I wonder how many dollars were spent developing that and how many will be produced? Imagine your square back Hasselblad getting one of these in place of the film cartridge. You probably would need an entirely new line of lenses to produce the resolving power and clarity needed for this pixel density.
Walter, not to mention the computer upgrade! Can you imagine processing a 100 Mp RAW capture? May aging G4 would shrug its shoulders, get to work and the little clock would still be spinning on my screen as retirement approached.
The article mentions a physical size of about 4"x4". Should be a perfect fit for a 4x5 view camera back.
The captured file is roughly equivalent to a scan at 2600dpi. I wouldn't be too concerned about storing or processing it even on my aging Xeon PC. I have several 4x5 scans made at 3200dpi that are well over 1GB in size.
Guy
Posted by Richard Wong on June 19, 2006 at 9:00 PM
What I'd like is a camera chip that automatically does the graduated ND effect for you so I could spend more time shooting rather than fumbling with filters.
Yet again the science of Astronomy and Space Exploration leads the way to inovation that eventually will lead to products we all use in our daily lives.
Richard - yep. Many cameras already show clipped highlights, so it is only a matter of time before you will have the auto-gradient option you want. Maybe not 'in camera,' but certainly in post processing. It's more complicated than I can imagine, I'm sure, but the software "just" needs to look for large, contiguous areas of high exposure on the top of the frame (no problem sensing camera orientation - been done for a long time) and process them at a lower sensitivities, gradually fading back to the base exposure. At a crude level, it is just a software issue. Even today, you can convert a single raw file at two different exposure adjustments and do a 'digital' gradient filter. I think the craft of photography will become less of an impediment to people who are more interested in the art of photography. Then we can talk about what really matters.....
Oh they do have so much more stops of light than film does, just have to meter for your highlights. Can't wait until u can put that chip on the back of a Sinar 4x5, my job would be so much easier.
It's actually a film camera, but they do scan to get the huge file sizes. Actually Max Lyons made the first gigapixel (1.09 gigapixel) image using 196 separate seamlessly stitched six megapixel captures with his D60 Canon taken over a 13 minutes period in Bryce Canyon. A couple of years ago at PMA in Las Vegas Max had an 8x12 foot LightJet print (printed in large sections) on display. I spent an hour or so looking at the incredible detail. The file size was over 2 gigabytes and PhotoShop barfed all over it so Max had to write his own software to process it.
At the same show Peter Grote had a 43 inch by 17 foot pano taken in in the Annapurna's in Nepal with a single frame using his BetterLight scanning camera and a mechanical pano attachment. It was printed in a single sheet with an Epson 9600. The detail on Peter's image was incredible, but Max's gigapixel stitched image was both cleaner and had greater detail. Pretty amazing stuff.
Discussion
10 repliesGuy
The captured file is roughly equivalent to a scan at 2600dpi. I wouldn't be too concerned about storing or processing it even on my aging Xeon PC. I have several 4x5 scans made at 3200dpi that are well over 1GB in size.
Guy
Pete D. just hoping I live to see that day.
http://www.gigapxl.org/
--jim
It's actually a film camera, but they do scan to get the huge file sizes. Actually Max Lyons made the first gigapixel (1.09 gigapixel) image using 196 separate seamlessly stitched six megapixel captures with his D60 Canon taken over a 13 minutes period in Bryce Canyon. A couple of years ago at PMA in Las Vegas Max had an 8x12 foot LightJet print (printed in large sections) on display. I spent an hour or so looking at the incredible detail. The file size was over 2 gigabytes and PhotoShop barfed all over it so Max had to write his own software to process it.
At the same show Peter Grote had a 43 inch by 17 foot pano taken in in the Annapurna's in Nepal with a single frame using his BetterLight scanning camera and a mechanical pano attachment. It was printed in a single sheet with an Epson 9600. The detail on Peter's image was incredible, but Max's gigapixel stitched image was both cleaner and had greater detail. Pretty amazing stuff.
Best regards,
Lin