Open-source camera could revolutionize digital photography

[Peter Hebert]

I found an interesting article about a researcher at Stanford who is building an open-source camera that would be fully programmable. This would be something very interesting in terms of pushing the envelope in imaging. Someone could experiment with such a camera, and invent or perfect features that are not in mainstream cameras. One could see many uses for this with high-res sensors such as those found in the RED cameras... An 'Epic' Frankencamera perhaps?

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[Martin Weiss]

There was a discussion about this on This Week in Photography - and they basically gave it a thumbs down. While open source can lead to very good results in the software world, it very rarely does in hardware.

 

[Mohammed El Sharqawy]

i think this had to be started since a long time ago.. imagine today with many red like companies competting with standards made with open-source ideas

 

[Noah Kadner]

I dunno- how much dough does open source typically get for development vs. the millions (or perhaps more) RED has invested on their gear? I love some open source especially when it's for a very simple software application. But I can see how it maybe doesn't apply so well to something as complex as motion picture camera gear.

Noah

 

[Wesley Scoggins]

Well the theory behind it is that many people could contribute little things, that would build up to be something bigger, instead of millions of dollars being given to a smaller group of people.

That's the IDEA at least. I think it's a great concept, just needs to evolve longer.

 

[Karl Gustav H.]

I'm sure the idea behind this is to sped up development in any one of a number of areas, without having to start from scratch with the entire pipeline.

If you are a sensor geek, then you simply have to integrate each test slice into a pre-existing backend, without having to devote time and resources to it.

It also provides a readily available method of integrating high quality imaging into other projects with complete control.

While the 'retail' body is a nice time saver for the software side of things, the Open nature of the hardware is more exciting.

All in all, it's a very good research tool and should be seen as such, not some kind of open alternative to readily available imagers.

 

[Yannick Hagman]

I see no way this could ever compete with a private company for hardware-products.

 

[Peter Hebert]

I agree that it is really about research, and pushing the envelope in areas where a commercial application may not be apparent at the moment.