How One Photographer Is Hacking the Concept of Time

An anonymous reader writes "Hungarian photographer Adam Magyar doesn't work like most artists. He takes the world's most sophisticated photographic equipment, then hacks it with software he writes himself — all in order to twist our perception of time inside out. In this latest story from the digital publisher MATTER, Joshua Hammer discovers how Magyar's unique combination of technology and art challenges the way we understand the world. At one point, Magyar realized he needed a 'slit-scan' camera, 'the type used to determine photo finishes at racetracks and at Olympic sporting events by capturing a time sequence in one image. Such cameras were rare and cost many thousands of dollars, so Magyar set out to build one himself. He joined a medium-format camera lens to another sensor and wrote his own software for the new device. Total cost: $50. He inverted the traditional scanning method, where the sensor moves across a stationary object. This time, the sensor would remain still while the scanned objects were in motion, being photographed one consecutive pixel-wide strip at a time. (This is the basic principle of the photo-finish camera.) Magyar mounted the device on a tripod in a busy Shanghai neighborhood and scanned pedestrians as they passed in front of the sensor. He then digitally combined over 100,000 sequential strips into high-resolution photographs.' There are pictures and videos interspersed throughout the article."

Comments

$50...if your time is worth nothing

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

>> wrote his own software for the new device. Total cost: $50.

Sure, if the time to write the software was worth nothing.

Re:$50...if your time is worth nothing

[Cryacin]

I'm glad he gets out more than the stereotypical slashdot developer. I would imagine that a series of slit scan camera shots of a basement and the action in there would be quite boring.

Re:$50...if your time is worth nothing

[SJHillman]

As long as it doesn't take away from another activity, then the cost of time is nothing. If this were not the case, then it would never be cheaper to cook at home rather than go to a restaurant.

Re:$50...if your time is worth nothing

[SJHillman]

I should add that you could also calculate it as a profit. Take the cost of a commercial alternative (said to be thousands of dollars in the summary), then subtract material and time costs. What's left is your profit.

Re:$50...if your time is worth nothing

[gnick]

Sure, if the time to write the software was worth nothing.

Of course, if he enjoyed doing it or got some sense of satisfaction, hell it's cheaper than a movie. Total cost could have been less than $0.

Re:$50...if your time is worth nothing

[icebike]

So if I buy a bicycle instead of that Bugatti Veyron I've been lusting for, it means I have a tax problem because of that $1,700,000 profit, (minus the cost of the bicycle)?

Brilliant!
All the government's budget deficit problems were nothing but an accounting error!

Re:$50...if your time is worth nothing

[DerekLyons]

And it's not particularly new. There was a guy doing the same thing with the scanner head from a flatbed scanner back in the late 90's/early 00's. The general idea of long exposures goes back further than that, much further.

Re:$50...if your time is worth nothing

[i.r.id10t]

Nah, think about it in terms of energy - potential vs. kinetic.

Sure, you bought 100 shares of AAPL at $7/share so you have a huge *potential* profit. Or you've got a big rock sitting on the edge of a cliff.

But until you sell the stock, or lever the rock over the edge, it is just potential.

Re:$50...if your time is worth nothing

[MightyYar]

Please post some examples of your hobby, so that we can pick it apart for no good reason. Or maybe that is your hobby, in which case - good job.

Re:$50...if your time is worth nothing

[icebike]

Profit: The difference between what's gained and what's spent. If you spend $50 and gain something equivalent to a $5000 camera, then you have essentially created a $4500 profit.

Well, I posted purely in jest.

You appear to be serious in equating avoidance of cost with profit. They are quite different in economic terms.

The fact that alternative methods are NOT used commercially suggests that there is no market for images of
this size, given the cost involved. Had there been such a market, this guy could corner said market.
However, he would also not be able to demand the same price. (Because there is no market at that price).

Since there is essentially ZERO market for his images, the whole point is moot until he starts making sales.

Re:$50...if your time is worth nothing

[dfsmith]

Therapy can run many tens of dollars an hour. Maybe he considers coding to be theraputic, in which case it saved him money. Your time is worth what it's worth to you.

Re:$50...if your time is worth nothing

[TangoMargarine]

Since there is essentially ZERO market for his images,

He's an artist; doesn't art always have a market, at least theoretically? I could apparently paint an entire canvas red and sell it for a ton of money if I could find the right rich person and convince them that I'm a famous artist.

The GP was talking about the value of the camera, not the art it produces. How much he sells the art for is besides the point.

Re:$50...if your time is worth nothing

[Archangel Michael]

Actually, The is now an increase the market for his images, because I have seen them, and want one. Whether I can afford one or not, is besides the point. And having seen his 12 second clip, the thing that struck me the most was how three dimensional it was, and I could easily imagine adapting the technique to normal cinematography sequences or even real (improved) 3D sequencing.

This value you do not perceive doesn't mean that there is "ZERO market" for his images, it simply means you do not see the value where others do. And to be honest, that is your view, and that is okay. I just don't share that view.

Re:$50...if your time is worth nothing

[gnick]

Exactly - If you give it away for nothing and people want it, it has value so essentially you are paying them. If you feel good doing it, you're essentially being paid. There's just no hard currency involved.

Re:$50...if your time is worth nothing

[narcc]

If you spend $50 and gain something equivalent to a $5000 camera, then you have essentially created a $4500 profit.

Math. How does it work?

Re:$50...if your time is worth nothing

[aix tom]

And only if he didn't have any fun. If he did have fun writing the software, then he additionally saved the money for movie tickets, theme park rides, drinks in pubs, etc... that other people seem to have to PAY to have fun, so the cost for the device might even come out negative.

Re:$50...if your time is worth nothing

[Yaur]

As art its kind of neat. The technique used in the shot of the 42nd street/grand central platform I could easily see used in normal movies. There is a market, he just needs some advertising...

There's an app for that.

[Animats]

There's an free iPhone app to simulate a slit-scan camera. It doesn't take a "$50,000 camera".

Re:There's an app for that.

[jockm]

I suspect he is getting much higher resolution images out of his rig. According to TFA his prints are 8 feet wide. You can scale up an iPhone image that high, but you will see a difference.

But still, many roads lead to Rome...

Re:There's an app for that.

[fahrbot-bot]

There's an free iPhone app to simulate a slit-scan camera. It doesn't take a "$50,000 camera".

Sure, but the actual smartphone camera cannot really compare with a high-end digital SLR or $16,000 Optronis video camera that can capture up to 100,000 frames per second?

Re:There's an app for that.

[dmatos]

How tall are his prints, though? The only thing that the resolution of the camera contributes to is the height. The width of his prints is determined by the number of time-slices that he assembles together into a single image.

He could make a 16 foot wide print by recording for twice as long.

He's Hungarian and his last name is Magyar?

[Anonymous Coward]

So his last name is "Hungary" in Hungarian? What an amazing coincidence! Like Lou Gehrig .. what are the odds that he got the disease named "Lou Gehrig's Disease"!

(I got nothing)

Re:He's Hungarian and his last name is Magyar?

[K. S. Kyosuke]

With his first name meaning "human" in some languages, his name apparently means "the Hungarian guy". ;-)

Re:He's Hungarian and his last name is Magyar?

[stoolpigeon]

Magyar doesn't mean Hungary. It means Hungarian.

Re:He's Hungarian and his last name is Magyar?

[csumpi]

Magyar, in Hungarian, can be used as a noun or an adjective. It translates to "Hungarian person" or "Hungarian" respectively.

Hungary in Hungarian is Magyarország (which translates to "Hungarian country" word by word).

.

Thought this was some poseur tech "artist"

[korbulon]

Wrong. Some of his work is pretty wild, especially the vids. Really cool stuff, this.

Where the fun in that?

[future assassin]

Seriously even though people do things I could care less for, its awesome to see what "ONE" person can do and how imaginative they can be. Stuff like this is what use to drive me to "build" things when I was kid. Damn all those days drooling over parts and tools at Radio Shack.

Re:Where the fun in that?

[gstoddart]

Damn all those days drooling over parts and tools at Radio Shack.

Funny, my experience with Radio Shack was more in the category of 'drooling tools that can't find the parts' -- they really went downhill for the last bunch of years, until ultimately becoming the "cheap-ass electronics and toys store".

2001: A Space Odyssey

[E 99]

This is the same photographic technique used to create the stargate special effects in 2001: A Space Odyssey, but putting the camera on a trolley and zooming it in. Here's a really good video on the evolution of the technology. http://youtu.be/KhRo2WbWnKU

For artistic slit scan photography, check out Jay Mark Johnson's work. It's much more interesting than this stuff, imo.

huh...

[MitchDev]

Not so much "Hacking the Concept of Time" as "Hacking camera software to change how it takes pictures"

Re:huh...

[gstoddart]

Not so much "Hacking the Concept of Time" as "Hacking camera software to change how it takes pictures"

Let me guess, you either didn't read the article, or didn't understand it:

Magyar mounted the device on a tripod in a busy Shanghai neighborhood and scanned pedestrians as they passed in front of the sensor. He then digitally combined over 100,000 sequential strips into high-resolution photographs.

He's not taking a single exposure. He's taking a very large amount of small slices over a span of time, and stitching them together into a single image.

He hasn't so much taken a 'snapshot in time' like a traditional camera, he's made images out of snapshots which occurred across time.

Which means he's taking objects going by at a pretty good clip, and combining a whole lot of them into something which looks like a single astounding image.

Some of his images have a time lapse quality to them, because they show things which are both in motion and still, over a time sequence:

Eerie distortions of objects in motion and at rest reminded viewers that they were looking at a pictorial representation of time, not space. Speeding buses were compressed into Smart cars. Individuals who paused at a bus stop were elongated like Metroliners. Slower walkers had billowing pants legs, or feet like skis, or Oscar Pistorius-style blades. And because of the peculiar nature of the scanning technology, everyone was moving in the same direction. "The horizontal axis is not about space, it's not about left and right, it's about earlier and later," he says. "If two people are crossing the pixel at the same moment, they will look like they are walking together."

If you read the article, you'll find he's done much much more than "Hacking camera software to change how it takes pictures" -- the resulting images look like a still frame, but are composited from a time lapse, and are MUCH more sophisticated than you seem to realize.

Why do people on Slashdot persist in dismissing things they don't really understand? What he's done is taken what look like still images, but are in fact a cross section in time.

That you think all he's done is to hack camera software means you don't have the barest idea of what it is he's actually done.

Re:huh...

[sjames]

It certainly does present time in an unfamiliar way visually. Use your imagination a little and it becomes a lot cooler.

Interesting concept, terrible website presentation

[hydrofix]

The website where the story article is hosted is pretty terrible. It's apparently based entirely on some sort of JavaScript hacks. I can only zoom one photo before the JavaScript code crashes. Then, when I try to reload, it loses the position I was on the page. I also dislike those texts and images that change brightness and scroll in dis-syncronization with the rest of the page. Not to speak of those "Share" buttons jumping out from behind page elements when I move my mouse cursor around. This page, although apparently meant to be "artistic", is sadly just a staple of horrible and dysfunctional web design.

Available on eBay

[dmatos]

Really, this guy didn't need a "slit-scan" camera. Any linescan camera would work. They're not rare. They're used everywhere for industrial inspection. You can find them on eBay for under a hundred dollars. Yes, you'll need to put a lens on it as well, but most are compatible with normal camera lenses. You'll just need a mount adapter.

Heck, you could even do this in post-processing using a normal 2-D camera that's capturing a movie. Just snag a single column from successive frames and stack them into a single picture. Sure, your frame rate will be limited, but it's technically feasible, especially if the 2-D sensors allow for windowing to increase frame rate.

Re:The gear makes better photographs..

[Anonymous Coward]

Way to miss the point.
With a stationary slit-scan camera he's imaging t*Y, not X*Y.

Re:The gear makes better photographs..

[mekkab]

no no, watch 42nd street. That's the magic. The photos are junk.