Wild Idea for Next-Gen LF

**mccormickstudio** · 2-Mar-2009, 23:06

I have this wild idea for a next-generation large format camera. It literally came to me in a dream a few weeks ago and now I can't stop thinking about it.

I dreamed that I was in the focusing bag behind my 8x10 Chamonix and instead of a ground glass it was a thin LCD monitor - color, not inverted, reading the direct result of the lens on the front standard. Levelling with a beep and calculating the exposure. The film holder slipped in behind the LCD, just as it does behind the groundglass.

The technology was a means to making the film exposure, not a substitute for the film.

Prophetic? I'm an artist and not an engineer, so if one of you tech-laden geniuses figures out how to make this, forget me not.

Okay, five hours of editing and twice through my Bonnie Prince Billy playlist - I'm going to bed.

Copyright Craig McCormick 2009

**aphexafx** · 2-Mar-2009, 23:14

You're imagining a panel with an 8x10 sensor on the back and an 8x10 LCD on the front that would replace your focusing frame/glass, and provide metering and help you find parallel lines, level, and the like - a digital, live, "Polaroid" with touch capabilities?

lol - it's a great idea, but in reality this thing would cost thousands and thousands of dollars and only do slightly more than a piece of ground glass and a bubble level!

I can't imagine an 8x10 CCD? I mean, even a low resolution one. It would cost millions of dollars to produce - one in a thousand would be acceptable.

**Dennis** · 2-Mar-2009, 23:18

It could be auto focus couldn't it? In fact you could touch the screen in a few places with a little touch tool and tell the sensor what you want in focus.

**aphexafx** · 2-Mar-2009, 23:23

Originally Posted by Dennis

It could be auto focus couldn't it? In fact you could touch the screen in a few places with a little touch tool and tell the sensor what you want in focus.

Oooh yeah, actually that would be sweet. In fact, you would touch all the points you wanted in focus and it would drive your standards and set your aperture.

It would strip away all the fun, and take a rechargeable Li-Ion battery to do it!

**Bob Salomon** · 2-Mar-2009, 23:33

Originally Posted by aphexafx

Oooh yeah, actually that would be sweet. In fact, you would touch all the points you wanted in focus and it would drive your standards and set your aperture.

It would strip away all the fun, and take a rechargeable Li-Ion battery to do it!

That sounds somewhat like the fully automatic version of the Camdynamics camera showed several years ago at a couple of Photokinas. It never reached production in any of its' versions.

**mccormickstudio** · 2-Mar-2009, 23:42

I'm still editing.

Yeah, a huge low-res ccd reading the lens. The problem with current ccds is that when they're recording the image, they need to be immaculately clean, protected, and amazingly hires. But this one can be under glass or something. To my knowledge, no one has utilized a low-res big-size ccd. It's all been hi-res, small-size, which is expensive. And LCDs are not expensive. I have friends working on architectural applications with a product which is a flexible LCD membrane - the future.

Strip away all the fun? You can still edit all the dust out of your 8x10 film like I do. That's the real party!

**Vaughn** · 3-Mar-2009, 00:02

While not a Luddite, my first reaction and continued thought about thus is, yuck!

Take a nice wood and brass beauty and fill it with electronics?! You might as well forget the film and capture the image with the ccd's or whatever.

I like looking at the GG, everything is there, gloriously upside down and backwards, in full true color and high resolution.

Oh well, some people love their robotic pets, too...

Vaughn

**mccormickstudio** · 3-Mar-2009, 00:15

Let's call it a digital groundglass, or maybe a DGG. A sensor-backed, LCD-fronted device. On the most fundamental level, replacing a groundglass to do the following: 1. invert the image to correct as our eyes and brains do, 2. illuminate and perhaps calculate the result of shooting in the night or in challenging metering conditions (eliminating the fresnel), 3. assuming perspectival level and plumb.

Beyond these , I think, fundamental ideas to create a DGG are the ideas of: A. accurately calculating accurate DOF and eliminating the DOF calc errors that I often do - specific lenses could be programmed into the software; B. connecting the DGG with a lens which might shift it's internal elements to create effects of huge wide open aperture, specific bokeh, or possibly electrically altered coating on the lenses to create contrast variation, processing rendition, etc.

I would love to see this thread explore ideas of how LF might evolve for the better of the medium, for the better of the artful pictures that we are making, and not become subsumed in posts which beat down ideas which might be progressive for our medium. And don't be scared, I'm just hashing out ideas for what might progress LF photography, not replace what can be achieved by the current mediums.

In fact, I would argue by my own analog and experimental work that digital cannot replace film - rather, it should be a mechanism to achieve better results through film, at least in the near future.

I'm really going to sleep now...

**aphexafx** · 3-Mar-2009, 00:16

Well if you mounted this device to a cool wooden camera it would be steampunk like and totally wicked that way. Bonus points there!

Plus it could simulate what your exposure would look like on different transparency films.

**aphexafx** · 3-Mar-2009, 00:27

Originally Posted by mccormickstudio

I would love to see this thread explore ideas of how LF might evolve for the better of the medium, for the better of the artful pictures that we are making, and not become subsumed in posts which beat down ideas which might be progressive for our medium.

Well, your idea is fun and it would be interesting to have, especially in regards to actual light calculations which it could sample and perform in the areas of exposure and focusing (and film previewing, I might add). I didn’t mean to knock it.

One thing that is outside of the context of your device is actual large format sensor planes with a high resolution and large photo-sites for huge dynamic range, that would behave like large format film and use existing (non-digital) lenses. I love film, of course, as do we all, but a LF digital back that performed this way would just be fantastic as an option, especially in the studio. It could even change exposure across the frame to counteract edge falloff, probably at the expense of noise or dynamic range in those areas.

Having a 4x5 back like this would take us into the next generation with multi-exposure capabilities, etc. But I don't know if this will ever happen due to the problems and costs associated with silicon manufacture. Still, one can dream.

And I don’t mean to divert your intentions by turning this into a "LF back" thread, I just thought I’d mention that in the context of LF evolution.