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Make Your Own Digital Camera ISO Test Target

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the cool-ideas dept.

dpnow writes I run a digital photography site and came across what I thought might be an interesting story. It's about a Cornell university researcher that has reverse-engineered the design of the ISO 12233 resolution test target, used by all the best digital camera testers. These usually cost over $100 but a free pdf download of the target is available. Print it out on a good quality printer and you have your own ISO-spec test target so you can find out how good (or bad) your camera really is! "

4 of 139 comments (clear)

  1. Tied to the quality of your printer? by sdo1 · · Score: 4, Interesting
    so you can find out how good (or bad) your camera really is!

    Or so you can find out how good (or bad) your "good quality" printer is.

    -S

    --
    --- What parts of "shall make no law", "shall not be infringed", and "shall not be violated" don't you understand?
  2. Or.... by Halo- · · Score: 4, Interesting
    Or find out how crappy your printer is. Seriously, what do you think is more precise, the electronics in your cheap digital camera or the moving parts and alignment of your cheap printer? Curve dithering is one of the harder aspects of printing, this target seems to rely heavily on them.

    This is a fun toy to play with, but I'd trust professional reviews.

  3. Copyright... by kahei · · Score: 4, Interesting


    Now, there's interesting:

    Westin explains that the ISO specifications can be used without restriction for projects like his, though the copying of a commercially reproduced target is, of course, illegal.

    (see, I _did_ rtfa!) So, it's illegal to reproduce the image, but creating a new image from an exact description of the image is legal. Yet that _is_ what 'reproducing the image' is!

    The reason for this situation is that the image in question is very unusual, in that it has a freely-usable exact description in existance. But what if an exact (text) description of Mickey Mouse were made? You certainly wouldn't be allowed to create new images from it, and yet it's hard to see how Disney would own the rights to that description... hmm...

    --
    Whence? Hence. Whither? Thither.
  4. this helps me a lot by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I'm in a robotics lab working with a CMUcam. This should help us a lot. Those people whining that "real photographers dont use test charts" seem to neglect that some of us are trying to calibrate cameras for sensors and not just pretty pictures.

    thanks poster