RollingShutter
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See how InVisage's HDR sensor will improve smartphone filmmaking
It's been over five years since we heard from InVisage, a company developing a new kind of smartphone sensor with higher dynamic range and zero rolling shutter. It just produced a short film called Prix using a prototype chip to show exactly how the tech works. As a reminder, InVisage developed a photosensitive nano-coating it calls QuantumFilm that works differently than silicon. It claims that the material has "higher photosensitivity and electron sensitivity per pixel," which makes it react more like film than a typical CMOS sensor. It's also fast enough to instantly switch on and off, allowing the use of a global instead of a rolling shutter.
Windows Photo Gallery and Movie Maker refresh: Vimeo integration, camera stabilization
Microsoft's stalwart Photo Gallery and Movie Maker won't be hitting high-end studios anytime soon, but a new refresh for Windows 7 and 8 adds useful features that the teeming masses might appreciate. Topping the list for Movie Maker is video stabilization, which fixes camera jitter and "wobble" or rolling shutter -- a desperately needed feature for free software chockablock with shaky soccer mom and skater videos. Redmond has also added audio waveforms and an extra narration track, simple audio cleanup tools and text effects to the video editor. As for Photo Gallery, the only new tool of note is "auto collage" which should let you create spectacularly cheesy montages using seven or more photos, regardless of artistic talent or effort. Finally, the software giant announced Vimeo as its new "publish partner," letting you upload your Gadget Cribs rip-offs from either program directly to the site. Let's see if the video hoster figures out a way to cordon off the onslaught of new freeware riff-raff from its regular hipster / film school crowd.
Using the iPhone and iPad cameras to capture external guitar oscillations
Remember the video of guitar strings oscillating, caught by an iPhone sitting inside a guitar? Turns out you can capture this outside a guitar if you just apply a ton of lights. It makes sense, as you're monkeying with the rolling shutter, which can then capture the oscillations of the guitar strings as they are plucked. It's great fun to watch, and tipster Mike Salovich tells us he wound up using 2600 watts of industrial light to capture this effect. He also points out how important camera orientation is, as it will maximize the rolling shutter effect. Check out the video to see what he's talking about.
iPhone 4 captures guitar strings in action
This is one of the slickest iPhone 4 videos I've seen in a long time. A guitarist (justkylevids on YouTube) apparently wondered what it was like being inside his guitar while playing, so he dropped his iPhone 4 in with the video camera running and captured this incredible video. The effect you see is mesmerizing, but not really representative of the way that guitar strings actually oscillate. Instead, it's another example of how the iPhone 4's rolling shutter can create some interesting photos and video. Still, it's fun to watch.
Rolling shutter effect can make stunning iPhone photos
The image above was shot by Jason Mullins with his iPhone 4 on a flight from London to Guernsey. The weird black lines you can see are actually distorted, disconnected copies of the propeller blades, but this isn't a Photoshop hack; this was how the image came out of the phone. Virtually all consumer grade digital cameras, including cell phones, do not take the picture instantly when you push the shutter button. Instead, they quickly scan over the CCD CMOS sensor from the top left to the bottom right, like the electron beam in an old CRT television. This is called rolling shutter capture. This scanning process is fast, but sometimes it's not fast enough. If you angle the device just right and take pictures of fast moving or rotating objects, you can create all sorts of weird and funky distortion effects. You can see more like this in the rolling shutter Flickr group. (Thanks to Jason for letting us reproduce his shot; he's put a few more pictures on Flickr from the same flight.) [Post updated to correct CCD vs. CMOS sensor used in the iPhone.]
