Far off in the distant future...?

[manipula]

Had an interesting conversation with an acquaintance of one of my colleagues yesterday. Works for an undisclosed company who manufacture bespoke computing chips. Amongst telling us how the headache of making fingerprint recognition laptops work (apparently the new HP ones use it to allow you to log on? :confused: ) he mentioned they'd been set on trying to produce stuff for some cameras. Wouldn't tell us who for or if they're just wierdo test models or basis for production stuff, but he mentioned two interesting things.

1)Second set of shutters between the traditional shutter in a camera and the sensor. Used to crop the image in-camera to suit existing traditonal picture ratios such as 6x4.5, 6x7 etc. They'd been playing trying to get the two shutters to sync up...

2)Similar arrangement but this time used for something completely different. You take one shot, but during that exposure, the secondary shutter actually takes far more photos, all taken at different exposures. Idea is that you never see the many shots, just the single press of the shutter, but that in effect it takes all these shots at different exposures and combines them in camera to give a very high dynamic range image. He used the number 50 though I can't see how that's possible.

As with many rumours, he could just have been giving it some bravado, pub-talk style, but there may also be an element of truth. Interesting ideas I thought, so I thought I'd share and allow anyone to discuss/ridicule! ;)

[NickSimcheck]

TOTALLY off subject but I just watched a program on TV about Glasgow and they had mentioned a breakfast patty that I forgot the name but it looked like a dark brown sausage patty with sesame seeds in it and they asked what was in it and they said that you don't want to know.

So my question(s) to you Dave is;

Do you know what I'm talking about?
What's in it?



Back on subject, I find "multiple" exposures in a single exposure time to be very interesting and I believe such development is more important then say the mega pixel race.

[manipula]

LOL! Not sure I do know what you're on about no, only lived here 9 months so not completely down with all the Glaswegian stuff! ;) They do have all their sausages 'square' here though, most strange. Look like mini slices of a loaf of bread.

Anyway...

The thing that makes me think is that say your conventional shutter speed is like 1/1000th, in order for the secondary shutter to take 50 exposures say inside that, the sensor must be of a completely different type surely, it would have to be SO sensitive to light... Really intrigues me this.

[Longwatcher]

2)Similar arrangement but this time used for something completely different. You take one shot, but during that exposure, the secondary shutter actually takes far more photos, all taken at different exposures. Idea is that you never see the many shots, just the single press of the shutter, but that in effect it takes all these shots at different exposures and combines them in camera to give a very high dynamic range image. He used the number 50 though I can't see how that's possible.


I had heard a similar rumor, however it was using a dump and continue method. Basically dumping the contents of the detector wells to memory on a rapid basis every so many nano-seconds so you could have a very high range of exposure from a single click. The theory used is actually going for the highlights end of the spectrum, which usually fills the sensor detector's photon wells too fast, which is why we blow highlights. If it worked properly you actually would not really care about shutter speed as you could set it after the fact to get a proper exposure. This technique would also propably allow for better image stabilization. Potentially even of individual elements in the image if shooting raw.

As to a really fast shutter as you are talking about, I could see a fan type arrangement or a revolving shutter that would run while the main shutter is going. But both of the things I am thinking of would have to have a very unusual shape in order to work. I personally think the electronic method would work the best if you can keep the time it takes to dump and get ready again down to a minimum.

Just some speculation,

[NickSimcheck]

Right,

Because we know the aperture cannot change that fast so we know the only variables can be the ISO and shutter speed. In a 1/500sec exposure let's say the sensor can record the image from ISO100 to ISO800 you have gained a heck of a lot of dynamic range.

But in order for the ISO to remain, you would need a completely different shutter design like Long watcher had mentioned. This method would be harder to develop then variable ISO but say you wanted to make a HDR portrait or even better yet a landscape. Something where you only would only need a shutter speed of 1/60th for a sharp image. But you have enough light so that a "correct" exposure is say 1/500th, I would think a revolving shutter (if fast enough) could take an exposure at 1/400th, 1/500th, 1/600th and them combine the exposures into one without any movment problems.

[manipula]

In my experience, the fun bit is hypothesising about how it can be done, and unless people are a) extremely clever, or b) work in the industry designing such things, the theories are usually off the mark. To be quite honest the geek in me would love to know the techno stuff behind how it's done, but really all I care about is how it makes the pictures look! I'd love to be able to try some of the panoramics I've been doing at night with something with a huge HDR.

[pieq314]

The multi exposure idea is a good idea, especially if the shutter speed is fast enough so that you can hand hold the camera for the whole duration. I think two exposures is good enough, with one at -2 stops of normal shutter speed, and one at +2 stops, and combine these two photos into one so you get 4 extra stops in dynamic range.

[seberri]

for HDR i am using spot metering on high lights and shaddows and I shoot as many photos as necessary each 2 stops between this 2 points (light and shaddows) and all the shots are right exposed

it can be 3, 4, 10, 15, ....

[racketman]

they haven't managed fingerprint recognition on guns yet which would be the most useful thing to have this technology on.

[manipula]

for HDR i am using spot metering on high lights and shaddows and I shoot as many photos as necessary each 2 stops between this 2 points (light and shaddows) and all the shots are right exposed

it can be 3, 4, 10, 15, ....

Question for you, as an aside: Do you find spot metering usefull enough (I'm assuming you're doing it in camera as opposed to with a hand-held meter) on far off subjects such as landscapes?

Anyway from the HDR shots I'm seeing from here, the camera would have to up the ante a bit in terms of processing. Some are fantastic, others are just plain aweful!