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Unbounded High Dynamic Range Photography Using a Modulo Camera

media.mit.edu

1–10 of 98 posts

Re: Unbounded High Dynamic Range Photography Using a Modulo Camera

#4
post #3

What's with the completely useless thumbnail at the bottom? That said, the technological explanation sounds simple and solid. Why aren't cameras doing that already?

I wondered the same; it takes two hyperlinks to get to the project's home page where they have a larger version. http://web.media.mit.edu/~hangzhao/modulo.html

Re: Unbounded High Dynamic Range Photography Using a Modulo Camera

#5
post #3

What's with the completely useless thumbnail at the bottom? That said, the technological explanation sounds simple and solid. Why aren't cameras doing that already?

I wondered the same; it takes two hyperlinks to get to the project's home page where they have a larger version. http://web.media.mit.edu/~hangzhao/modulo.html

Nice, thank you!

Re: Unbounded High Dynamic Range Photography Using a Modulo Camera

#7
The title here is terrible because over-saturation is an effect of poor tone mapping, which is inevitable if you want to display an HDR image in a low dynamic range display. An accurate title would be the end of over-exposed images, but why not just keep the original?

Re: Unbounded High Dynamic Range Photography Using a Modulo Camera

#8
Looks to be more related to exposure than saturation but still, it's an interesting new take on dynamic range. I'm more a hobbyist than an expert but current tone mapping techniques (at least anything mostly automated) can often leave you with "halos" around objects where the software has feathered the edges between lighter and darker areas. Then the article mentions the issues with using multiple shots for tone mapping.

I still try to just expose "properly" for the effect I want and shoot RAW to give me a little leeway in tweaking shadows and highlights but I'd be interested in trying out software that uses this technique if only for something new to mess with.

Re: Unbounded High Dynamic Range Photography Using a Modulo Camera

#9
It seems like this would make big glass even more important. This solution protects for over exposure, but doesn't address under exposure on a scene that moves (think indoor bar photography). So it isn't a end all solution that will everyone capture reality with their cell phones, but it is an awesome step in that direction.

Re: Unbounded High Dynamic Range Photography Using a Modulo Camera

#10
> No more will photographers or even ordinary people have to fumble with aperture size and exposure length.

This is a "computer scientists" understanding of photography, and this phrase alone can even be seen as "dangerous" by photographers. There's more to aperture size and exposure length than "how much light reaches the sensor", like focus, depth of field, motion blur and bokeh, to name a few, that is not aknowledged by that understanding. The technology is good, but it won't change the way photographers deal with photography, at best, it will give them a better tool to work with.

I also wonder how much impact this could have. Foveon Inc. had developed a great sensor that was going to be revolutionary, about 20 years ago. Today only Sigma uses it, and the UX is so bad in those cameras that the (very good) technology they had their hands on never got a chance to shine.

Also, is this implementation very different from having a 16-bit ADC in normal sensors? The end results would be the same: higher dynamic range. And the increase in bits seems a lot closer (because it would mean little changes to the current manufacture processes) than a whole new type of sensor being use in cameras.

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