Photographer Makes His Own 8×10 Digital Back for the Price of a House

[william_littman3]

<p>http://petapixel.com/2011/08/25/photographer-makes-his-own-8x10-digital-back-for-the-price-of-a-house/<br>

THIS IS YUGE! PUN INTENDED!!<br>

Now that this milestone has been accomplished we will launch a crowdfunding effort in the near future to help produce a 4x5 back which has a full frame sensor on one side and a display screen on the other which would serve as if a ground glass back / live view.</p>

<p>We have worked on this for 5 years and it should weigh no more and probably significantly less than a 545 holder and probably smaller .<br>

This is good news for large format longevity- </p>

[bob_salomon]

This is very old news. The article is from 2011.

[PapaTango]

<p>Makes me wonder how many terabytes each image file would be. Try opening that in Photoshop...</p>

[rodeo_joe1]

<p>It's only a 10 megapixel back Patrick, so even uncompressed and at 16 bit depth, it'll take all of 0.006% of a Terabyte.</p>

[Jochen_S]

<p>What kind of 4x5" back? - A soft proofing (like that 8x10") or a capturing one? I think all imaginabel variants (including monochrome!) would be nice to see or even have.</p>

[brian yarvin]

<p>There is more out there these days. This is one company I know about:</p>

<p>http://www.largesense.com/</p>

<p>Are there more?</p>

[jnanian]

http://www.digicamhistory.com/Xerox%20Model%20A%20sep.htmlee

http://petapixel.com/2015/05/26/electrophotography-creating-photos-with-the-xerox-photocopying-process/

[rodeo_joe1]

I won't be holding my breath for

largesense to bring out their 10

x 8 digital back. The amount of

vapour and fantasy ware in the

digital imaging field has been

quite abundant in the past.

And why would anyone want a 10x8

digital back when results from

5x4 would be practically

indistinguishable at one quarter

of the technical difficulty to

produce?

[william_littman3]

<p>Thank you all for all of the thoughtful responses<br>

Despite it not being so recent- What is relevant is someone was able to make a full size sensor for a 8x10 camera. I know that 35mm is up to 50 megapixel now and they surely will try to cram as much mp as possible as time goes on but there are properties of a lens sitting farther from a film plane that cannot be recreated on a 35mm or medium format sensor. This was the appeal of large format.<br>

For my purpose I know based on medium format achievements that if they are able now to get 80 megapixel out of a 6x4.5 cm sensor they can get 6x that from a full 4x5 sensor now.<br>

that would be the equivalent of 480 megapixel but even 320 which is my expectation is more than one would ever need.<br>

the larger capture area makes it very interesting for NASA as I may have mentioned earlier telescopic achievement has limitations that cannot be overcome such as distance and how that relates to time exposures - light travelling .... glass limitations so a larger capture area plus the new improvements by Nikon enabling shooting at asa 1000+ with little loss of quality yields a promising scenario for this application plus hand held large format photography where slow films pose many restrictions and which forced us to seek perfectible parallelism to overcome them as much as is permissible and with a gain of 2 stops. <br>

with The back we proposed there would be a gain of 6 stops plus 2 from perfectible parallelism that is really sweet.</p>

<p>this back would be structured as an ultra light- just the sensor on one side and a live view full size display on the rear.<br>

it would be no larger or wider that a grafmatic holder and weigh no more than a Polaroid 545 holder.<br>

it would attach to any 4x5 camera by Graf lock tabs only- though a security lock will have to be added as you would not want this to fall on the floor . there will be no ground glass capability.<br>

the bulk of the weight would be on a separate tablet or laptop app and the software would include focus confirmation metering and any other features currently available on 35mm slrs.<br>

We are proposing this to Polaroid and others as a modern day replacement of the Polaroid 545.<br>

This is a project for pro's I'm just going to get it the proper home as this isn't something you want to have an amateurish approach about And I'm just involved in The I.P. and focused on my own photography and will not manufacture this - If this projects moves forward it will be subcontracted to one of the 2 largest digital back makers -. with that I remind that even the medium format backs by the best makers are very unresponsive have no live view or questionable live view.<br>

if this is accomplished it could lead to a whole new generation of point and shoot lf CAMERAS by many makers which require no additional finder and so could be quite compact lightweight and responsive and eventually approximate the responsiveness of a canon sureshot a af leica and the movie and video industry could also benefit.<br>

My estimation is if an 8x10 cost as much as a house in 2011 most of the legwork is done and this is half the hardware so in the worse case scenario it could cost as much to get to production point and if feasible the final product shouldn't cost any more than a medium format back.<br>

I estimate it will sell for 30.000 on the first year and go down to half of that on the second year and eventually it will inevitably find many industrial and scientific uses and the cost will come down.<br>

yes spending that much for a 10mp back makes no sense but that is what happens when you want to do 1 of a kind for yourself. on the other hand the expenditure goes down proportionately to the utility offered.<br>

If this makes sense many people would rather spend 20.000 for a 320 megapixel large format than on a 80 megapixel medium format as those systems weigh a ton anyway and if there is an intelligent way<br>

to get many times more quality with no more weight and mirror less responsiveness at the decisive moment the financial risk is not that great.</p>

<p> </p>

[william_littman3]

<p>I think the Large Sense effort is yet more good news. I think it is amazing their first effort would be an odd format instead of making a standard back that can fit the millions of 4x5 or reducing backs in existence.<br /> which would assure quantity of orders and support. I'm averse to forcing customers to use a camera because it fits a back or vice versa. I think Hasselblad shot themselves in the foot when the new series of 6x4.5 was not detachable from the camera - same for 35mm makers when detachability makes it interesting for thousands of industrial uses . These corporations should know better that users these days don't have the capability to make their own DIY digital cameras in their garages and digital tech evolves so quickly that any improvement can only expected to stay current for 1.5 years at best.<br /> and it looks like more of a tripod option/ bulky but to me the more the merrier. <br /> The point of my post was to show that the curtain on large format photography will not come down with the last sheet of film and I think film will continue as well as a generational thing versus a necessity.</p>

[25asa]

<p>What would one do with a 480 MP image? Seriously do we need it that big, other then for military uses? And as mentioned what program would open such a huge file?</p>

[william_littman3]

<p>Good question Scott!<br>

Firstly if you scan a magazine page which is 8 x10 and create a 10 mb file it is the equivalent of a 50 mb file from a 35mm sensor or higher.<br>

capture area size matters in that way so Scott poses a good question as a 480 mb file from a 4x5 capture area would be the equivalent in amount of info to a 1600 mb file from a 35 mm sensor or higher.<br>

Obviously for photography itself one wouldn't have to use any higher resolution than necessary. but no matter what the cost of getting to the finish line is huge and has to be paid by someone who actually needs the highest end result in this case would be NASA and similar.<br>

Look at the poor quality images yielded by Hubble. If the sensor was 4x5 with 200 megapixel the resolution would be many times higher and because it is the only way to gain such increase It becomes a compelling argument.</p>

<p>I estimate that once these systems are operational and the chips fall where they may the optimal size file will be around 80 megabytes to which you add the sizeable amount of info provided by the capture size and by then computer processors will surely be faster more compact where file size will not slow you down.<br>

I also assume the case will be like when making a scan at 3600dpi and then reducing it meaning you don't need to store a large file but a large capture or scan file yields a better result so I assume by the time a file needs to be processed once stored it can become a smaller size file while preserving the benefits of having come from a larger original.</p>

[Aoresteen]

<p>The first hard drive I bought for my MacPlus was 20mb in 1986. My oh my have file sizes grown!!!!!!!</p>

[debejyo]

<p>@<a href="/photodb/user?user_id=48095">Scott Pickerin</a><br>

Its useful for large prints, the detail look very realistic. I scan my 4x5 to 500 mp, results in about 1 GB per uncompressed TIFF file. Its a breeze in modern computers. You get 32 GB of RAM in laptops, nowadays. With processing layers, you do use up about 18 GB of RAM.</p>

[william_littman3]

<p>I agree with the large print comment as fractals can only do so much and you can never get detail an original didn't have. In any event I think the amount of megapixels count is less important than having the data captured over a large area which already collects a large amount of data and then if that gets stored in 10mb it may suffice to start. the fat pixels are very sharp. we will see. the important thing is that until this discussion there seemed to be a consensus that no one would ever build large format sensors due to their cost and lack of demand. most people were writing off large format as film only and those who have moved on will tell you they are done with film so in that regard it is huge crossroads and not a moment too soon. </p>

[william_littman3]

<p>haha Anthony My friend was the first recipient of the Apple on the upper east side in 85 what a clunker lol the guy thought hal had just been installed in his study;)<br>

I remember playing pacman on it and thinking it was nothing more than a noiseless typewriter </p>

[william_littman3]

<p>Anyway for still life or photographing objects on a tripod there is a high resolution option at 144 megapixels.<br>

time exposures have never been my cup of tea but many landscape photographers resort to time exposures.<br>

I feel that if you have the luxury to do time exposures then the speed of film is irrelevant as is the f stop problem and then the cost of film isn't that high but the option does exist.<br>

http://www.betterlight.com/products4X5.html</p>

[bob_salomon]

You are aware that Mike Collett retired a couple of years ago and that he no longer makes backs as the sensor was

discontinued.

[william_littman3]

<p>yes I did speak to him then- but these can be purchased used on ebay. how many do you need ;)?</p>