h a l f b a k e r yGetting blown into traffic is never fun.
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A very real problem with digital photography is handling highlights. With film, too much light means it gracefully tapers off into saturation. A digital sensor just stops hard at completely white.
The big companies have tackled this by improving dynamic range, auto exposure and giving you warnings
about blown highlights. It works. But there could be another way: non-linear amplification at the sensor. Purposefully apply a distortion curve to give lots of gain at low intensity and smooth it off as it reaches the top.
Of course you could do this with silicon. But lo, there is another way of applying non-linear gain -- vacuum tubes!
A camera with exposed vacuum tubes. I am certain there is a market for this.
Something like this
http://mitxela.com/...ads/ValveCamera.jpg
People will throw money at it [mitxela, May 01 2015]
[link]
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It would be pretty cool to take pictures of people lit only by the glow of the camera's tubes |
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Would you not require one such amplifier per pixel? |
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Pah, more valves, even better! (But no, most sensors use only one ADC) |
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I thought valve amps throw off harmonics as they reach
saturation... hence the lovely tonal depth? Does that mean
that a saturated blue pixel will start bleeding over to green
output? how would that be wired? Point to point with EL-34s
I hope. |
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// into a 32 bit depth pixel //
I'm feeling a bit inadequate with my 512x512 pixel 16 bit
camera. |
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Harmonic distortion can be pleasant with an audio
signal, but with a picture aren't we just be talking about
noise or graininess? |
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The idea of a tube camera does sound very steam-
punk cool. |
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//Harmonic distortion can be pleasant with an audio
signal, but with a picture aren't we just be talking about
noise or graininess?// |
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Instagram have proven that point, no? |
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//The idea of a tube camera does sound very steam-
punk cool.// |
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I propose a more direct solution, a massive grid of photo-
multipliers. I reckon we can get a reasonable photograph
out of something the size of a truck. |
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camera power measured in megawatts, not megapixels. |
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