Just a short post to bring something to your attention that you may or may not already be aware of.
One of the most exciting things to come to my attention in a long while is Panavision’s development work on the Dynamax35 imager.
This is essentially bringing HDRI to digital motion picture acquisition. Imagine taking six photos simultaneously, all at different exposures, and combining them to make a single HDRI (high dynamic range image), and doing so at motion picture frame rates up to 120fps. Welcome to the Dynamax35.
With six sets of RGB photosites for each resulting image pixel, the Dynamax35 imager has a resolution of 37 mega-pixels, it’s a large 35mm format imager and for every frame, data is processed at six different exposures and combined to make a single image with a range over 16-stops.
This promises to take the constant battle between digital imagers and film emulsions to new heights, and may just tip the scales in effective exposure latitude to the digital side for the first time in the history of cinema.
More information is available here: http://www.panavisionimaging.com/imagers_DMAX.htm
Also read this interview with John Galt: http://www.onfilm.co.nz/editable/JohnGaltJULY.html
Some high dynamic range images by Mark Verlijsdonk (http://madsick.deviantart.com/):
WOW, luckily for all the film buff’s out there there will be no need to worry because this technology will most likely be to expensive for proficient use for some time to come…I think!
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