[LargeFormat] Latest Camera Technology

[Schuyler Grace]

That's the camera!  After I got your e-mail, I happened to catch part of the
segment again, and I saw the Nikon "viewfinder."  But it's still funny to me
that The Science Channel's spin on the whole thing was that this camera
embodied the latest in technological innovations, when it really was a
glorified 150-year-old design, and the digital part was just scanned film,
which isn't terribly new, either.

That's not to say, however, that the camera isn't a wonder or that the
images they are capturing with it aren't detailed or beautiful--it is and
they are.  And my hat is off to the folks that managed to put this thing
together.  Now, if they had come up with a camera that could take
large-film-quality digital images and do it in the time it takes to make a
film image (heck, include darkroom time, as well as the fraction of a second
shooting time), that would have been a really impressive bit of technology.

Not to slight the digital folks out there, but it's nice to see another
reminder of why we go to all the trouble of capturing a bit of the soul of
our surroundings with our quaint old cameras and big sheets of film.  If you
want to get everything you possibly can out of a shot, you still can't beat
a large expanse of photographic emulsion as a capture medium.

-----Original Message-----
From: largeformat-bounces at f32.net [mailto:largeformat-bounces at f32.net] On
Behalf Of Ken Strauss
Sent: Monday, June 13, 2005 11:28 AM
To: 'f32 Large Format Photography Mail List'
Subject: RE: [LargeFormat] Latest Camera Technology

You might me interested in http://www.gigapxl.org/ for more details of the
camera design. It produces a 9x18 inch image on roll film with a vacuum back
to ensure flatness. The viewfinder is a modified Nikon F2. Focus is
apparently by measuring the film to subject distance and then adjusting the
lens position by using three dial gauges and a table of focus data.