Low Light Breakthrough
Posted by fotoviva on May 05, 2007 in Photography News tagged withThanks to developers at the South Korea Electronic Technology Institute we may soon wave goodbye to those awful bright white flashes that not only turn you into the devil with those red eyes and blast the exposure out the window, but also annoy anyone in the vicinity!
Those clever bods have just announced a handy technology breakthrough with a new type of sensor to replace the traditional CCD seen in most digital cameras of today. It reportedly can take a bright, clear picture in just one lux of light, the equivalent to the light output of one candle from one meter away! The sensor is claimed to be over 2,000 times more light sensitive than current technologies allow, negating the need for flash in most circumstances. The new sensor is currently known as the single carrier modulation photo detector (SMPD) for the techies among you! It’s not clear how soon we can hope to find it in new cameras but it will begin launch initially in CCTV cameras and mobile phones. These technologies require a significantly lower resolution, so it may take a few years before the technology evolves into the expected megapixel resolution that photographers expect.
We think it’s about time camera technology took another major leap forward and provided shots that more accurately reflect the world seen through our own eyes. The less work we have to spend post-processing the more time we can spend out in the field with our cameras!
This is a really exciting development, I’m often asked to take shots of live acts and sometimes (usually) it’s not really appropriate to stand there with the flash gun firing every few seconds. I would be great to see higher light sensitivity coming to standard digitals. My tendency at the moment is to find a couple of spots where I can lean against posts or walls to minimise camera shake, often passing up shots because there’s no way the camera will actually capture what I’m seeing with the available light. Do you have a link for this?
Cheers
Hi Chris, you can find more details on this website.
In terms of photographic concepts, this breakthrough sounds like a super-high ISO rating, i.e . ISO 100 x 2^2000
Woah! That’s too much sensitivity! I’m sure art photographers will find new uses for it, but for the regular day shooter, I doubt if it’s possible to “accurately reflect the world seen through our own eyes.”