Slashdot Mirror
When 8 Megapixels Just Isn't Enough
squidfrog writes "AP has an interesting article on a half photochemical, half digital process to produce 2.6-gigabyte photographs at 'more than a thousand times the size and resolution of those generated by a typical digital camera for consumers.' 'A vacuum pump ensures that the film is flat to within one-thousandth of an inch, and a dual-mirror device keeps the film parallel to the lens. Sand bags strapped to the camera and tripod prevent the machine from shifting, and a reinforced aluminum cradle maintains the parts of the camera in perfect alignment.' The images are apparently higher resolution than can be reproduced on available printing technology (5' by 10'), but the designer hopes to use an 18' by 36' digital display wall to reproduce the images at their best possible resolution in the future. The camera has apparently only been utilized for landscape photography thus far."
There are professional medium-format cameras with digital sensor. They do more than 20Mpx at $10-15k. I'm waiting for the day when I can afford one of them...
Theoretically there's no reason why a camera mount couldn't be designed to do the same thing as the clockwork rotation of the old system. The camera would take a sequence of shots for subsequent stitching together. People do this already, don't they?
You left out the fun part. The old system traversed so slowly that it was possible for a kid at the start of the lineup to run around the back of the bleachers and get in the shot more than once. You could hear the running steps every time this exercise in educational hubris was undertaken. No, not me, I was a good boy. Not. Besides, I was too near to the masters (that's teachers for non-British Grammar school pupils) to get away with it. Alwasys check these pictures for twins!
ummm ... its since been pointed out to me that my bookmark for "The Camera Van" has been borked/hijacked by a spycam outfit ... the site I was referring to is this one...
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
(no, I'm not implying that these photographs are resolved to somthing on the same order as the wavelengths of the light being recorded, I'm just saying thery're out there in the same freaky territory).
Actually, it's not. The effective sensor size is about ~7umx7um, which is very like the 8umx8um of top range digital SLRs. So not much gain in resolution here (resolution is number of pixels per mm, not number of pixels per frame). And then he throws away a lot of the colour information and reproduces it from memory (!).
Then you have the problems of dust on the negative, aliasing of the scanning process, what I imaging are long exposure times (as the film speed is ASA 40), diffration effects, optical imperfection in the lens, and you start to wonder why.
Get a grip. This is a story about some schmuck who's managed to reinvent a view camera, while admitting he's well aware of all the existing view cameras. There is absolutely ZERO innovation here - many photogeeks have built themselves view cameras (I have) and you can even buy KITS to do so. Some of us have gone further and played with holography, substantially more technically demanding than what this bozo's done.
One gigapixel is one gigapixel. Perhaps you meant to ask about the size on disk? The Max Lyons picture (recently exhibited) chomps up 2,068,654,055 bytes of diskspace somewhere. He achieves a LOT with affordable means, and is a also a wonderful photographer. I never tire of that site.
IMAX is such a brilliant form of cinema but it's really restricted due to film costs. The length of the film (Not in minutes but kilometers) is also a problem that drives up cost. (The Human Boday which just came out on IMAX recently is 12 km long)
If we could digitize the process it would allow for widespread IMAZ screen implimentation. However, due to the colossal massive-ness of the screen you need some hiiiiiiigh ass resolution. You would also need some 30 fps out of the camera, so maybe film will be essential to IMAX in the cmoing years, but we can get there!
I'm sure data storage isn't a problem, but resolution and projection are. I'm not calling for implimentation tomorrow, but the digitization of all formats benefits the art, so maybe a 10-year goal?
The major advantage is cutting out the cost for the film (which is high) and the cost of processing the film. (Also high)
Just think of IMAX pr0n!!! Minka can truly be the number one, asian, big-boob queen.
hmmm
He'd better be careful about the specifications on his display wall, or he'll end up in the same boat as Spinal Tap did.
"Dude, I got an unbelievable deal from this guy who's going to build us an 18' by 36' display wall! This is going to make a great backdrop at our concerts!"
I have done a fair amount of slow shutter stuff with my 300D and I don't see any problems with the results.
I have some photos on my site that I took with a borrowed Nikon D100, a top-of-the-line Digital SLR. You can see the gallery I'm talking about here. Virtually all of the nighttime photos had to be retouched in Photoshop, because they had tiny specks of color in the dark areas. I thought there was something wrong with the camera, or maybe just dust on the lens, but after talking to other digital photographers, I learned that this is a common symptom of long shutter speeds (I'm talking on the order of several seconds here) with digital cameras.
The specs are not visible in the images on my site because (a) I Photoshopped them out, and (b) they were probably too tiny to be seen when the images are scaled down so small. However, in the original, full-size versions of those photos, the specs are clearly visible. They look like stars, but they appear over top of dark areas where stars shouldn't be, like bushes or behind buildings.
Like woodworking? Build your own picture frames.