BetterLight intros 416-megapixel digital camera back

Never one to let a pixel go unused, digital imaging company BetterLight has raised the bar on ridiculously high-resolution cameras yet again, busting out its new top-end, 416-megapixel Super10K-HS model at the big PMA trade show. Like the company's other mega megapixel wonders, the Super10K-HS isn't a digital camera itself, but a so-called "scanning back" that attaches to high-end, large-format cameras for tasks like photographing paintings (as seen above) and other stationary objects. They need to be stationary 'cause shooting a single photo at the full 416-megapixel resolution takes upwards of two minutes, effectively working more like a scanner than a digital camera. Once it's finished, however, you've got a 10,200 x 13,600 pixel image to do as you please with, clocking in at a file size of about 794MB. Anyone remotely considering getting one had better start saving up (or working on a pitch for the boss), with this monster set to demand a hefty $22,995 when it's released at the end of the month.

[Via Crave]

[Matt @ Mar 9th 2007 5:58PM]

At a certain point, won't you be able to just use digital cameras as microscopes? I mean, I know this model requires the subject to be still, but just think about it.

[humpty @ Mar 9th 2007 6:09PM]

^ you can get a lot of pixels, but, the lens may not have the ability to resolve as much detail as the sensor wold allow. This is a problem with high megapixel DSLRs and cheap, entry level lenses.

[Matt @ Mar 9th 2007 6:15PM]

Thats a sexi machine... hmm is this camera week or something?

[Leoedin @ Mar 9th 2007 7:40PM]

yes, it's called PMA.

[Deezee @ Mar 9th 2007 6:17PM]

2 minutes capture time? What is this the 1800's? Come on Betterlight, speed it up. Then maybe it'll be useful for something good. Like pr0n.

[Nick @ Mar 9th 2007 6:31PM]

No, it is not supposed to be a camera in the traditional sense, thats losing the true reasoning behind 4x5, 8x10 and 11x17 photography... Ansel Adams didnt use a point and shoot camera, he used a large-format film camera... These are used when the absolute perfection of detail is needed, like in paintings, for instance... With an image produced from this camera, you could search for any detail up to the hairsbreadth of the paintbrush and see it, but without ever needing to go near the painting. It IS like a microscope, in that it produces a high quality, high resolution image than can be magnified many thousand times without picture degradation and pixelation.
I want one.

[Jesse S @ Mar 9th 2007 7:57PM]

Ummm...And why would one use a camera over a scanner for flat objects?

[Nick @ Mar 10th 2007 1:51PM]

...Have you reeeeally ever tried to put a 60" image on a flatbed scanner? Would you SREIOUSLY consider putting a Picasso or a Monet facedown on a possibly harmul light-meitting surface.
NO.
Hence... This camera
Not to mention

you cant take a scanner outside, open it up and point it at a subject, like a city scape or a landscape, and garner an image from it. It doesnt work like that.
They dont make scanners that are able to do what this image back does.

[Owen V @ Mar 9th 2007 6:52PM]

is it just me or is 10,200 x 13,600 not equal to 416 megapixels?

[evo @ Mar 9th 2007 8:01PM]

From reading the page, each pixel site captures red, green, and blue information. As a result, they are counting megapixel resolution the same way the Foveon/Sigma people do--they multiply the number of pixel sites by three since there is no interpolation required like in Bayer-pattern sensors that only capture one wavelength of light at each pixel site.

Interpolation reduces image sharpness, so the resolution goes down. Though it is not 413 MP in the same way we tend to think about it, the resolution captured in these images will be better than a 416/3 MP sensor would be.

[Adamwho @ Feb 10th 2008 3:56PM]

10200 x 13600 x 3(colors) = 416M

[Wingi @ Mar 9th 2007 7:01PM]

it does if you multiply by 300, but still thats a huge file.

[Max @ Mar 9th 2007 7:10PM]

Hell, you'd need a new computer just to handle the files...

[Greg Zapp @ Mar 9th 2007 7:48PM]

Aside from lense issues, that is approaching what the human eye can capture without moving your head.

[David @ Mar 9th 2007 10:10PM]

Bayer sensors capture luminance information at about 75-80% of the sensor's resolution. Where they lose to Foveon-style sensors is in color resolution. Fortunately, the eye has very poor color resolution, which is the reason most still and video compression schemes degrade color resolution significantly. In addition, the color information in most natural images (i.e. not synthesized specifically to have colors that alternate at the pixel level) have color that changes much more slowly than the luminance information.

As a result, reporting pixel count in the way done here is very misleading, because it doesn't at all lead to a number comparable to what people expect. For almost every image that it might capture in the real world, the visual resolution advantage over a 130Mpixel Bayer-sensor camera is at most 50% and yet they use a 3x multiplier to count each photoelement as a pixel even though they are colocated in space and thus can't capture more spatial detail.

[Nick Kasoff @ Mar 9th 2007 8:19PM]

Ummm...And why would one use a camera over a scanner for flat objects?

Because the Louvre won't let you take the painting down off the wall and slap it on your flatbed scanner.

Nick Kasoff
http://www.thugreport.com

[Darnell @ Mar 9th 2007 10:09PM]

Geez. I thought they would have at least moved to firewire by now. That things has got to slow transfer times.
Anyway, this is what traditional photography entailed. There was a time when subjects had to hold still for minutes when they were getting their portraits taken.
Back to the present--for architecture, still life (think things you buy like jewelry and cars), art reproduction and some landscapes, this is the back to get. It's designed to fit on large format cameras that have perspective controls so that building doesn't look skewed (or can be even more skewed). Obviously someone will use the highest quality lenses for this beast. Especially considering the family sedan price tag.

[Dion Johnson @ Mar 10th 2007 12:21AM]

Why can't I use my existing flatbed scanner, with a 90-degree prism and copy lens, as a scanning back? If I put a groundglass on the scanner surface and shield ambient light (with a bellows), wouldn't that work?

[Scott Lerman @ Apr 2nd 2007 10:06PM]

You can, sort of. I've built a scanner back for my Speed Graphic 4x5 camera from a Canon scanner. It's about 110mm pixels for $80.

[kallu @ Mar 10th 2007 1:56AM]

This things are not useful for normal user ... satellites may be

[pvldrnkv @ Mar 10th 2007 4:37AM]

this will be standard in 10 years so i'll just wait

[Thomas Newport @ Mar 10th 2007 4:55AM]

Returning to the point about parralel ports, look carefilly, and there is also a USB 2.0 port (easier to see on the website that the image links to)

[Mac112 @ Mar 10th 2007 7:46AM]

Some years ago I worked with a similar, although lower resolution, Dicomed scanner back. Picture quality and resolution was way better than any non-scanning backs, but it was very slow and was very sensitive to fluctuations in the mains power voltage - resulting in constantly varying exposure through the image…

[Stranger @ Mar 10th 2007 10:28AM]

If it's like on my camera the parallel port is not used for transfer of images, only for controlling the camera.

[Error404 @ Mar 10th 2007 12:49PM]

Is that a parallel cable attached to the contraption? 2 minutes to capture the 794MB file... and how long does it take to transfer?

[josh @ Mar 10th 2007 3:12PM]

not to mention, what about artworks that have very textured surfaces (like a jasper johns for example)? with a camera, you can set up lighting however you need to really capture the painting in the best way. with a scanner, the light comes at a 90 degree angle always.

this is not for normal use guys, but it's still an impressive beast.

[Erik Peterson @ Mar 10th 2007 7:45PM]

Perhaps it isn't a parallel port, but rather SCSI which would be reasonable on something like this.

[David N @ Mar 14th 2007 4:25PM]

Where does the flash go?

-Just kidding, stop yelling.

David N
http:\\www.paper-scanning-services.com