Gigapxl Article in Wired

Published by

Adam Tow

February 7, 2005

Wired News is running an article by Leander Kahney on the Gigapxl camera by Graham Flint and Catherine Aves. They spoke at COBA in July of last year, wowing the crowd with their higher-than-high resolution images.

There’s even a quote from me in the article:

“Graham’s unique background has made it possible to create something that is truly impressive,” said Adam Tow, a digital media expert at Stanford University. “The prints are really quite breathtaking. They make the highest-end digital cameras look like toys… You could see the grooves in a golf ball in a landscape shot of Torrey Pines Golf Course.”

Yes, it’s that impressive. Be sure to check out the images in the article’s photo gallery.

I’m glad to see Graham and Catherine getting some press. There have been a number of articles about other gigapixel cameras in recent months. Though I haven’t seen those images, I suspect that the Gigapxl images are, if not equal to, far superior to anything out there that’s not classified!

4 responses to “Gigapxl Article in Wired”

George Dunbar

February 7, 2005

Adam,

Re: the WIRED article about Graham Flint’s camera

I’ve now read the article more carefully and it’s certainly ambiguous regarding “digital” photography.

It’s stated that …”Flint’s camera captures images at 4 gigapixels”, but also says that Kodak high resolution film is used.

Apparently the film images are later scanned at 4 megapixels so the CAMERA is NOT a digital camera!

Is that your understanding too?

Interesting article all the same.

George

Reply
Adam

February 7, 2005

Yes, the Gigapxl camera is a film camera. The film is scanned, and the resulting file is processed in Photoshop.

Reply
echeng

February 7, 2005

That article is misleading. “It is neither over-sampling nor under-sampling the film: There is a one-to-one correspondence.” — uh… you can state that film has a certain “resolution,” but you can’t then compare that resolution to that of an image from a digital camera. They’re not quite comparable.

Reply
Tim

March 13, 2005

I agree with the post that states that this is not a true “digital” giga-pixel camera, but a very high-end film-to-digital process, which can produce extremely detailed images. Is there a project out there that uses no film, or post processing chemical techniques which can produce the same quality images? While the concept is not new, I still am amazed at the quality of the images I saw. The level of detail is very good, and yes…it does blow the pro-sumer, and even the pro DSLR’s and film cameras away.

Reply

Adam, here

Welcome to tow.com, my home on the internet since 1995. I’m an indie software artist and creator of apps such as MixEffect, MsgFiler, AlbumFiler, Wipe My Screen, and more. I’m also the producer and co-director of Autumn Gem. Enjoy your visit here!