Here's the moment where you pretend that a breakthrough in a given industry would just revolutionize the way you do work, yet you know -- deep down in your heart -- that you'd never take advantage. Okay, so maybe you would, but your friend wouldn't. At any rate, a gaggle of boffins at Stanford have set out to "reinvent digital photography" with the advent of the open-source digital camera. The idea here is to give programmers the power to conjure up new software to teach old cameras new tricks, with the hope being to eliminate software limits that currently exist. In fact, a prototype shooter has already been developed, with the Frankencamera hinting at a future where owners can download apps to their devices and continuously improve its performance and add to its abilities. The actual science behind the concept is stupendously in-depth, so if you're thinking of holding off on that new Nikon or Canon in 2034, you might want to give the read link a look for a little more encouragement.
Everyone has said it already. Built in flashes don't work very well and everyone opts for a good external flash anyway. There is no reason to include a flash in a high end camera when few people use them.
And why would you spend $800 on a base camera without knowing anything about it? Surely the no-flash thing would have been one of the first things you notice. Someone is not smart here.
Sounds and looks very medium format-ish to me With Phase One being the only pockets available, i wish they'd release something with less megapixels, opensource, add features whenever you want, and properly compete with the likes of Canon, Nikon, Sony, etc... How else are they gonna survive... fps and megapixels?
Why even have a flash? The whole concept of the flash was driven by the sensitivity limits of the film media. CCD/CMOS sensors should eventually have so much dynamic range that they would render the "flash" a totally optional accessory or obsolete altogether. In it's place we might have a low power constant light source (like maybe a highly diffused LED -- and maybe not even in the visible band), so that we could see the final image that is being shot in realtime with the light being boosted, just as we do now with digital camera.
On high end cameras, an external flash is preferred over an internal one. Sometimes this is take to extremes and the internal flash is left off completely. For example, Canon has made 5 full-frame dSLRs over the last couple years and none of them have a built-in flash.
What? The E-P1 has produced a lot of great pictures. Many professional owners use it for more casual, vacation shooting. And I'm not even sure how you managed to troll olympus and apple at the same time...
This doesn't dispute the fact that some cameraphones have flash, therefore better looking lowlight pictures. I can't believe I can't take pictures at night with a $800 camera!
Everyone has said it already. Built in flashes don't work very well and everyone opts for a good external flash anyway. There is no reason to include a flash in a high end camera when few people use them.
And why would you spend $800 on a base camera without knowing anything about it? Surely the no-flash thing would have been one of the first things you notice. Someone is not smart here.
Most built in flashes are good for up to about 12 feet inside as long as you are not using a large lens (gets in the way of the flash), and can help reduce shadows for casual outside shooting. That is not useless. An external flash is a must for any semi-serious photographer, but to call the build in flash useless is a bit of an exaggeration. Not having a built in flash is a handicap for any mid-range camera. If you think $800 is a high end camera, then I want some of what you are smoking.
It is a hacked Canon firmware that runs on almost all the PnS ones. Yes, the SLRs are proprietary, but that is a political limitation not a technical one.
As for swapping out sensors, I believe I read somewhere about a camera that already did that. Was it the RED?
I love CHDK. I think the most powerful feature is the scripting: I can do set-it-and-forget-it time lapses, or set up motion detection for lightning or bird-feeder shots. It's really great,
yes! CHDK is already way ahead in this arena, but it would be nice if the cameras were open to begin with, or if Canon, Nikon, et al would actually add new features to older models rather than rolling new ones out every six months. You may think they'd be killing their sales, but I don't know anyone who upgrades every release, and to add new features to existing production models (like an OS upgrade) would actually save retooling for the next model. Just keep selling the current one and sell an OS/firmware upgrade. This would also save obsolete camera from the landfill.
The next generation of modular RED camera systems will have interchangeable "Brains" and REPLACEABLE sensors. THat means that whenever they invent some amazing new sensor tech (which they seem to be doing quite often) you won't have to buy an entire new camera body or even a new brain.
check em out at red.com, I don't work for them or anything, I just love their product philosophy and their attitude.
Uh, a new sensor would probably need different processing ('brains')and a different interface, it's nice in theory but how practical is it? You need to replace everything but the rim of the lens attachment, except when new image stabilization requires a new rim too.. so you\d save nothing and would have to assemble stuff in a dust-free chamber you built in your home. .
It's not uncommon now incidentally to see students come with things either already exist commercially or hackers and tweakers already created, and not just with research projects, you see that also with books, on TV shows they often introduce new books that is just a rehash of what the media has been spouting or a rehash of classical works and the authors present it as if they have some radical new personal insight that they share, and often they seem to believe it themselves, it's a bit weird and sad at the same time. They could at least have acknowledged that it was an extension of the CHDK idea instead of pretending that doesn't exists, because this time I'm 100% convinced they know about CHDK.
However, while CHDK is quite useful, it is fairly limited - what if we want a new autoexposure algorithm, say to optimize the exposures needed for an HDR shot? What if we want to detect camera motion by looking at subsequent camera frames to help with panorama capture? And so on - these aren't things CHDK can do. If we could do everything we wanted on CHDK, why would we be spending all this effort on building on our stuff?
A few other points, while I'm here - this is a research platform, so size is a secondary issue (still, we'd like it smaller) as long as it's portable. We aren't out to beat RED (or any current commercial camera), although maybe one day the API we hope to create would run on a RED as well. The prototype specs will be good enough to take reasonable photos, to serve as a demonstration platform for all the interesting algorithm we (and hopefully many others) will come up with. It's not a commercial product.
We also hope to experiment with the user interface, with flexible buttons, etc on the prototype body.
-Eddy Talvala (one of the graduate students on the project)
Why are the researchers only thinking about better ways to expose a photograph (high dynamic range etc.)? What about object detection, scene parsing, etc.? Connect to Flickr to see what other photos were taken from your GPS location? Camera as eye to augmented reality? etc. Focusing only on image quality seems very limited thinking when the whole point is to open things up to innovation.
Mobile phones are already doing what they're doing, in the commercial space. Sure, the optics are horrible and the sensor is small, but you've got a half gigahertz CPU and soon a GPU, on Android if you want it. Much more open to innovation at layers above processing the raw sensor data.
Speaking of film, I've been digging around into integral imaging with plenoptic cameras recently, and I realized film is perfect for that. For example, a plenoptic film camera with an array of 2400 x 3600 10x10µm microlenses would allow for glasses-free 3D prints at 8x12in with 300dpi resolution. The photos would be put into a special viewer with 2400 x 3600 84.67x84.67 µm lenses, and could then be easily viewed.
People who actually get off the computer and actually TAKE pictures, wouldn't say such stupid shit. Film definitely has it's place, but I grow weary of listening to the so-called "purists" rave about it's benefits (read: highly exaggerated and mostly imaginary). Everyone knows film, FOR THE MOMENT, has more resolution than digital. Thus 20 year old movies brought out to Blu-Ray with staggering visuals. BUT! the present and future is all digital, folks. My 4 year old, 6mp D40 backup body looks fan-friggin-tastic when printed out to 13x19 (and beyond). My advice: Get used to it. Film stock is going to become harder and harder to find, while digital media is sold at most 7-11s.
I would like to use ASA settings on my camera rather than ISO, pictures look better when shot with film that has ASA values on the box in my experience and with this custom firmware idea you could use ASA numbers again.
Now that we've thrown 'em off the trail, use the form below to get in touch with the people at Engadget. Please fill in all of the required fields because they're required.
posted September 6th 2009 1:10PM
Yea, I don't remember if I ever used any mode but auto on my camera.
AUTO4LIFE!
Shutter priority 4 lyf
Aperture Priority in da house!
M all the way to Lightroom! ;)
Manual or nothing, I don't even know what the other options do
Manly Manual is Manly.
Chuck Bartowski?
Interesting, I thought camera's were already this advanced, but Im not an enthusiast.
Everyone has said it already. Built in flashes don't work very well and everyone opts for a good external flash anyway. There is no reason to include a flash in a high end camera when few people use them.
And why would you spend $800 on a base camera without knowing anything about it? Surely the no-flash thing would have been one of the first things you notice. Someone is not smart here.
Woops clicked on wrong reply link. Lol. Sorry for that.
Add to its abilities...eh?
"Nikon learned FLASH!" Doo-dee-doo!
Sounds and looks very medium format-ish to me
With Phase One being the only pockets available, i wish they'd release something with less megapixels, opensource, add features whenever you want, and properly compete with the likes of Canon, Nikon, Sony, etc...
How else are they gonna survive... fps and megapixels?
tbh, all firmware is good as open source when it comes to dedicated hackers.
Why even have a flash? The whole concept of the flash was driven by the sensitivity limits of the film media. CCD/CMOS sensors should eventually have so much dynamic range that they would render the "flash" a totally optional accessory or obsolete altogether. In it's place we might have a low power constant light source (like maybe a highly diffused LED -- and maybe not even in the visible band), so that we could see the final image that is being shot in realtime with the light being boosted, just as we do now with digital camera.
The Olympus EP1 sucks. ugly an useless. People are complaining about the iPhone not having flash, how about a DEDICATED CAMERA?
On high end cameras, an external flash is preferred over an internal one. Sometimes this is take to extremes and the internal flash is left off completely. For example, Canon has made 5 full-frame dSLRs over the last couple years and none of them have a built-in flash.
What? The E-P1 has produced a lot of great pictures. Many professional owners use it for more casual, vacation shooting. And I'm not even sure how you managed to troll olympus and apple at the same time...
This doesn't dispute the fact that some cameraphones have flash, therefore better looking lowlight pictures. I can't believe I can't take pictures at night with a $800 camera!
Camera phones don't support external flash. dSLRs and the E-P1 do.
So when you are taking pictures in low light, you put the flash on the camera. Otherwise, you take it off.
It's just not the same as a cameraphone.
i can't believe you bought an $800 camera and didn't know it didn't come with a built-in flash.
Everyone has said it already. Built in flashes don't work very well and everyone opts for a good external flash anyway. There is no reason to include a flash in a high end camera when few people use them.
And why would you spend $800 on a base camera without knowing anything about it? Surely the no-flash thing would have been one of the first things you notice. Someone is not smart here.
@Rob Conway
Considering the level of his comment I can easily belive that he did.
Hot shoe FTW!
Most built in flashes are good for up to about 12 feet inside as long as you are not using a large lens (gets in the way of the flash), and can help reduce shadows for casual outside shooting. That is not useless. An external flash is a must for any semi-serious photographer, but to call the build in flash useless is a bit of an exaggeration. Not having a built in flash is a handicap for any mid-range camera. If you think $800 is a high end camera, then I want some of what you are smoking.
I too feel the recent trends in miniaturization are overrated...
That's what she said...
That's what she said!
Mine said that first!
Ever heard of CHDK?
It is a hacked Canon firmware that runs on almost all the PnS ones. Yes, the SLRs are proprietary, but that is a political limitation not a technical one.
As for swapping out sensors, I believe I read somewhere about a camera that already did that. Was it the RED?
I love CHDK. I think the most powerful feature is the scripting: I can do set-it-and-forget-it time lapses, or set up motion detection for lightning or bird-feeder shots. It's really great,
RED will have changable "brains", but they cost a lot.
yes! CHDK is already way ahead in this arena, but it would be nice if the cameras were open to begin with, or if Canon, Nikon, et al would actually add new features to older models rather than rolling new ones out every six months. You may think they'd be killing their sales, but I don't know anyone who upgrades every release, and to add new features to existing production models (like an OS upgrade) would actually save retooling for the next model. Just keep selling the current one and sell an OS/firmware upgrade. This would also save obsolete camera from the landfill.
The next generation of modular RED camera systems will have interchangeable "Brains" and REPLACEABLE sensors. THat means that whenever they invent some amazing new sensor tech (which they seem to be doing quite often) you won't have to buy an entire new camera body or even a new brain.
check em out at red.com, I don't work for them or anything, I just love their product philosophy and their attitude.
Uh, a new sensor would probably need different processing ('brains')and a different interface, it's nice in theory but how practical is it? You need to replace everything but the rim of the lens attachment, except when new image stabilization requires a new rim too.. so you\d save nothing and would have to assemble stuff in a dust-free chamber you built in your home.
.
It's not uncommon now incidentally to see students come with things either already exist commercially or hackers and tweakers already created, and not just with research projects, you see that also with books, on TV shows they often introduce new books that is just a rehash of what the media has been spouting or a rehash of classical works and the authors present it as if they have some radical new personal insight that they share, and often they seem to believe it themselves, it's a bit weird and sad at the same time.
They could at least have acknowledged that it was an extension of the CHDK idea instead of pretending that doesn't exists, because this time I'm 100% convinced they know about CHDK.
The motion detection is awesome.
We're well aware of CHDK (see our newly added FAQ on the project page:
http://graphics.stanford.edu/projects/camera-2.0/)
However, while CHDK is quite useful, it is fairly limited - what if we want a new autoexposure algorithm, say to optimize the exposures needed for an HDR shot? What if we want to detect camera motion by looking at subsequent camera frames to help with panorama capture? And so on - these aren't things CHDK can do. If we could do everything we wanted on CHDK, why would we be spending all this effort on building on our stuff?
A few other points, while I'm here - this is a research platform, so size is a secondary issue (still, we'd like it smaller) as long as it's portable. We aren't out to beat RED (or any current commercial camera), although maybe one day the API we hope to create would run on a RED as well. The prototype specs will be good enough to take reasonable photos, to serve as a demonstration platform for all the interesting algorithm we (and hopefully many others) will come up with. It's not a commercial product.
We also hope to experiment with the user interface, with flexible buttons, etc on the prototype body.
-Eddy Talvala (one of the graduate students on the project)
Why are the researchers only thinking about better ways to expose a photograph (high dynamic range etc.)? What about object detection, scene parsing, etc.? Connect to Flickr to see what other photos were taken from your GPS location? Camera as eye to augmented reality? etc. Focusing only on image quality seems very limited thinking when the whole point is to open things up to innovation.
Mobile phones are already doing what they're doing, in the commercial space. Sure, the optics are horrible and the sensor is small, but you've got a half gigahertz CPU and soon a GPU, on Android if you want it. Much more open to innovation at layers above processing the raw sensor data.
Looks quite interesting, although I'm going to continue sticking to film and darkrooms. Digital still cannot compete.
with the expense? the impracticality? the lack of control over the finished product?
And I'm sure your pictures look great when they're hanging in galleries.
But for pictures of that tree in my backyard with the funky looking branches that I want to upload to the internet my digital camera works great.
Speaking of film, I've been digging around into integral imaging with plenoptic cameras recently, and I realized film is perfect for that. For example, a plenoptic film camera with an array of 2400 x 3600 10x10µm microlenses would allow for glasses-free 3D prints at 8x12in with 300dpi resolution. The photos would be put into a special viewer with 2400 x 3600 84.67x84.67 µm lenses, and could then be easily viewed.
People who actually get off the computer and actually TAKE pictures, wouldn't say such stupid shit. Film definitely has it's place, but I grow weary of listening to the so-called "purists" rave about it's benefits (read: highly exaggerated and mostly imaginary). Everyone knows film, FOR THE MOMENT, has more resolution than digital. Thus 20 year old movies brought out to Blu-Ray with staggering visuals. BUT! the present and future is all digital, folks. My 4 year old, 6mp D40 backup body looks fan-friggin-tastic when printed out to 13x19 (and beyond). My advice: Get used to it. Film stock is going to become harder and harder to find, while digital media is sold at most 7-11s.
anyone else want to masturbate verbally about their amazing better than yours knowledge of photography?
I would like to use ASA settings on my camera rather than ISO, pictures look better when shot with film that has ASA values on the box in my experience and with this custom firmware idea you could use ASA numbers again.
J/K (obviously|)
F-O-V-E-O-N
LOL
EOM
Ahh yes. A lone Sigma fan.
I thought Rick Astley grew a beard! And was working on open source cameras!
You can tell by the way he's holding it that he's never gonna give it up.