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Wow, that's amazing.

# posted by David 10:10 AM

No, David, it's astonishing! Get it right! ;-)

# posted by Bill 10:15 AM

"So after digitally scanning the negative, Ross and his assistants must manipulate the image using Adobe Systems Inc.'s Photoshop software to return the mountain's colors to their initial vibrancy. Though the method might raise questions about accuracy and purity.."

# posted by Anonymous 11:31 AM

And did you not read that word "might?"

Jesus Christ Almighty, Todd (and I mean that in no religious sense whatsoever), what kind of a sour world do you live in where the word "might" strikes such terror into your soul? The sun might explode! (Hey? Where'd he go....?)

# posted by Bill 12:22 PM

I assume "Todd" has a static IP... Why don't you just get a Blogger account buddy?

# posted by David 12:30 PM

You know, sometimes it just astounds me how technology that has existed for years and years can be used in a new way to beat out all the new stuff. It's like the bullet-time camera technique from the Matrix or that SawStop thing for table-saws. They are all enhanced with modern technology, but the basic principles underlying them have been around for decades.

# posted by Christiana 12:46 PM

Christiana... Intrinsics are what life and technology are all about. Take the atom, for example, it's been around forever and soon we'll be computing on it.

# posted by Bill 2:31 PM

Oh, I know that advances are always built on fundamental principles, but it's so easy to get caught up in the incrementalism, thinking that just because something has been around for a long time, there isn't anything new that can be done with it. Then, we get something like this. From the way it sounds, this could have been built much earlier. It wasn't a technological advance so much as a new way to use old tech. I'm not surprised that such a thing could happen, I just think it's really neat when it does.

# posted by Christiana 4:51 PM

Evolution is always neat. ;-)

Now, if someone would only invent the better picture...

# posted by Bill 5:39 PM

I don't know what you two were just talking about, but now I'm turned on!

-Tom in Laguna Niguel

# posted by Anonymous 5:48 PM

Well, just hit 'reset' and reboot....

# posted by Bill 5:56 PM

It's a great camera, but there's nothing surprising here - if you want ultra-resolution, you use a large negative. Standard large-format cameras use 10 x 8 inch film; this guy has scaled it up a little to 18 x 9 and scanned the neg. So I'm not sure what the fuss is about. And how often do you want to carry a camera that large around with you?

# posted by Anonymous 7:03 AM

Okay... Let me see if I can stay calm for this one...

Todd... It doesn't matter how many times you could possibly conceive of yourself (now there's an ugly thought) carrying this camera around. That's inconsequential. The important part is that if you do need it, it's there now because this guy thought to do it. And if you think it's no big deal, why didn't you come up with it first? Apparently, from the attention he's gotten in all the right places, there does seem to be some need.

# posted by Bill 7:28 AM

"And if you think it's no big deal, why didn't you come up with it first? "

Uh, because I've never felt the need for gigapixel resolution, at least if it needs a 100-pound, 2-foot long camera?

There's a _lot_ of things you or I are never going to invent (can't think about everything at once!) - that has logically nothing to do with whether they are a big deal or not.

Like it says above - People have been taking ultra-high resolution (i.e. far more than any digital camera) photos on large format cameras for decades, and you can buy one in the right shops today. Lots of photographers still chose medium format and 35mm instead because of the convenience and speed of handling; i.e. they didn't need the resolution.

This one is a little bit bigger than standard, but there doesn't seem to be anything fundamentally new here.

# posted by Anonymous 8:43 AM

Lots and lots of interesting reading!!
You got my attention!
T.

# posted by tammi 9:21 AM

Thanks Tammi. We'll work on keeping it.

# posted by Bill 9:29 AM

"This one is a little bit bigger than standard, but there doesn't seem to be anything fundamentally new here."

There's definitely a reply available for that comment, but we're a family blog. However, you do have my condolences.

# posted by Bill 9:30 AM

Cheap Bill, very - and he didn't say he was standard...

# posted by Anonymous 2:14 PM

What? I'm not entitled to make assumptions too?

# posted by Bill 3:51 PM

This was a good post. It's refreshing to see that people are still trying to make better resolution photographs. Eadweard Muybridge, the pioneer of moving pictures, used a camera with 18 x 22 inch plates to take a 360 degree panorama of the whole of San Francisco from the top of Leland Stanford's house on Nob Hill in the 1870s. I went to see his prints of that panorama on display in S.F. once, and the resolution is so good that you feel you can practically jump inside of one of those photos. You could probably link many of the houses in the picture with a specific address if you took the time. A photo can become a research tool for historians in such a case. http://213.48.46.171/museum/muybridge/Panorama.htm has more info on Muybridge if you're interested.

Would be curious to know what high-end digital cameras are being used in a similar way for these big pictures, without the need for so much stitching. I know that Foveon has been working on higher quality CMOS imagers with three layers of pixels for better color. Of course, the optics and other parts are as much an issue as the image sensors ....

# posted by Alan M. 6:03 AM

Alan, consideringthe attention the DOD and "Big Business" is giving Ross, I'd be surprised if there are any digital cameras doing the same thing.

# posted by Bill 6:30 PM

Back in 1998 there was an article about a 67-megapixel CCD for astronomical telescopes.

http://www.spie.org/web/meetings/programs/as98/3355.html

More recently, the Pan-STARRS instrument at Hawaii has four 1-gigapixel CCD mosaics:

http://www.ifa.hawaii.edu/publications/baas2003.html

"Pan-STARRS will be composed of four 1.8-m telescopes observing the same region of sky simultaneously. Each telescope will have a 3° field of view and be equipped with a CCD focal plane mosaic with 10^9 pixels"

But of course, these aren't portable...

# posted by Anonymous 1:42 AM

Here's another guy doing very-large format (12x20") photography and printing, and another camera:

http://www.f32.net/Associates/TomYanul.html

# posted by Anonymous 2:04 AM