Slashdot Mirror
Prototype System Blocks Digital Cameras
lee1 writes "Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have completed a prototype
device that can block digital
cameras. The team in the Interactive and Intelligent Computing division of
the Georgia Tech College of Computing used off-the-shelf equipment
(camera-mounted sensors, lighting equipment, a projector and a computer) to
scan for, find and neutralize digital cameras. The system works by looking for
the reflectivity and shape of the image sensors and saturating them with a
thin beam of visible white light.
The principal applications are expected to be protecting areas such as
government buildings and trade shows against clandestine photography, stopping
unauthorized amateur photography of, for example, shopping-mall Santas
(really!) and defeating video copying in theaters.
The countermeasure: film." Sounds perfect for copyrighted public spaces.
Does it just "block" the cameras, or does it destroy them?
Either way, I hope this comes in a personal unit. It'd be a nice way to avoid being photographed at family gatherings.
-:sigma.SB
WARN
THERE IS ANOTHER SYSTEM
Couldn't this have terrible issues of misusage? Government could block off any area they desire ... no pictures allowed (we could never uncover conspiracies then). It sounds like it's a technology for the power hungary.
In the UK many fixed speed cameras are digital - as are the automatic number plate (license plate for you americans) recognition for the congestion charging zone in London.
Nothing to see here, move along...
My other sig is funny.
I can't wait until they blind a few people testing this. I might want to go to concerts without my contacts or glasses.
Honestly, I know they will try to make sure that they don't accidently get someone's glasses. However, when some boffins tried to create an active cellphone jammer for planes, it coded a guy by stopping his pacemaker during the tests. Doesn't make me feel real snazzy about the idea.
In God we trust, all others require data.
"The system works by looking for the reflectivity and shape of the image-producing sensors used in digital cameras."
This means that spies could just design and use cameras which look non-suspicious by the sensors. And then again, what will happen when common glasses have integrated cameras in them?
As usual, this kind of systems can only block the legitimate public (which tries not to break any laws), while the truly dangerous people just use more advanced technology.
Sounds like a burglar's best friend to me. No more looping video.
(end of post)
Expect to see this system installed at EVERY amusement park, and every landmark, and every tourist attraction.
The Powers That Be are determined to make sure that ANY information the masses have access to is paid for.
So... SLR-style cameras and cameras using CMOS sensors are invisible to the detector. Nice.
After seeing a lady manhandled and her camera destroyed at a prince concert. I can now see something like this being very profitable. Most concerts don't allow cameras. But people sneek them in all the time. especially camera phones.
until they send a white laser beam into your eye glasses.
I imagine that based on the description of the detection system it should be possible to come up with a lens filter for digital cameras, that will let the light onto the CCD, but will scatter the light that is reflected back, thus negating this detector technology.
You can't handle the truth.
Okay, so CCD's are retroreflective...do CMOS sensors have the same property?
This whole thing seems way too dangerous and impractical to even think about commercial use yet.
Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
So basically, if you still want to be a photographic snoop, use a box camera.
I'm not tense. I'm just terribly, terribly, alert.
Right, because someone willing to settle for a grainy, shaky copy of the movie with theater sounds and all to watch on their (at best) home theater was really going to see the movie in-theater in the first place.
I know this guy wants to sell the technology to theaters, but his statement isn't even plausible.
This might be practical for simply preventing happy snappers from taking photos of things you'd rather not, but I fail to see how this will prevent determined people from getting the pictures. For starters, a long tight baffle attached to the lens of a conceiled camera would be very difficult for the system to pick up on, *and* it would be very difficult for the light beam to get to the lense as well.
The more practical and up-front approach would be to x-ray everybody and take their cameras off them.
The countermeasure: film.
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
A friend of mine has a camera with a few pixels shot out by a laser. Wasn't particularly powerful, but was a bit more than needed to temporarily blind a camera.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Then someone will come along with a similar device that targets the blocker. Or a proper mirror setup...
"No one likes working in a hamster wheel, and your shop smells of cedar shavings from here." - TaleSpinner
Haven't read TFA, but:
The technology is already out in the field (mostly wielded by PIs trying to spot hidden cameras and - much differently - by certain infantry units to spot enemy snipers). I imagine the real breakthrough here is not the detection mechanism, but in the mechanisms involved in the "blinding" process.
"can't run, can't hide...oh well, return 0"
If this system is used to disable digital cameras, and this system becomes widespread, then will we see a resurgence and acceleration in the development of film cameras.
Don't throw away your old Canon/Mamiya/Nikon yet!
Of course, this will work until owning analog cameras is made illegal.
when CCDs die.
"Look Lois, the two symbols of the Republican Party: an elephant, and a fat white guy who is threatened by change."
Your scramble suit is ready.
You just need to buy one of these and use it against itself to neutralize the digital cameras dectector.
So, the "blinding" process uses "visible white light". I don't know about anybody else, but if I were in a theater watching a movie, and kept seeing little flashes of white light comming from the direction of the screen, it would be a pretty big distraction - Kind of like when kids bring in laser pointers. tdk
I always thought that the idea of a camera detector required a little more suspension of disbelief than usual.
I guess Gerry Anderson is now vindicated.
-- 3 events that reshaped the world in the 20th century: WW1, WW2, and WWW
So then you use a film camera with no CCD and still get the intel.
If the light is visible, just take two pictures:
This method may require multiple pictures in order to facilitate secondary image processing to remove images of your hand.
Alternate method: Substitute raised middle finger for hand
I'm guessing that I could hide a camera from this device the same way I hide it from people. A fine mesh (like nylon stocking) in front of the lens renders it non-shiny enough that someone can stare at quite a large lens without realizing that it is a lens.
... call the lawyers. Don't try to tell me that the system is designed not to do that. All kinds of things happen that aren't supposed to be able to happen. At some point, it just boils down to who has the best lawyer.
If the device has enough power to saturate a ccd, it has enough power to saturate someones eyeball. So, someone is temporarily blinded or startled. They trip
-
SLR Camera (that's acknowledged in the article) --- the sensor isn't revealed except during the actual taking of the picture, the rest of the time there's a mirror in the way.
-
Ordinary digicam, but use the optical viewfinder and keep your hand over the lens until you take the picture.
-
If they're using wavelength X for the detection process, just use a filter that blocks that wavelength and work in black and white (perfectly acceptable for most trade show spying)
-
Polarising filter will probably screw things up.
-
Lens Hood would mean the detection system would need to be on-axis.
-
Wear old CCDs as jewelery.
ianNew System to Counter Photo and Video Devices
Posted by ScuttleMonkey on 19:01 19th September, 2005
from the movie-studios-rejoice dept.
Incongruity writes "News.com is reporting that a team from Georgia Tech has developed and demoed a system that actively searches for and effectively blinds cameras and camcorders within a 10 meter radius." From the article: "In this system, a device bathes the region in front of it with infrared light. When an intense retroreflection indicates the presence of a digital camera lens, the device then fires a localized beam of light directly at that point. Thus, the picture gets washed out."
If it's not a dupe, it's certainly a very close article, which should occur in the "Related Links section". Yay! for my l33t search skillz.
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
If these realy work it will be the end of speed and red light cameras.
I can see these being mounted on the front and rear dashboards of every car.
If I cover my lens with ceran wrap or a plastic bag...then what?
Could you PLEASE.. please, please, please, please, please.. PRETTY PLEASE WITH SUGAR ON TOP make it legal to use cell phone jammers in movie theatres?
:-(
It's possible right now but it violates a few U.S. federal communication acts.
Not always. A digital SRL doesn't have to have a mirror between the lens and the sensor.
If an electronic viewfinder is used instead of an optical one the sensor
is in play all the time.
Might also work as a countermeasure against the increasing permanent surveilance we're coming under.
If there were a device that disables CCTV, and it's cheap enough to buy and light enough to carry, I know I would have one with me and switched on all the time. I'm sick and tired of being treated like a (potential) criminal "for my own protection".
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
As described, this system will not work against *serious* digital cameras -- digital SLRs. In these cameras the CCD sensor (or, nowadays, more often the CMOS sensor) is hidden behind a mirror till the moment of the shot when the mirror flips away for a fraction of a second.
Not to mention that in order to work the system will need to constantly scan everything with, presumably, beams of visible light. I doubt this will work out well at most places...
Kaa
Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots.
they'd come up with a portable way to block fucking cellphones.
ah.clem
"Life is not magic." Dr. Ron Weiss - "If we don't play God, who will?" Dr. James Watson
1: Person 1 aims digital camera at 'forbidden' target.
2: Blocking device directs beam at camera.
3: Person 1 sees bright light in viewfinder, gives thumbs-up.
4: Person 2, standing a few feet away, whips up second camera and takes picture.
5: Profit!
And I'm sure somebody smart enough could devise a simple device to cover up a camera's CCD until an instant before the picture was taken. It could be called something like a 'shutter'...
You must think in Russian.
Okay.. i just read through all the +4 comments, didnt bother to RTFA
but.. this says "DIGITAL CAMERAS"
uhh... FILM!
they still exist right?!?!
LONG LIVE THE ANALOG HOLE
The More Knowledge you have the Luckier you Get- J.R. Ewing
A prototype...yeah right. Come on, give this some thought...could this really work?
Their cameras would first have to see the lens of your camera. With some trivial protection they would have to have their camera lenses virtually anywhere you would take a picture. Then, they would have to diferenciate between your camera lens, and say for example the lens of your eyeglasses. Of course someone could just make a camera that looks like the human eye behind glasses.
Finally a countermeasure for those pesky speeding-ticket cameras that plague my city!!!! Down with the 60km/h (~37mph) limit!!!
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
The article linked in timothy's little sidenote is from January 2005 -- 18 months ago. It's no longer restricted, and hasn't been for a while. Just because you hear it on the Internet doesn't mean it's true.
I mod down pyramid schemes in sigs.
Place it at the back of a 6" tube and unless the blocker is in a very narrow apeture, it is not going to see the camera nor is it going to do anything but shine on the outside of the tube if it did.
And then there are....
multiple cameras- which one is real.
telescopes
this idea is a waste of money and time.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
This one ranks pretty high up on the "PhD idiot" scale. What I mean is that it continually amazes me, working in higher education, how people can be so educated yet know so little. The quote "An expert is someone who knows more and more about less and less until he knows everythig about nothing" really rings true. You see plenty of soltuions developed that completely and totally fail to account for the realities of the world.
In this case, the problem is the way that a CCD is detected. They say they do it by checking it's reflection propreties. According to the article CCDs are retroflective, meaning they send light back to it's source, they don't scatter it. Ok fine but you think that will work reliably? Even if you get it so a system doesn't generate false positives (which will be a big problem, it's not like CCDs are unique in this property) what do you do when someone sticks a filter on their lense that changes the properties? I'm sure teh sense works fine when it's just a glass lense that does nothing but focus the light. I'm sure it doesn't work at all if you put the equivilant of mirror glass on the lense.
I don't see this going anywhere on a large scale, espically since it would be hell to make it pick up and deal with long range lenses. It's not hard (if a little expensive) to get a lense that gets good shots at 500+ metres. How do you deal with that?
Won't help you if your family picture takers use SLRs. No destruction, and not even blocking!
FTA:
"There are some caveats, according to Summet. Current camera-neutralizing technology may never work against single-lens-reflex cameras, which use a folding-mirror viewing system that effectively masks its CCD except when a photo is actually being taken."
Seems to make the technology a little useless. SLRs are cheap nowadays (um, relatively speaking) and many amateur photographers use them. I guess it only protects against small hidden digital cams.
-Oliver / TreasureTunes.com
From article:
To get around these devices, just put a one-way glass lense cap on the camera, only the CCD can see through it, nothing can view inside the camera.
"The system works by looking for the reflectivity and shape of the image sensors and saturating them with a thin beam of visible white light."
Ah! my eyes!!!!
"Movie piracy is a $3 billion-a-year problem," Clawson maintains -- a problem said to be especially acute in Asia. "If someone videotapes a movie in a theater and then puts it up on the web that night or burns half a million copies to sell on the street - then the movie industry has lost a lot of in-theater revenue.
Will someone please explain the Accounting here? This kind of statement really bothers me because it assumes a few things. 1. That consumers of pirated content have the dispossable income to purchase the 'legit' consumable. 2. That if piracy were to go away they would buy the 'legit' stuff.
So, I would argue that their actual lost revenue is quite a bit less. For example, I'm semi-interested in watching the new X-Men movie. When presented with a choice, I can spend $16 to go to a theater and watch it with a significant other (plus $6 for popcorn), or I can purchase a semi-decent bootleg for $5. Which do I choose. Hmm.. A bootleg sounds really nice. However, in the absence of a bootleg do I go to the theater? No. Because the interest is not sufficient to justify the cost. When presented with the theater and a P2P acquired copy, which do I choose? Hmmm...Not to difficult either. But in the absence of P2P copy, do I go to the theater? No.
So, I again ask, how in the heck do they reconcile the lost revenue???
We're all hypocrites. We all have hidden parts, it's the contrast between them that make us more a hypocrite than others
this threw me off at first...
t a,0,2245506.photogallery?index=7),
Now I get it, it's $10 to get a photo of your kid frightened by Santa
(http://www.southflorida.com/events/sfl-scaredsan
but only if you're not taking the picture yourself...
A Minox B will only set you back about a C Note , look on Ebay for Minox , and film is fairly cheap.
For those NON--Film guys a Minox is a very high quality german SPY camera , the ones used in all those old movies.
Small , clandestine, and very good optics, far better than any small Digitals sport,
Makes this technology and all its research useless and a waste of money in my opinion.
...camera pictures can this disable at once? For example, if there's a 'celebrity' sighting and there's 10-20 paparazzi taking pictures or if there's more than one camera in a movie theatre trying to make an illegal copy of the movie, how many is too many?
...am I supposed to put something here?
False positives.
It's looking for "the reflectivity and shape of the image sensors", right? Well, just put a couple dozen of them on your hat. The system won't know what to target.
And that's that. Simple.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
> Not always. A digital SRL doesn't have to have a mirror between the lens and the sensor.
> If an electronic viewfinder is used instead of an optical one the sensor
> is in play all the time.
Who wants to use some crappy LCD instead of a decent optical sensor within a SRL camera?
- Garo
What if the system is turned on and it starts hitting the security cameras? Seems like this could backfire.
:-)
I mean... seems like you have a great test case to know if you can rob a place. Try you cell phone camera, if it doesn't work you know the "Smile, you're on camera" sign is bogus.
Slashdot.. where people join together in deliberate ignorance.
AFAIK the only DSLR that does this is the Oly E330.
Even then the mirror might be in place if you're viewing through the small image sensor.
If the light isn't coming from the right direction you might just end up with a bit of glare.
How does this distinguish between a camera and glasses?
I can't wait till they get sued for shining a dangerously bright light through through someones sunglasses.
Then, by definition, it is not a Single Lens Reflex camera anymore.
Got a source for that one?
I'd like to point out that there is a reason the light turns yellow for several seconds before it turns red. Sure, you can always speed up when it would be better to stop so you can make it through the intersection before it technically becomes illegal, but if the guy in front of you doesn't do the same, don't expect blame to fall on him.
I don't see where this system would prevent movie piracy. The piracy groups actively seek to recruit theater employees with authority so that they can film in empty theaters for higher quality releases. It would be trivial for them to find a theater where these systems could be disabled by friendly personnel.
120 characters for a sig? That's bloody useless.
Ooo man the floppy drive is broken. No wait. The computer is just upside down.
Is there such a thing as a DSLR with an electronic viewfinder? I'm a Canon guy, and AFAIK, none of the Canon's have that (certainly not the 3X0D's, 5D, 10D, 20D, 30D, or 1Ds. I don't think Nikon's do either. None of the Minolta DSLR's that _I_ have seen do, but I've only seen a few. And honestly, I haven't been in the market in the last 12 months.
:)
Just because they have an LCD on the back for previewing, settings, histogram, etc. doesn't mean you can use it to shoot with.
Pax -- Ob
If there was such a thing, I don't believe it would be an SLR anymore.
The request is very common though. I wish I had it sometimes. Then again, when I use digital P&S cameras I find the display impossible to view in most bright light situations. I think I prefer the view finder for this reason.. or a combination of the two.
It does seem that they could create a new prism that splits to the view finder, CCD & shutter, and a third CCD for the screen. I wonder what additional aberations this would create?
Slashdot.. where people join together in deliberate ignorance.
This would be a worthy addition to classrooms.
Eternity: will that be smoking, or non-smoking? I Corinthians 6:9-10
Photographers deal with bright light falling on the lens all the time--it's what lens shades are for. Furthermore, increasingly, modern cameras have smaller and smaller lenses and openings, making them harder to detect and block. there are lots of other technologies this will fail with.
Altogether, this kind of system is hopeless and pointless. People will be able to tke images anywhere--better get used to it.
One of these days blind people will see through the use of some implants connected to a digital camera, early prototypes are on the work (just search for it in /.)... will it means that blind people will have to suffer this stupid invention?
A hole gives a lot of reflection :)
You know... the ones that used film... and you'd take it to a developer...
Kind of like how my Abacuss is protected from Spyware
I'm probably missing someone else's comment on this, and it wouldn't be a problem likely in a movie theatre where in-house security cameras are less likely, but...
More and more security systems are digital these days. Such as in museums, office buildings, etc. If you tried to stop someone taking a picture in a museum, say, which is likely flooded with security cameras, how would it differentiate the in-house cameras from those brought in? You couldn't flood the room with a constant barrage of the lights proposed. There'd also be now realistic way (financially or logistically) to institute such a system in in a huge stadium (say, at concerts) or any outdoor event. Even the proposed trade show usage (despite the article's claim on ambient light) isn't very realistic, as most such events are held in extremely large, open and bright spaces. Yes, a simple, blind question, and I didn't spot anything in the article about this, but I'm tired. Is this really a feasible measure outside of a few very limited uses? Isn't it more than likely that places such as movie theatres will fight the forced usage of such systems, as well, unless those asking for them fund it?
Why does this need to be done? No, honestly, what good does it do to prevent people taking photos of government buildings? Or taking photos at trade shows for that matter? Once it can be seen, that's it, there's not any 'secrecy' or 'security' you're going to lose by having pictures taken of it.
Nathan's blog
In the industry, we call them "cigarette burns."
(splices single frame of male genitalia into slashdot)
It kinda irritates me that there are no pictures of this thing
Sigs are bad for your health
As far protecting stuff goes the fact that it will never work against digital-SLR cameras is lame. Flashing lights at every detected CCD - seems pretty lame, won't this drive more movie goers away from theatres than dodgy screeners ? In other news...epilectic eyeglass wearers...
I can just see the headlines now:
Girl wearing sequined top goes to movie theater. Transforms into human disco ball.
Retroreflective means the surface reflects light back to the source. Stop Signs, taillights, and some fire hydrants are retroreflective. So are to a lesser extent, disco-balls, diamonds, and ball-bearings. But CCD sensors? Why? And since when? I've never seen one behave that way. And in a photosensor you want one that COLLECTS and absorbs light, not reflects it or even worse, retroreflects it.
Now at some angles, CCD sensors are going to show a diffraction pattern, due to the spacing of the sensor elements, but only if they're out in the open, without a lens. Are these "Reasearchers" seeing this effect?
This article sure sounds like high-grade snake-oil!
I agree. Western and Peterson in Chicago is *more* dangerous because of the cameras. They have made the intersection much less predictable.
Before the cameras, some people would blast through the intersection a little late. It's such a large intersection, it takes a few seconds for traffic to clear. The problem to me was the clueless "drag racers" who would stomp on the gas the mili-second that the light turned green. The solution should have been a couple of seconds of four-way-red.
As a side note: my wife got a camera ticket at Western and Peterson for making a right on red. The ticket just said "proceding into the interection on a red light". There was no fighting it either, our request for a hearing was turned down. It's on *my* record now because the car is in my name.
The system works by looking for the reflectivity and shape of the image sensors and saturating them with a thin beam of visible white light.
Whew. I thought I had to worry but now I am relieved. This system will utterly fail at detecting an SLR camera because the mirror is always in place in front of the sensor until just before the photo is taken.
A couple years ago, movie theaters started offering a bounty for alerting them to bootleggers in the act. For the first time, I saw two security agents standing on either side of the movie screen - not so discreetly looking at the audience with their night vision/IR goggles.
So I decided I'd give them a show and told my Nokia to send all contacts via IR. I did it about every ten minutes and I knew it was getting security's attention. But I just didn't appreciate them watching me watch a movie. Kinda creepy, you know?
If it matters, the movie was Spiderman 1, and I haven't been watched since, but I just wanted to relay my little civil disobedience story.
What I mean is: a lot of people use cell phones. A lot of them use their phones because of some real reasons, not because of fashion (yes, these are in larger number, I agree), and a lot of them have enough brain tissue to switch their phones to silent mode/vibrate when they sit in a movie/theatre/restaurant/etc. These people - myself included - would be really pissed of if some group of retarded people would manage to block signals wherever they see fit (e.g. the mentioned places, I wouldn't mind blocking in hospitals). For those who can't manage to learn the button combination to set their phones on vibrate/silent when going into such places, well, they should just be given a big friendly kick in their butts, phisically (I'd prefer, but yes, it's fairly unreasonable :) ) or putting out "No loud phones" signs and kicking them in a form of a fine, as they fine you for not collecting your dogs sh*t in decent places.
I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I can think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do.
At the rate things are going, that wont be a problem much longer. Unless you make your own film it will be hard to get.
:)
And no, its not some MPAA plot to get film declared a 'tool for piracy', or is it?
---- Booth was a patriot ----
TFA describes scanners that obviously need direct line-of-sight to a camera's CCD. It'd take a boatload of well-placed scanners for this system to be effective. Sounds like they can really only secure a very specific area of interest by covering opportune viewing angles for it.
Here's my 39-cent cloaking device: add a simple telescoping blinder tube or hood around the camera's lens, and drastically reduce the CCD's angle-of-attack surface. In conjunction with using the blinder, photograph the area of interest from an odd angle &/or distance, and if the blinder needs to be significantly extended, shoot multiple narrow-angle segments of the subject & stitch them together after the fact.
Pi Ran Out
That was the most glaring ommision from the article. There were two photos of geeks standing around a projector and some other gear. It would have seemed a pretty obvious time for a demo. I guess it's possible the reported was using a film camera (unlikely ) or a digital SLR that's "immune". But an article with pictures about obscuring pictures that doesn't include a sample is pretty lame.
Could the the geeks have been so happy to get their faces on a web site they turned their device off?
What if a dishonest police department deploys this to an area where they're breaking up a demonstration? Or just deploy it on every patrol car to "protect the privacy of suspects"?
There have been cases where photographers have proved a police officer's sworn testimony to be in error where the truth is concerned. Take away the photographers and injustices will spring up in their absence.
It does seem that they could create a new prism that splits to the view finder, CCD & shutter, and a third CCD for the screen. I wonder what additional aberations this would create?
I don't think you'd want to do that. The biggest consequence as compared to an SLR would be that you're no longer getting as much light to EITHER the viewfinder (meaning it's harder to see what's in focus... and with the damn cameras nowadays coming without a split-image, microprism, etc. screen it's hard enough already) or the actual sensor for the piture. At least I find myself usually wanting more light so I don't get camera shake, so I wouldn't go for this situation. I'd take one light path any day.
The one thing that I don't see why they can't do is to have a button that will flip up the mirror, open the shutter, and feed the sensor data to the LCD. I could see the low end SLRs not having this feature, but if I were Canon I would probably look into adding it to the xD line (10D, 20D, 20D). The first part is already done; even the Rebel XT has mirror lockup. (And the original Rebel if you hack it!)
So the system uses sensors to detect the camera and then it shines a white light at the camera. Why not the black box version that detects the systems camera sensors and hits it up with infrared or white light to block it from blocking? Touche technology! People need to realize that any technology can be overcome with better technology. It's like Alice in Wonderland, she's running as fast as she can just to stand still. Like radar. Police use radar speeders use radar detectors police use radar detector detectors speeders squak random radar energy at the radar detector detectors.
I agree completely. I was simply proposing a notional solution to the problem so the other poster would understand it isn't as simple with an SLR as it is with a P&S. Mostly because most *intuitive* solutions would render the SLR.. not an SLR at all.
I think you have a good idea. If I dare speak for Canon and Nikon (and others) the reason is probably very simple. They've been building SLRs for a very very long time using only a couple of mechanical solutions to the shutter and prism/mirrors. What you propose sounds very reasonable but technically more complicated than what they've been doing for a long time. I'd be shocked that their mechanical engineers aren't drooling over the opportunity to design a new mechanism and probably have already proposed many tentative solutions that aren't ready for prime time production. For whatever reason. The digital SLR product lines are just starting to take shape for consumers. I doubt many professionals would care for this new feature because they already know how to take great pictures without it. Thus why it's probably low priority for the time being.
As I think about it more... you're taking advantage of a cleaning feature. Will the mechanism work fast enough to close to bring the mirror down, close the shutter, then do the exposure which includes another open and close of the shutter, and then return the mirror back up and shutter open again for a single exposure? Seems like it could be brutal on the mechanism if it weren't designed for that. I'm not very familiar with SLR mechanisms beyond what we've already discussed.
Interesting suggestion. I might check some photography forums to see if anyone has talked about this.
Slashdot.. where people join together in deliberate ignorance.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I'd be shocked that their mechanical engineers aren't drooling over the opportunity to design a new mechanism and probably have already proposed many tentative solutions that aren't ready for prime time production.
But that's the beauty of the idea! There's nothing new mechanically, only electrically. Everything that needs to happen mechanically has already been done... mirror lockup has been around forever, the 20D can shoot at something like 5 fps so it can recycle the shutter in at no more than 1/5s, and that's all that needs to happen. (And a 1/5s delay after button press is already on par with most P&S digitals.)
It might even be possible to do this with just a simple reprogramming of the microcontroller on the thing... all the connections are already there: sensor to processor, processor to LCD, processor to shutter, and processor to lens.
The digital SLR product lines are just starting to take shape for consumers. I doubt many professionals would care for this new feature because they already know how to take great pictures without it.
I think this is the key here.
I think you'd see professionals very hesitant to change most of the time. About the only time I could see something like this being useful in the pro realm is for photojournalists if they need to hold the camera over their head to get above a crowd or something like that.
Will the mechanism work fast enough to close to bring the mirror down, close the shutter, then do the exposure which includes another open and close of the shutter, and then return the mirror back up and shutter open again for a single exposure? Seems like it could be brutal on the mechanism if it weren't designed for that. I'm not very familiar with SLR mechanisms beyond what we've already discussed.
The mirror wouldn't move during this process. You'd hit a button to turn on a live LCD display, and the mirror would go up then. The shutter would also open. Both need to happen, or there's no light falling on the sensor. When you shoot, the shutter closes, the sensor is reset, the shutter opens, exposes the shot, closes, and then opens again to continue the live display. (Or, alternately, the mirror pops down and the live display ends. Also, I left out the stopping down of the lens which happens before the shutter opens for the picture.) Again, there's nothing here mechanically that hasn't been done for a couple decades at least, with the exception of the connection from the sensor to the LCD.
Actually, now that I'm typing this, I can see a potential snag. I don't know where the meter and AF systems are located in the camera. It's very possible that they are above the mirror, in which case flipping up the mirror to expose the sensor would cause them to no longer work. To test this, I pulled out my Rebel XT and set it to mirror lock up. The way this works is you press the shutter once to flip up the mirror, then again to expose the image. A quick experiment confirmed that the exposure and focus are set at the first button press. Whether this is a matter of a technical limitation or just a decision as to which would be more workable from a usability standpoint I don't know.
So I don't know how difficult this would be to overcome.
We said the same thing. :-)
The only thing I added that was different is that the process we described is a lot more movement than is currently done to expose a single frame. I'm not sure if the mechanism can do all of this quickly. The shutter is very quick in both directions and dontrolled very precisely. The other stuff.. I'm not sure.
Clearly the one rule that has changed that motivated the SLR designs we have today is the film (CCD in this case) cannot be touched by any light at all other than the exposure of the frame. This rule has changed since the CCD can be hit with light all of the time. Hmm.. there is another snag here. You can't hit the CCD with too bright of light. They can be damaged by too bright of light too frequently. Or at least some can. This would work for a small aperature, but not a big one. I wonder how P&S handle this? Guess the answer is out there and I just don't know enough about it.
There are a ton of Rebel hacks out there. It might be worth hitting the community for hacking the Rebel to see what control they have. I know they've made a lot of great improvements to annoyances. Unfortunately for me the annoyances of all Digital SLRs cannot be changed with firmware. What bugs me most with all Digital SLRs is from a user interface perspective they are high tech P&S cameras and not SLRs. I'd prefer to have the user controls optimized for manual control with deep menu options for automated "idiot modes" as I like to call them. It only makes sense to bury the automated modes in the menus because people set the mode they'll be using for a long time and leave them. Where people that like the full manual control want to keep the object framed and just twitch a few fingers to set the camera where it should be. The only *extra* I care about with my Digital Rebel that's anything beyond a pure manual is the HUD and built in meter display on the HUD.
Anyway... I'm digressing from the main thread here.
Slashdot.. where people join together in deliberate ignorance.
They will soon be outlawed. They would represent a "analog hole".
So say we all
Think about Rodney King? The man had unnecessary force used against him in an extremely obvious way. Of course, all the officers involved still basically got away with it, and the L.A. Riots were completely justified. (Specific incidents that happened within the riots, such as racial violence, were not.)
But think about police abuse, and the abuse of the state in general. Think about Tiannamen Square in China. Think about Guantanimo, and especially think about Abu Ghraib.
Do you think we would even know about such abuses, if CameraBusting technology was ubiquitous? Hell no. Just like most of China's citizens do not know about Tiannamen square, most Americans would not know about Rodney King. Nobody would know about Abu Ghraib. (Which I admit I can't spell.)
Technology is good. The advent of digital cameras, camera phones, camcorders, and all that jazz are a check in balance, by the people, against their oppressive government. We are living in a rare time in which we have tools that can actually be used to "fight the power", so to speak.
It wont be long before this rare opportunity is over. Once they perfect this type of technology, good luck capturing abuse. Good luck knowing what is really happening.
Imagine the police being able to beat anyone in broad daylight, knowing that it would be impossible to be filmed. Far-fetched? I seriously doubt it. Technology is moving at what seems like an exponential rate, and I fear things are only going to get worse.
Were the Cyberpunk visionaries really that far off?
-Clio
Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com
How many sensors/scanners and projectors are deployed with each system?
How hard/expensive is it to manufacture decoy reflective surfaces?
Would you wear a decoy T-shirt? I would (at least one with the decoy in the back, to reduce the risk of eye exposure).
How about decoy stickers?
If this ever gets widely deployed, I'd look for cameras that come with ad-hoc wireless networking included, and capabilities for synchronized exposure of the CCD (for the decoys in the group) combined with the "actives" actually taking pictures and sharing them over the wireless net. Good, clean optical coutermeasure fun!
Laptop keyboards make me dyslexic!
I quit going to theaters years ago for exactly that reason. The number of movies I went to that were disrupted by cell phones were minimal, but the number of crying infants, dumb asses yelling at the screen, and laser pointers just got to be too much for an already too expensive form of entertainment. Crying about cell phones is just another example of neo-luddites trying to push their lifestyle on other people. Where is the outrage over people taking 2 year olds to movies like The Lord of the Rings? No one is supprised when the movie scares the kids, and they start crying. The ass hats that yell at the screen are certainly not going to bow to peer presure and stop disrupting the movie because someone yells at them, and the punks with the laser pointers are doing it specifically to cause a disruption.
So, the neo-luddites want the one item that can disrupt, but might actually have a useful purpose for being there to be blocked, instead of taking care of the far more disruptive, yet older technologically speaking, disruptions.
And people don't generally shout at their seatmates. For some reason, people shout into cellphones. It's the damndest thing!
Man, you really need that seminar!
I work as a consultant and frequently visit client sites where the use of photographic equipment is restricted/banned. Why can't I buy a decent phone handset which doesn't have a camera?
Having purposely avoided phone cameras for the last two handset upgrades, I needed bluetooth this time around and could not find a handset that had bluetooth but no camera.
Surely there is a market for professional phones that don't get confiscated when entering sercure facilties.
Sara
Designer, Gamer, Macgrrl in an XP World
-----
The "Rube Goldberg" phenomenon: People will always, over time, over-complicate the simplest of tasks. This article shows that.
Knowing Google's lust for data collection, the Soviet Union is still alive and well inside the psyche of Sergey Brin....
They used a D200 (Nikon digital SLR) to take the pictures for the article. ;)
just buy a 5$ disposable camera, and wow, no CCD! shoot at will! :-)
And get my eyeballs burned to a crisp.
Next!
Unfortunately, when this happens, a lot of property will get damaged. That is the point. One can hope that this would at least cause the insurance companies to put pressure on the government, but who are we kidding? The insurance companies probably already lobbied the govt to make sure their policies don't have to legally cover riot damage. :) That sucks.
-Clio
Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com
Please, for the good of Humanity, vote Obama.
Result: Expensive toy that people with low tech skills waste money on, while it will be virtually worthless against a determined opponent who did not sleep through high school physics.
Even too long exposition to bright blue light can be dangerous.
altho i'm a grammar nazi, i'm totally with you on this;
it seems pretty fragile for many, many use-cases,
as well as probably easily technically circumventable.
consider even the darkened movie-theater case:
there's going to be a lot of legitimate CCDs facing the screen -
people checking their politely silenced cell-phones.
if you've ever directed an LED laser-pointer towards your own face in the dark,
you'll know that the beam is highly visible and pretty disturbing!
i don't think that'll sit well with movie patrons.
w/r/t daylight applications such as blacking out protests,
altho it may be theoretically possible,
i highly doubt this technology will perform well.
also don't forget that in such scenarios
it can be easily overcome with a $7 disposable camera.
The light is on, so it seems to be working. And they took a photograph of it. No, I guess it can't have been working.
Unless they put the white-light laser within the field of view of what you are filming there's no point because all you need is a lense hood (similar to what's used to prevent lense-flare when filming/shooting outdoors). ..and I'd hate to think what would happen if your latest designer sunnys got falsely identified as a camera.. POP! Goes your IRIS
The obvious solution to blocking white light is to apply a white light filter. Otherwise known as sunglasses. Or black construction paper. Image quality might suffer.
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
This is an old trick from years ago. In the UK you could buy special plates that have a polorised film layer over them. So if you looked at them normally they were fine but when the Speed camera took a picture the license turned all white.
Owning such plates is now illegal (in the UK) and it is possible for the police to check them without the use of the speed camera.
For retroreflection inside the camera (which is the feature of CCD cameras they are
detecting, and which defines the difference between cameras and eyeballs to the sensors
in the article), there's a known technical solution.
Apply to the front of the lens a linear polarizer (reduces light by a factor of two; adjust
your exposure accordingly) and a suitably oriented quarter wave plate. The pair is available
as a 'circular polarizer', has been used to increase contrast of CRTs and other displays
(does anyone remember Nixie tubes? this technology IS that old).
The circular polarized light, when reflected back, changes handedness (from right
hand to left hand) and the back passage through the quarter wave plate turns it to plane
polarized, at right angles to the linear polarizer. Nullification of the "cat's-eye" reflection
effect is the result.
Some other posters have suggested SLR or other shutter-usually-closed cameras, but that
just raises the possibility that your shutter opens between blinks of the film projector (and takes
a pure black shot). Remember, the movies of film-on-screen variety present 24 frames per second,
blinking each frame twice (because the 24 Hz flicker was annoying); there are 48 dark intervals
each second between the light-on-screen instants. With a fast enough shutter speed, you'd
definitely capture an occasional dark field, and a lot of half-bright ones.
Blocking cameras is a great idea but... The idea makes sense to protect revenues and secrets. But considering the locales involved, like movie theatres. Now drug lords would figure that police cannot video tape them there, makes for a great place to trade eh? Now, how about "Mid-Movie Muggings"? I don't think I'll be taking my dates there anymore! Frankly a lot of our personal security & evidenciary proof depends on cameras (still or video). Would this bring us back to conventional film cameras and relying on eye witness credibility (ex. drunks in a theatre)? If these systems could ever be manufactured small enough, like a wearable device (very likely in future), such a device would be a requirement for any thug. Health wise, would these devices harm an individual with wearable monitor style sunglasses? Not that I'd wear them in a movie, to get the news or anything. But it appears, such a person doing so might get blinded by this white light beam from a laser. To blind anyone would be a nasty legal liability.
An alternative solution: individual headsets, as on commercial airline flights.
This could even add value - multiple languages, commentary tracks, just like the DVD at home.
The CVS disposable digital camera - possibly the cheapest/meanest of such devices - has a plastic shutter that covers the light sensor at all times except during the split-second exposure.
Finnhh
All it takes is some anti-glare film (linear polarizer with a quarter wave retarder) and Bob's your uncle!
2 0Polarization%20Techniques%20and%20Devices.pdf
http://www.meadowlark.com/applicationNotes/Basic%
I suppose some stupid law will try to make this illegal now.
"You there with the polarizing film - drop it and reach for the sky you dirty pirate"
"I'd be mighty angry if I was at the movies, and the babysitter couldn't call me and let me know that my children had hurt themselves and was in ICU at the hospital."
I agree, plus it could be even more disruptive. Imagine if the cell phone of the on-call surgeon the kids needed were blocked as well. I am a controls technician for a health care foundation. If I get call on my cell phone it is very likely because there is an issue with a critical system that patient care depends upon. With systems redundancy it is rarely life threating, but can still be disruptive. I think most people would consider having air conditioning in the hospital, working fire alarm systems and getting their pain medication on time enough reason for an occasional interruption of a few seconds of "quality" movie time. We really do not need more "big brother" or "nanny" laws or in most cases similar applications of technology either.
Matthew