Pretty much amazing..

[Bullitt]

I would sacirifce my first born for a camera that could take these kinds of pictures...



http://www.gigapxl.org/gallery-AngelWindow.htm

[BigV]

Bullitt:

If I remember correctly, you're new-ish to digital cameras, still flush with the freedom to spend electrons with wild abandon. This is a film camera. An enormous fim camera, the negative is 9" by 18". Then they scan the image at incredibly high resolution, generating a digital image. All the rest of the process is done with this digital image, and that's why they consider themselves digital photographers. The part that I found humbling is the size of the file, once the image is digitized. 24 Gigabytes.

Day-um.

Why quote 'pixels' when you use film?

Immediately after processing, each 9" x 18" exposure is digitally scanned then archived in a temperature and humidity controlled environment. All processing and printing are performed on the resulting one to four gigapixel digital scan. Therefore, the tangible output of the camera—and all that we ever see and work with—is a digital image at one to four billion pixels in size.

Incidentally, a four billion pixel, uncompressed, 16-bit per component image is a 24 gigabyte data file. Moving, copying, editing, processing, and printing files of this scale strains the boundaries of even the most robust image processing tools. Having accomplished such tasks for more than one hundred images certainly makes us feel that we are digital photographers even though we use film in the camera.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Wow, I think it would take your first AND second born.

[Bullitt]

Originally Posted by BigV

Bullitt:

If I remember correctly, you're new-ish to digital cameras, still flush with the freedom to spend electrons with wild abandon. This is a film camera. An enormous fim camera, the negative is 9" by 18". Then they scan the image at incredibly high resolution, generating a digital image. All the rest of the process is done with this digital image, and that's why they consider themselves digital photographers. The part that I found humbling is the size of the file, once the image is digitized. 24 Gigabytes.

Day-um.

I'm newish to owning one, but am pretty familiar with the technology. The film resolution is the equivalent to 1,000+ mp. I'm not as dumb as I look
And yeah I read their whole description of the process and it's pretty much the coolest thing I've ever seen. I really liked the part where they explained the difference between their images and regular images, as compared to looking at an apple tree from various distances, more and more detail as you get closer that you couldn't see from farther away, but not becoming distorted like if you just looked closer at a regular photgraph.

I can't wait until they release some more photos on the website of their across America tour.

[dar512]

I'd be more appreciative if the images on the website were large enough to use as wallpaper.

[Happy Monkey]

It would be cool to adapt Google Earth's "smooth zoom in/out while streaming images from the server" technology to display their photos.

[xoxoxoBruce]

I'm not as dumb as I look

That's ok, V tries to teach everyone, he can't help it. Summer withdrawal I guess.

[BigV]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

That's ok, V tries to teach everyone, he can't help it. Summer withdrawal I guess.

True.

Although I don't understand the part about the Summer withdrawal...

[xoxoxoBruce]

I had the impression you were some kind of teacher, hence Summer withdrawal .

[BigV]

I consider that a fine compliment, thank you. :bows:

But only as an avocation. I draw my pay for other labor. I love it too. But I only get to teach when my audience is a captive one.

[footfootfoot]

Ho Hum, it's the emperor's new clothes redux. I am film all the way. My 8x10 can kick your digital hinder. (as long as anyone keeps making fim that is)
digital technology.

Hey! who remembers 8 track tapes? They were cool huh?
What about 5" floppy disks? Those ruled.

My wife's grandfather left her a few hundred glass plate negatives. I can still print them. Who can play an 8 track or read a 5" floppy? Beta tapes anyone?

There is something reassuring about having the file saved in metallic silver, suspended in a hardened gelatin base. especially if you convert the silver to an even more stable form like selenium sulfide or even gold. pretty archival.

Not that I am bitter.

Wait, I've jsut been corrected by my wife, I am bitter. OK sorry, never mind.

Just remember it was a film capture. 35mm film has a comparable resolution to a 15Mb file. 8x10 film has 60 times the surface area of 35mm film. Some emulsions can resolve 200 line pairs per mm.

My eyes, on the other hand have trouble with the mm scale on my ruler. d'oh.

[BigV]

They scan at 80pixels/mm and then do three passes, one for each color. On a 9"x18" negative. Yeah, that's a pack o' pixels.

btw, I have a pair of functioning 5 1/4" drives at home. One 1.2 mb in the windows box and one 320K in the CP/M machine. [/geek]

[xoxoxoBruce]

But I only get to teach when my audience is a captive one.

Like handcuffed little girls? Wait that sounds like a deviate thing. You know the thread I was referring to, right?

[BigV]

You obviously understand. A restrained explanation? Ahhh. Fortunately *, common kindness is never gauche. True reprehensibility only lures losers.


(* Unfortunately)

[Bitman]

Wow, that was weird. My title bar said "The Cellar - Pretty much amazing.." and I thought that was Cellar's new motto. The strange part was that I didn't think this was too far off the mark.