Photographic future

Photo Engineer · Dec 23, 2011

Thinking about this, I have some further things to say.

Denise quite validly supports the art emulsion. She has even used this term often. I agree and I support them as well.

I also support the advance emulsions. Many do not.

In addition to the advanced emulsions, I wish to support the link between the old "art" emulsions and the more modern forms, and I wish to connect the two and explain the reasons (to my limited ability) so that future workers can connect the dots because without the reasoning many gaps will remain and much will be lost.

I hope this clarifies some things.

PE

Brian C. Miller · Dec 25, 2011

cliveh said:
In terms of futuristic cameras, I am surprised that marketing men have not yet produced a camera, with instead of a shutter speed dial, it has settings like HCB, Kertesz, Sudek, Atget.

It wouldn't be popular. That Sudek setting would cost an arm! And the Van Gogh setting would cost you an ear! :eek:

Given a rendering engine in the camera, then things like that could be possible, and a style could be replicated. After all, 100 years is a long time for people to teach stupid tricks to smart pieces of rock. We already have P&S cameras with "smile finders" on them.

Stephen Frizza · Dec 26, 2011

My grand vision of photography in 100 years time will by like nothing before, film will be a primitive technology, digital imaging as we know it will be a folly of the past. And the new photographic technologies will do such things as record light in Bose Einstein condensates.The light will be focused into the BEC slowed and then stopped and the light can be ever so slowly released from the condensate. The Result will not be an interpretation of the light from the moment the photograph was taken, but rather the image will actually be the light from the moment you took the photograph. Of course this too will be succeeded by a far more advanced quantum process that will reveal to us photographic moments in time. The mother of future photography will be Dr Lene Vestergaard Hau. Check out this link to see a snippet into her ground breaking work.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EK6HxdUQm5s

cliveh · Dec 26, 2011

Stephen Frizza said:
My grand vision of photography in 100 years time will by like nothing before, film will be a primitive technology, digital imaging as we know it will be a folly of the past. And the new photographic technologies will do such things as record light in Bose Einstein condensates.The light will be focused into the BEC slowed and then stopped and the light can be ever so slowly released from the condensate. The Result will not be an interpretation of the light from the moment the photograph was taken, but rather the image will actually be the light from the moment you took the photograph. Of course this too will be succeeded by a far more advanced quantum process that will reveal to us photographic moments in time. The mother of future photography will be Dr Lene Vestergaard Hau. Check out this link to see a snippet into her ground breaking work.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EK6HxdUQm5s

If this is for real and not like the glass camera, it has fantastic potential.

batwister · Dec 26, 2011

It seems to me, looking at the most notable contemporary work, that photography is fast becoming a purely documentary medium. Our contemporary art photographers will define not only where photography heads as an art form, but force changes in technology. Technology always has to meet the boundaries pushed by the artists and innovators of course. In terms of capturing the moment in every angle in an instant, sadly, this is where camera technology is heading because this is what the professionals, artists and consumers alike now demand. In our lightning fast, no nonsense world concerned with efficiency, we don't have time for composition or the art, the most important thing is 'the moment' that we will have forgotten by next Tuesday - when the world will be a different place again. The camera is inevitably becoming our 'third eye'. I'm convinced we're 'coming to our senses' about what the true value of the photograph is to us, in today's world - memories we didn't have time to experience.

Camera technology now facilitates our evolutionary needs. The loss, of course, will be the art.

cliveh · Dec 26, 2011

I may have imagined it, but I recall seeing a recent advert on TV for a camera that captures moments before you press the shutter, in case you miss it. Is this really a camera that takes pictures when you dont want it to? The mind boggles.

ME Super · Dec 26, 2011

Back to the topic of having a 3-D representation of the original scene... My kids each got Nintendo 3DS for Christmas. They have 3 cameras built into it. They're d*g*tal, but I digress, as that's not what amazed me about this portable game system. One of the screens is quite capable of displaying 3D images. The viewing angle is narrow but there's no need for 3D glasses to see the 3D effect. It will even do 3D video. So being able to record a scene in 3D and display it for a viewer without the hassles of wearing 3D glasses is in the here and now on a system that can fit in the palm of your hand.

Of course, nothing beats a projected slide, but this is still pretty amazing.

ME Super

cliveh · Dec 26, 2011

How can you view 3D without glasses?

JBrunner · Dec 26, 2011

cliveh said:
I may have imagined it, but I recall seeing a recent advert on TV for a camera that captures moments before you press the shutter, in case you miss it. Is this really a camera that takes pictures when you dont want it to? The mind boggles.

One of the video cameras I use in my TV work that can do just that. It stores a user specified amount of footage in a buffer and appends that footage to the beginning when you press the record button. Since I do production work, it's never used, but a news guy for instance might find it very nice.

Photo Engineer · Dec 26, 2011

Guys, Kodak had a 3D print system using the same method about 30 years ago. They published their annual report back then with a 3D cover. And today, in Beijing, the airport displays are 3D. All with no glasses.

Kodak also made an experimental version of color paper in 3D. I've seen some pretty nice photos using it.

The method uses an angled prism display or front surface which allows each eye to see a different view, but as noted, the viewing angle is very narrow or you get artifacts.

PE

cliveh · Dec 26, 2011

PE, sorry, but fail to see how this will work without glasses. Can you please post a 3D image in reply that we can see on screen without glasses?

Photo Engineer · Dec 26, 2011

Cliveh;

It will not work without the special surface mounted array. It looks like a fine triangular set of ridges running from top to bottom ans when you look at it at a right angle at the right distance, one eye loos through one side of the triangle and the other looks through the other side of the triangle. The total effect is 3D.

Touching the surface of one of these is like touching a fine tooth transparent file.

The same method can be used to yield moving "stills"! Kodak made moving movie posters for the lobby of local theaters. Kind of like in "Back to the Future". It works and is quite amazing. I saw some Star Trek Generations ads and Jurassic Park ads using the technology.

PE

Crashbox · Dec 26, 2011

Interesting. Is this similar to a lenticular screen?

Photo Engineer · Dec 26, 2011

Somewhat. But, lenticules are like, well, lentils! This is more corrugated with pointy tops.

PE

Crashbox · Dec 26, 2011

I see. Thanks, PE.

ME Super · Dec 26, 2011

What PE has described is exactly how this Nintendo 3DS works. One eye sees one set of pixels, the other eye sees the other set of pixels because of the distance between the eyes and the angles of the prisms. It looks pretty cool. Like I (and PE) said, there is a rather narrow viewing angle but for what it's being used for it works amazingly well IMHO.

ME Super

Photo Engineer · Dec 26, 2011

FWIW, as you look off center, the image becomes distorted and then snaps back in, then out, then in as you progress from row to row of the "prisms". Not pleasant for many people....

They are working on many improvements to 3D. See this months Science News.

PE

Neanderman · Dec 26, 2011

Photo Engineer said:
Guys, Kodak had a 3D print system using the same method about 30 years ago. They published their annual report back then with a 3D cover. And today, in Beijing, the airport displays are 3D. All with no glasses.

I have the cover from one of those Annual Reports. It's a photo of a young boy on a boat dock with an old fisherman. Alas, I stupidly saved just the cover...

Ed

lxdude · Dec 26, 2011

Photo Engineer said:
This is more corrugated with pointy tops.

PE

Sounds like those old "3-D" images from when I was a kid, which were called lenticular or prismatic images. They had straight parallel ridges. They gave either a 3-D effect or part or all of the image would change when viewing angle changed.
The 3-D images were more blurry than the type that changed. They were sometimes prizes in Crackerjack boxes. The cover picture of one of the Rolling Stones' albums was lenticular for a 3-D effect. I remember an issue of some magazine had one on the cover. I'm not positive, but I think there were some special edition trading cards that used them, too.

holmburgers · Dec 27, 2011

If you're interested in glass-less 3D, check this old thread out... (there was a url link here which no longer exists)

... I'm still holding out for a group buy on some fly's eye arrays. They'd be relatively easy to fool around with and would be completely analog.

cliveh · Dec 27, 2011

For 3D without glasses, can I presume that unless you are at the correct distance and angle the 3D effect wont work?

holmburgers · Dec 27, 2011

Certainly, but that's also true with glasses 3D. There will always be an optimum location and viewing angle; but the wider it is, the higher the mark of quality.

Yves Gentet's full-color holographs are said to approach a 180° viewing angle, which is remarkable.

keithwms · Dec 27, 2011

I detest 3D images.

holmburgers · Dec 27, 2011

So does that mean you hate having 2 eyes?

There's a lot of resentment for 3D, but I think that glassless 3D photographs, in a gallery or museum setting, is something that hasn't really been fully realized in an artistic sense.

I don't personally think that 3D is inherently objectionable, it's just that it is used for less-than-noble purposes like advertisting & stupid Hollywood movies.

I forget the name, but I picked up a 3D book with built in glasses at the library and they were abstract 3D compositions by a competent artist. Some were based off photographs, some were more abstract, but what I took from it was that the ability to create something within the 3D medium (as opposed to just reproduce or record) is a potentially very exciting artistic notion.

But to each their own,

keithwms · Dec 27, 2011

holmburgers said:
So does that mean you hate having 2 eyes?

Quite the opposite: my natural depth perception works so well that when I see simulated 3D images they look awful. I tried the latest and greatest 3D tv recently and it looked only slightly better than what I saw in the theaters as a kid.

I also think that much of the creative art in photography and painting is the transformation of the 3D world into a 2D depiction.

I simply haven't seen any 3D photography that I care for.

Photographic future

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