Category: Photography

Monster CCD Sensor Has 111 Million Pixels

 

Wow. This is going to make one heck of a camera for a telescope. I can see a market for these with medium and large format camera users. A sensor this size would make a nice replacement for a film back on a 4×5 view camera.

Dalsa Semiconductor has fabricated an image sensor with more than 111 million pixels. The company claims the 4 x 4-inch charge-coupled device, configured as 10,560 x 10,560 pixels, is the world’s highest-resolution image sensor and the first to break the 100 million-pixel barrier.

EETimes.com – Record CCD image sensor has 111 million pixels

Storm Photos in Kansas

Weather

Some places don’t have much in the way of weather. Yeah, it may rain sometimes or get a little windy but for the most part nature takes a break and just chills. Kansas is not one of those places. In Kansas nature saves it up and goes for broke whenever there is a change in the weather. From the picture it may look like a volcano just blew it’s top and is hard at filling the bread basket of the country with ash but it’s not. This is an advancing thunder storm that swept through the area on May 26th of 2006.  The photos are very impressive, and it’s amazing that people are willing to put themselves are quite a bit of risk to get these shot.

[via cnet] 

Backing Winds: May 26th chase

Getting The Most Out Of A Pinhole Camera

MaxiPano120-015

 

 

It all started on a long plane flight in the beginning of 2006. I was doodling in my Moleskine notebook and musing about pinhole cameras when and idea struck me. What if I made a camera that was panoramic and high capacity at the same time. I had been shooting with my 6×9 medium format pinhole (120 film) for a few weeks and was happy with the images but wished I could get more than eight shots a roll and have a wider field of view.

What I thought was if I moved the pinhole closer to the film plane and rotated to aspect 90 degrees I could get dozens of images on a single roll of film and still get a pretty good sized negative. Turns out I can get about 30 images on a roll and even a quickly made pinhole will produce a satisfactory sharpness.

Check out my build notes of this fun and rewarding project.

 DIY High Capacity Panoramic Pinhole Camera

Mars Unearthed – In 3D!

Mars Unearthed

Here is an impressive collection of images of the planet Mars from the spacecrafts and rovers that are out there now. I’m partial to the crosseye stereo images myself but some of the anaglyphs are pretty cool.

This site contains Mars 3D anaglyphs, 3D flash movies, comparisons, and free view stereo pairs from images returned by the Mars Global Surveyor’s Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC), camera systems aboard the Spirit and Opportunity rovers, and European Space Angency’s Mars Express High Hesolution Stereo Camera (HRSC).

Mars Unearthed

Underwater CVS Camcorder hack

Underwater CVS Camera Mod

What a fantastic mod! I love the magnet and the reed switch. 

Connect this one to the contacts of the record button and mount it on the back of the case, right under the screen. Now, waving a magnet by the bottom of the screen will start and stop recording underwater, without breaking the seal of the case.

I’ve often thought of building an underwater case for a camera but doing the interfaces for the buttons has always been a daunting task. For a while I was thinking I would use a water proof IR remote but never worked quite right. Plus it was a pain to mess with underwater. The magnetic switches are perfect. I wish I would have had this while I was on the beach…

Underwater CVS Camcorder

Cheap ‘n Easy Digital Picture Frame

Sub $100 digital frame

 

 

 

Add one part Sony PS1 LCD screen and one part SanDisk Digital Photo Viewer bake for half an hour in a slow oven and you get a sub USD$100 digital picture frame. (I’m kidding about the oven part). I have an TFT LCD screen that I wired up as a remote TV monitor a few years ago that would be perfect for this. I’ll have ro find one of those SanDisk Digital Photo Viewers and build one of these. Funny, I remember seeing one in a store and I thought that it would be the perfect thing to load up and send to the relatives for them to see pictures of the kids. Now I can add a screen and presto! Zero instalation (ok, grandma will have to attach the wall wart, but that’s pretty easy). With 32 MB CF cards costing next to nothing this might be fun to do.

[via MAKE] 

Cheap ‘n Easy Digital Picture Frame