431
Email: kyamaki@sigma-photo.co.jp