A couple years ago, Hasselblad released a 200-megapixel, Multi-Shot version of its H5D medium format camera. Now it's back with a bonkers, 400-megapixel version of the H6D: the H6D-400c.
Hasselblad's Multi-Shot technology is pretty straightforward: it takes four 100-megapixel images, shifting the sensor by one pixel for each capture, and then two more shots that shift the sensor by half a pixel. By combining all six stills, the resulting file is a single 400-megapixel (23200 x 17400 pixel) 16-bit TIFF file that weighs in at 2.4GB. In fact, the images are large enough that the camera needs to be tethered to a computer to capture them.
[...] The camera will go for $47,995 when it launches in March, compared to the H6D-100c's relatively modest $27,000 price tag.
Story at The Verge.
Related Stories
Samsung targets 2025 for human-eye-beating 576 MP camera sensor
A confidential slide shown during a recent Samsung presentation has revealed that the company is targeting a 2025 timeframe for producing a 576 MP camera sensor. Samsung has already announced its plans to eventually release a sensor that can beat out the human eye resolution perception of 500 MP.
[...] Back in 2020, Samsung discussed how producing a 600 MP camera sensor was one of its aims, with an official editorial opining that this would go beyond the 500 MP resolution at which human eyes view the world. This recent information refines that 600 MP goal to 576 MP and even puts a target date of 2025 on it. However, don't expect a 576 MP main camera to make an appearance on a Galaxy S25 smartphone, as the giant sensors are more likely planned for use in future self-driving cars.
The Vera C. Rubin Observatory (LSST) uses a 3.2 gigapixel camera.
Related: Hasselblad's New 400-Megapixel Multi-Shot Camera Captures 2.4GB Stills
Xiaomi Smartphone Will Use Samsung Camera Sensor to Take Up to 108 Megapixel Images
How Camera Companies can Survive the Smartphone
(Score: 3, Interesting) by TheRaven on Thursday January 18 2018, @11:48AM (9 children)
sudo mod me up
(Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday January 18 2018, @11:59AM (3 children)
Photographing the human body from multiple angles in super high resolution in order to map all of a person's skin imperfections in 3D.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 18 2018, @01:24PM (2 children)
Translation: porn.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Thursday January 18 2018, @05:01PM (1 child)
The Great Race continues, between the camera manufacturers and the makeup industry.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 18 2018, @05:27PM
Don't forget the selfies.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Kromagv0 on Thursday January 18 2018, @02:34PM (3 children)
What are they expecting people to use this kind of camera for.
More than likely exactly what they used film cameras like this for: landsacpes, photos for high end glossy magazines, product photos for billboards, photographers with more money than brains, things that might get tightly cropped, really nice portraits (the depth of filed in medium formats is really good for this), anything that could benefit from a really high dynamic range and color depth, astrophotography, things that you want to have a poster printed of, etc. It is only in the last 2 generations of high end full frame DSLRs that have been able to match 35mm film, and this upcomming generation of digital medium format will likely be the one that medium format digitals are capable of what film is. Large format is still its own monster and there it is mostly people making their own large format digital cameras out of flat bed scanners. These like their film/glass plate brethren are used almost exclusively for landscapes or artistic photography.
Going back to the old Hasselblad 500C/M which had a negative that was about 56mm x 56mm and with the great lenses available for them and one could capture lot of detail that most people never realized could be had. I am more familiar with the limits of 35mm film but effective resolution does scale with negative size, so 35mm camera with its 24mm x 36mm negative using good film and a great lens (one that is sharp at about f/4) is capable of capturing about 40-45 megapixels with a 10 to maybe 11 stop dynamic range. So scaling that up to a size similar to the Hasselblad 500C/M you would be looking at an image in the 160-202 megapixel range. The sensor size on this camera looks to be 53.4mm × 40.0mm [hasselblad.com] with 16bpc color output providing 15 stops of dynamic range. Given that it looks like this camera should be able to make use some of those really nice modern f/.7 lenses that start getting pretty sharp at f/1.4 but have a very shallow depth of field. Using a slower lens will yield a lower effective resolution because of being diffraction limited [cambridgeincolour.com]. Even if one lacks a lens like that these images likely won't be used at the full 600 megapixels but will be down scaled to more manageable sizes which will increase sharpness as well as decrease the noise so images people see would likely be around 144 megapixels or even 36 megapixels. Having the higher resolution to start out with, as well as the higher bit depth, dramatically improves the end results after doing post processing. Also for the professional side of cameras the megapixel war has basically ended as professionals understand that image quality is more than just the number of dots you can claim as film is really still the benchmark since good black and white film is capable of resolving more detail than the lenses on the camera it is in can resolve. Things like noise, high ISO performance, and dynamic range are much more important for choosing a camera chassis. Also picking the correct lens for what you are shooting is as important or more important than the chassis behind it. I still use very good but old "vintage" lenses as they are almost all primes and were almost all professional lenses on my film and digital cameras.
It will be interesting to see how this new Hasselblad stacks up against the rumored to be announced soon new Pentax medium format to replace the 645Z. Especially since Pentax has had better results with the using the sensor shift technology in their current flagship full frame digital and now new lower tier cameras than Hasselblad did in their previous 200 megapixel camera. The current Pentax medium format does not have sensor shift and is likely approaching the end of its production life but produced better image quality than most of the the Hasselblads did over its production life even if it only produced 51 megapixel images.
If one wants to see what types of images these types of cameras are capable of and how one creates such images there is this write up from a couple months back by someone who used a 645Z to create [pentaxforums.com]this image [pentaxforums.com].
T-Shirts and bumper stickers [zazzle.com] to offend someone
(Score: 2) by Kromagv0 on Thursday January 18 2018, @03:23PM
Apparently I misread things and mixed up the actual 6 shot 400 megapixel as being 4 shot 600 megapixel.
T-Shirts and bumper stickers [zazzle.com] to offend someone
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Thursday January 18 2018, @04:54PM (1 child)
All that advanced optical and electronic tech ... Yet, this is 2018, so they will somehow mostly be used to take selfies.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Kromagv0 on Thursday January 18 2018, @05:39PM
At almost $50,000 I doubt that it will be mostly, but then there is that more money than brains category I mentioned so for that group it probably is mostly.
I have been asked when out taking photographs why I have such an old lens on a new camera by many people. I do use old lenses some of which are about 50 years old with most being closer to 40 so they old and look the part. The reasons I keep using them is resolving ability on most prime (non-zoom) lenses hasn't really improved (ultra wide angles are the exception), I still use an old film camera as well, I understand how these old lenses work, how to use them correctly, and finally I don't want to spend close to $10,000 on comparable modern professional lenses. Just this past weekend I got asked several times why when I was photographing some flowers at the Como Conservatory as a high end digital with an old Vivitar Series 1 135mm lens sitting on a stack of old extension tubes with a circular polarizer on the end is an odd sight.
Gear matters up to a point and far too many people chase gear without understanding why. Most of the time it is because they think they will take better pictures but so many of the problems with people's pictures is not what they were taken with, but in how they were taken. If one understands how to take photos and then understands their gear it becomes possible to work around the limitations of ones gear, especially with digital images.
T-Shirts and bumper stickers [zazzle.com] to offend someone
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 18 2018, @06:33PM
High resolution for making billboard size prints.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Aiwendil on Thursday January 18 2018, @12:52PM (7 children)
Ok, can someone do the math for at what resolution a single pixel at the horizon is corresponding to one (centi-?)meter (assume camera is mounted 2m above sea level, target object is 0 to 1m (vertical) above sea level, east-west, at the equator (and at 60degree lat)) and post it?
I'm just curious about at which point stuff starts to get silly at terrestrial scale...
(Score: 1) by ewk on Thursday January 18 2018, @01:17PM (6 children)
Not that I am going to do any math wrt this :-) , but it WILL depend on (the focal length of) the lens you would be using.
A 300 mm lens will have a different 'horizon resolution' compared to a 24 mm lens.
I don't always react, but when I do, I do it on SoylentNews
(Score: 2) by Aiwendil on Thursday January 18 2018, @01:28PM (5 children)
Oh yeah, optical zoom.. :)
Kinda silly of me to miss that.
Assume 24mm lens.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Codesmith on Thursday January 18 2018, @02:30PM (4 children)
24mm lens average FOV is 73.7 horizontal degrees (from angle of view [wikipedia.org] )
The camera has a final value of 23200 x 17400 pixels (from Hasselblad [hasselblad.com])
73.7 degrees is 265320 arc seconds
So each pixel is 11.44 arc seconds in width.
With an observer height of 1.7 m, the horizon is 4.7 km distant (distance to horizon [wikipedia.org])
An object 1 m in width is 43.9 arc seconds in width at the horizon, therefore a 1 meter item would be represented by ~4 pixels. With the sensor shift, I'm guessing that you're looking at a real resolving power of about ~2 pixels. Not great.
I'd suggest using a longer lens. :) A 300 mm lens would give you ~40 pixel resolution.
Pro utilitate hominum.
(Score: 1) by Codesmith on Thursday January 18 2018, @02:33PM
And I completely skipped over atmospheric interference, lighting, weather, etc.
Pro utilitate hominum.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Thursday January 18 2018, @02:38PM (1 child)
And, this isn't really about shooting billboards on the horizon.
The first, best, use I put a high MP camera to was visiting an eminent scientist in our field, he allowed us to take a snapshot of his office bookcase, and from just one picture, we could resolve most of the titles on the spines of 100+ books.
A 400MP image is the kind of thing you can take from the floor of a basketball arena looking up into the crowd, and get a clear picture of all the faces in the seats, and maybe resolve details like earrings, eye color, etc. Stand at the back of a lecture hall and photograph over 100 students' shoulders, and resolve what they are all browsing on their cellphones, etc.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday January 18 2018, @02:52PM
Reminds me of Long Shot [imdb.com].
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Kromagv0 on Thursday January 18 2018, @03:32PM
I think you are a bit off there with the horizontal field of view. The 73.7 degrees is for 35mm equilvant (24mm x 36mm) along the 36mm edge. On a medium format a 24mm lens would be like an ultra wide angle on a full frame digital or 35mm film. I'm not sure of the crop factor for this camera but I would guess it is likely around .6 or maybe a bit more so that 24mm lens would be closer to the equivalent of a 14 or 15mm lens on a 35mm camera, so closer 102 degrees for horizontal FoV. Also with as high of a resolution that this camera is shooting at the diffraction limit becomes a real concern as even with its large 53.4mm × 40.0mm sensor that is a lot of pixels to stuff in there or simulate. So assuming you have that mythical f/1.4 lens that offers edge to edge sharpness wide open you might get that resolution if you can focus it correctly. Also the sensor is only actually a 100 megapixel image and the max resolution is the results after doing the sensor shift magic.
T-Shirts and bumper stickers [zazzle.com] to offend someone
(Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Thursday January 18 2018, @02:31PM (4 children)
The flash memory required to store >50 images fits on a removable chip smaller than your pinky fingernail, an internal drive that stores hundreds fits on a M.2 stick. The RAM required to buffer a dozen finished images is an ordinary notebook PC stick thats cost a tiny fraction of what this camera sells for.
They're tethering it to a computer by design choice (probably hanging on to legacy bits), the components required to make it untethered are cheap, lightweight, commodity parts.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 18 2018, @03:05PM (2 children)
They're tethering it by need:
You need a piezo stage driver and controller coordinated with the frame capture. I suppose you could build all of that into the camera body, but you'd probably want a hand truck to move it around with you.
(Score: 2) by KilroySmith on Thursday January 18 2018, @03:15PM
They're generating 2.4GB images. To deal with them internally reasonably fast, they'd have to buffer the data to RAM, while in parallel writing it to FLASH. So, they'd need a storage subsystem consisting of a microprocessor, 2.4GB of RAM, and a USB/SD/CF interface. Hate to tell you, but that's a package that fits in an area of less than 1 sq in and a couple of millimeters thick these days. The specs aren't that different from the processing complex in a modern cell phone. There'd be no need for a hand truck.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Kromagv0 on Thursday January 18 2018, @04:23PM
All of that equipment is built into cameras that are already available and even a bunch that don't cost more than my car. While there was the previous 200MP camera from Hasselblad, there are others you can buy now that aren't even a flagship camera. I would suggest looking at the Pentax K-1 (flagship DSLR), K-3II, KP, and K-70(entry level DSLR) as they all do pixel shift. However they don't do it to increase the resolution but instead as a method to eliminate the demosaicing process [wikipedia.org] normally needed when working with a sensor wit a bayer pattern so that each pixel has a real RGB set of readings instead of interpolated. The added color depth as well as higher clarity on edges from the Pentax cameras makes up for the lack of increase in resolution in the images I have seen but if one wanted to they could just do demosaicing on the pixel shifted Pentax image afterwards and get a similar increase in resolution likely with better results as you would likely have access to better algorithms that don't need to meet an embedded system's power and time budget.
T-Shirts and bumper stickers [zazzle.com] to offend someone
(Score: 4, Informative) by Kromagv0 on Thursday January 18 2018, @03:45PM
In the actual spec sheet [hasselblad.com] it states that the camera supports:
The tethering option has been common on high end professional DSLRs and digital medium formats for a long time as computer disk space is much cheaper than that more portable CF, or SD card storage. Also by tethering you can offload processing to the computer instead of doing it in camera. I would bet the camera does have internal buffering probably for several images. I have a previous gen flagship DSLR camera and when I put it in burst mode it will take 27 or 28 raw pictures at just over 8 FPS until it fills the buffer and then it slows down, so I would think that this camera also being a flagship medium format would have some reasonable buffer as well but I don't see any info on that. I am somewhat surprise it only supports UHS-1 and not UHS-1 and UHS-2 but most who use this camera will likely be using CFast cards (non studio) or have it tethered (studio) anyway.
T-Shirts and bumper stickers [zazzle.com] to offend someone