The next direction in digital? Hassy introduces the 50mp multishot

[Roger]

http://www.hasselbladusa.com/promotions ... -q409.aspx

Just about every (other) digital camera on the market has a Bayer filter in it - a repeating pattern of RGGB (2 green) for EVERY megapixel.

Foveon developed a CMOS sensor that records like film: the natural wavelength of light separates the colors into three. ; In theory this sounds like the best method, but they've been unable so far to get past 4/6mp of "real" resolution using this method.

Hasselblad thinks they found another way: ; For every shot, the camera actually takes four pictures: ; between each picture, the sensor shifts, and records the data under each filter independentaly, rather than trying to determine the color value based on some RAW algorithm. ; Now, you'll have *true* RGB values for each pixel. ; In theory it could eliminate the need for RAW in most cases.

And 50mp as well!


Now remember, you're talking mainly studio and tripod work only with this camera anyway!

 

[Dan]

Hmm.. I was just talking to some photographers (probably hobbyists, I don't want to imply that they were pros) and one of them claimed that some camera maker (possibly even Canon) was working on going the triple sensor route that higher end video cameras have traditionally used.

I've never, EVER, seen any hint that any camera maker is looking at doing this, for one thing it might require a much larger camera body. ; But.. I'd like to see if it could be done.

If it was really being done, though.. we all should have heard of it by now. ; I have to guess that this guy was mistaken, perhaps he was reading or hearing about a video camera that used a triple sensor design.

This sensor shift design is very curious. ; At first glance it's really weird to me, but.. ; what they've done makes the camera capable of single shot bayer pattern shooting as well as this 4 shot mode.

So.. does it have an AA filter? ; Their promotional material doesn't seem to make that clear. ; I believe I've read that you can have the bayer pattern system work without one, but you risk getting something like moire patterns showing up the resulting images. ; The site seems to claim that they have software that automatically removes moire patterns from RAW files, suggesting that maybe they don't have the AA filter.. but.. ; I wasn't aware that you could just filter that out. ; I admit to not being an expert in this area, but.. ; I didn't think there was a way to differentiate between real detail and moire patterns.