Gigapxl alll over again

superhornet59 · May 14, 2006

Okay. so i want to make my own "super megapixel camera". i know megapixels arent everything... but i still like pushing the limits. firstly. how can i make my own film? if cant, can i join existing pieces of film in a way that they will merge nicely?

on top of that... can i somehow join sensors? i could align like 9 cameras in a box to take a photo... but id find it more fullfilling to make one huge sensor.
lets look at it this way,
the Casio EX-Z1000 has a 10 megapixel 1/1.8 inch sensor. in other words, lets say i somehow got the money to get like... well a whole crapload of these cameras (ebay?) could i somehow join them to get a super-digital camera? i mean, say i rented myself a microscope and got some sophisticated tools, could i do it? i assume I'd need to write some of my own firmware and the like but im a very quick learner.

but still, film seems a bit easier, but not quite as challenging. so, how can i make my own giant film? making the camera would likely be easier...

Hasselblad's 39mp is nice... but still i woulnt want to settle for anythin under a gigapixel. hell you know what... mabye i should make myself a terapixel camera lol (naw. i think the gigapixel film is around a foot either way. so ya... a 300 foot camera aint something if like to lug around lol. but still some sort of digital 500 mp is definately possible, and it would honestly not be THAT much bigger then your average large cam. something around the size of the EOS 1DS, just remember pretty much the whole back of the cam would be the sensor and pixel pitch would have to be smaller. which means... not much room for all the other compontents but i see possibilities...

The white parts represent lenses. the first to gen the lens to spread the picture over that area, the second to straighten out the rays (sensors work best when light falls on them at 90 degree angles) and the red part being the sensor. the black "funnel" is where the light travels through. as you can see you have bits of room to each side. not much i know... but still. for example imagine in it this way:
-behind the sensor is still room for LCD components and button components. in hte hand grip would go a battery. i propose a special Supercap battery, which uses a capacitor rather than chemicals. they can easily hold similair power or more, and they can be charged in under 30 seconds. no joke. and they dont loose max power over use either. only danger is high voltage if opened up. anyway they can give a great power source. i dont exactly know how big a buffer is... but i bet you could fit it in that space off to the left of the "funnel", meaning a fair buffer space... (speed wouldnt be high I'd imagine). then, you can cram all the other crap into the vertical hand grip (remember its not a square photo). everything would likely be downsized, but if oyu can ifit all the componets of a compact into somehting that small.. im sure you can make alot of the SLR components smaller too. proccessor i wouldnt want to downsize though... gotta be creative when looking where to put that. so it looks like other then slow shooting speeds and rather vague battery life... youd be all good. except one thing. how are you going to put a reflex mirror in there?

anyway frankly id love to get my hands on a few of those 10mp sensors from the casio, get a microscope and stitch them together... then make a super-slr... but micro electronics is not something ive ever realy done... but any real digicam engineers here to give some good advice? you never know... with enough will and motivation i could do it...

also, could i just take an existing SLR (1DS again i guess) take hasselblad's 39 mp sensor, slap it in htere with some modifications, get some genious friends to mess with the firmware, and get it to actualy run?

thanks so much (just for reading this! LOL) -Matt

Dan39 · May 14, 2006

so you want to do something like this?
http://triton.tpd.tno.nl/gigazoom/Delft2.htm
lol that thing is awsome

Torus34 · May 14, 2006

On megapixels, etc.: Why? To what end?

darin3200 · May 14, 2006

Do you have the money and engineering skills to do this? It will be harder than just slapping some lenses in a body and joining some sensors.

Unimaxium · May 14, 2006

I seriously doubt you (or anyone on this forum) have the know how to write camera firmware, or to build your own camera from various gathered pieces. Also, it would probably cost a lot of money to get 50 to 100 CCDs. Also, there's no way you're going to engineer the processing power you need for 500mp into a camera the size of the 1D. Just look at the hasselblad H2D. It's huge (larger than the 1D), and it's only 40mp.

Also, making your own film would be very difficult. Especially if you want color film. It takes Kodak, Fuji, and the others a lot of work to produce their special emulsions that have even color balance and decent grain size and whatnot.

The only feasible way to do this by yourself is to either acquire film that's already the size you want and engineer your own optics like the gigapixl guy did, or to simply take a lot of shots and stitch them together yourself like the people did to create that image that dan39 linked to above. Both of these will still require some serious work and problem-solving on your part, though.

Unimaxium · May 14, 2006

also, could i just take an existing SLR (1DS again i guess) take hasselblad's 39 mp sensor, slap it in htere with some modifications, get some genious friends to mess with the firmware, and get it to actualy run?

There's no physical way to fit the 6x4.5cm sensor into the 35mm body of the 1D.

superhornet59 · May 14, 2006

nono i used the body as a general refrence for a good sized camera to use it. you couldnt just take the sensor and put it on (not the one in the drawing anyway). now about the hasselblad, look at it this way. how are you going to make the 35mm image fit on that big sensor? 2 ways:

1) make a dual lens configuration to spread the image then correct it (as done in my little illustration) or,

2) move the sensor farther from the lens so the "cone" shape of the image (which gets larger as you progress) will fit the sensor.

the hasselblad uses method 2, which makes the camera much longer. unnessessary, but technicaly... if you need that much detail, the last thing you want is extra glass between the image and the sensor.

anyhow i have good friends in many places, and if i need to recruit some people to do this i could. for starters:

-a software specialist. i could pull some 'friend of a friend' type things here

-computer hardware. i have a company nearby that im familiar with which makes circuitboards and the like. obviously with the "pull the hasselblads sensor and stick it on the 1Ds idea (actualy id likely use a D2X. im a Nikon person), id oviously have to move some things around. a bigger buffer would come in handy as you might imagine. also, remember that scanning back is almost an empy box with a sensor at the back, so i dont have to stick the whole thing in (depth-wise) just the sensor.

-optical engineer. god the only tough part here is picking.

as for money? that seems to be my biggest limitation at the moment. if i just knew it could be done, which is why i need some numbers and sizes, then i could even sell these beasts(not modified 1ds, my own i mean)
i dont know just how small i can make all those components... but lets assume the buffer can hold 20 images, write speed 3 per sec or so, and i did the idea as in my earlier illustration... could i cram all the neccessary parts while maintaining reasonable performance into the vertical girp and front corners? if you can tell me the max sensor size, at a reasonable pixel pitch, how many megapixels could you get from it (if its possible).

remember i can get optical engineers... but im hoping that there might be some hanging around on a photography site. Thanks again -Matt

oh and remember, i wouldnt have to "rewrite" the firmware code, just merge the two together. it can be surprisinly easy... still, one day i dream we'll have "lego SLR's" where we can just swap and choose parts. one day...

Dan39 · May 14, 2006

sounds awsome dude, u really sound like your going for this **** lol, but i dunno if your gonna be able to, it is a lot fo money to hrie these different people. you should start some donations coming in. i will diffenitly be checking back on this, because if you really do it, theres gonna be someone looking into it, writing about it etc

ThomThomsk · May 15, 2006

superhornet59 said:
but still, film seems a bit easier, but not quite as challenging. so, how can i make my own giant film? making the camera would likely be easier...

How big do you want to go? You can buy 8x10 inch sheet film straight off the shelf, and bigger sizes were made to order earlier this year by Ilford.

slickhare · May 15, 2006

i'm really interested to see how this turns out. reminds me of that guy who was making a 3600mm lens a while back...

Rob · May 15, 2006

Take a few digital cameras, rip out the CCDs, staple them to a piece of toast and skin a 1D. Then get some big lenses, put them in the body, write an operating system and put a Chinese 600mm mirror lens on the front.

Easy.

Seriously though, you want to create a gigapixel camera?? Take an ordinary picture with a digital point and shoot, or preferably a 320x320 web cam... save the file as a TIFF, sharpen it a bit and up the size of the picture to 1,000,000,000,000 x 1,000,000,000,000 pixels at 48bit colour depth. I'll bet that results in a better picture than you'd ever be able to create using the butchered camera complete with internal lens and huge sensor method. That is... assuming you've got a machine running photoshop with a couple of terabytes of addressible RAM.

This whole thing is so you can impress your mates in the pub isn't it?

Rob

superhornet59 · May 15, 2006

slickhare said:
i'm really interested to see how this turns out. reminds me of that guy who was making a 3600mm lens a while back...

Im a man of many talents...
lol bs aside, im a total dabbler. if i had the money id do this but until then nothing will likely happen. id set up a donations site mabye... but it sounds like alot of work. am i realy up for a commitment? guess time will tell.

and yes, it is mostly to show off lol. besides i figure if i take a large photo at high ISO then shrink it, rather than using a small photo, noise will be much less obvious. plus it means i can crop more and stay useable. in the end its all about flexibility realy...

well anyway, im considering putting together a team that has the neccessary skills... from there i need what, like 10,000 max for both cameras? ill go into photo selling overdrive and make it. s there any way i could make money off it though? i mean id be taking 2 cameras and merging them... i doubt its something i could legaly put on the market. so ya if i could know that most if not all of that 10,000 would be returned id do it... so ya how could i make it back?

superhornet59 · May 15, 2006

slickhare said:
i'm really interested to see how this turns out. reminds me of that guy who was making a 3600mm lens a while back...

Im a man of many talents...
lol bs aside, im a total dabbler. if i had the money id do this but until then nothing will likely happen. id set up a donations site mabye... but it sounds like alot of work. am i realy up for a commitment? guess time will tell.

and yes, it is mostly to show off lol. besides i figure if i take a large photo at high ISO then shrink it, rather than using a small photo, noise will be much less obvious. plus it means i can crop more and stay useable. in the end its all about flexibility realy...

well anyway, im considering putting together a team that has the neccessary skills... from there i need what, like 10,000 max for both cameras? ill go into photo selling overdrive and make it. s there any way i could make money off it though? i mean id be taking 2 cameras and merging them... i doubt its something i could legaly put on the market. so ya if i could know that most if not all of that 10,000 would be returned id do it... so ya how could i make it back? or actualy, if anyone has a broken 1DS tell me the problem and i might be willing to buy it off you for like a hundred, as long as its a sensor or firmware problem ill buy it...

if you do, email me ([email protected])

thanks -Matt

thebeginning · May 15, 2006

IMO, like the others, I think you are being far too ambitious with this. I'm not sure you realize how difficult it is (and expensive) to make something like this. Look at huge manufacturers canon, nikon, and hasselblad. If it were that easy and cheap, wouldn't those companies have made one? We are talking about hundreds of thousands of dollars you'd be spending on something that probably wouldnt even work. you want huge resolution? buy an 8x10 view camera and shoot 8x10 sheet film.