RE: [APML]: CCD pic

[Chris Cook <ChrisCook@platsoft.com>]

The Astro-Photography Mailing List
------------------------------------

Jerry,

Nice pix!

It is truly amazing the technology that is now available.  My father and his
studio partner have been using the Sinar P2 camera body with a Leaf Scitex
back model DCB II.  The Leaf back contains a tri-scan chip that is 2048 x
2048 pixels and has an equivalent ISO of 50 and a complete image runs around
12MB.  They showed me some studio shots in which they outputted it through a
Iris digital printer.  Awesome!!!  You could not tell it was taken on a CCD
chip.  It looked as good as a shot on 4x5 Velvia.

The only thing with this back is that the price has to come down($10,000 -
15,000 for the chip), it's a tri scan so it limits it to mainly studio work
and it is not cooled.  But I was told that Leaf does have a single pass chip
the size of a 35mm frame for about $20,000.  Give it 5-10 years and we'll
all be shooting with digital cameras. :-)
  
Check out Scitex Corp at http://www.scitex.com

Chris

> ----------
> From:         Jerry Lodriguss[SMTP:jml@astropix.com]
> Sent:         Sunday, July 05, 1998 9:53 PM
> To:   astro-photo@nightsky.com
> Subject:      [APML]: CCD pic
> 
> The Astro-Photography Mailing List
> ------------------------------------
> 
> 
> Ok, I know this technically has nothing to do with film based
> astrophotography, but it is related to the discussion we were having about
> the resolution of spy satellites <G>, and the use of consumer digital
> cameras for astrophotography.
> 
> This will give you an idea of the current capabilities of the top of the
> line digital cameras available today to consumers.
> 
> This photo was taken with a Nikon NC2000E digital camera and its Kodak M3
> chip.  It is a one-chip color camera with a 1268 x 1012 pixel array, with
> each pixel being 16 microns.  That's 1,283,216 pixels.
> 
> The image is from a baseball game shot today, and it's at:
> 
> ftp://ftp.cyberenet.net/home/jml/NC2000/PHIL.JPG
> 
> It's a 179K JPEG file that uncompresses to a 2.4mb image.  The image is
> cropped a bit from it's original 3.5mb file. It was acquired in 36 bits,
> and levels were set, then translated to 24 bit color.
> 
> Now, the question arises, how does a single chip camera take a color
> picture?  Apparently Kodak places a tiny R, G or B filter over each pixel.
> Then the brightness of each pixel is analyzed and compared to other
> colored
> pixels around it, and the color is magically reconstituted.  This does
> cause some color artifacts, which can be seen in this photo in the name on
> the back of the jersey of the player sliding into second base. There is
> some greent that just wasn't there in reality. But overall, the quality is
> pretty amazing.
> 
> Also, the exposure latitude of these cameras is supposed to be less than
> transparency film, but the latest version of the acquire module seems to
> have improved considerably in this regard. This photo was taken under
> fairly difficult contrasty bright daytime sidelight lighting conditions,
> yet there is detail in the whites on the sunlit shoulder as well as on the
> Phillie's player's face which is in shadow as well as the sliding players
> arm and glove which are completely in shadow.  Of course, you have to nail
> the exposure.
> 
> A real drawback in using this camera for astrophotography is the fact that
> the CCD chip is not cooled. I hooked it up to the AP 130EDT and took some
> images of things like the moon, Epsilon Lyra, and the Ring Nebulae, and at
> long exposures, like 30 seconds, the thermal noise made the image
> unusable.
> 
> The Epsilon Lyra image and the moon images were just too boring to post.
> <G>
> 
> Jerry 
> mailto:jml@astropix.com
> Web page: http://www.astrosurf.com/astropix/index.html 
> Astrophotography,Photoshop enhancement tips and techniques
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