I’m usually pretty good with using a flash on my
digital SLR. I know just the angle for the bounce at indoor,
after-dark family gatherings in my light-eating living
room with its dark-cedar ceilings. I now have enough skill
so that I can keep from getting that 1950s crime scene
photo look, avoid red eye and fool friends and relatives
with the results, even if I can see the many imperfections
when I’m editing.
But I hate flash with a point-and-shoot and, like almost
everyone, I’d rather use available light with an
SLR. I’m nowhere nearly competent enough to introduce
flash into the photo-taking equation without always worrying
that something has gone wrong without my knowing it — especially
since the results shown on a camera’s LCD screen
are almost always highly deceptive.
And in my most recent decade as a journalist — the
era in which digital cameras were introduced — I’ve
watched many top-notch photographers take large amounts
of their extremely tight time adjusting their lighting
for just the right photo. Even professionals are rarely
certain exactly what they’re going to capture with
flash in low-light situations.
So, the Eastman Kodak announcement the other day that
the venerable imaging firm had come up with innovative
sensor
technology that would “help make dark, blurry digital
photos a thing of the past” by providing a 2x to
4x increase in sensitivity to light was enough to make
my entire day.
Wow, was my simple reaction. That’s what’s
known as a capital G, capital T, Good Thing. And yet another
reason why Kodak may stick around for a lot longer than
people once thought.
 Now, I have to admit that the wording “help make” did
make me a tad wary. That’s the kind of phrase that
you hear in television commercials for oat cereals that “can
help to lower your cholesterol.”
In other words, maybe the product will work well for
you and just maybe it won’t. But I put this phrase
in the Kodak release down to lawyers who never like to
see
companies make claims for anything without adding a verbal
escape hatch.
In any case, the breakthrough, as Kodak terms it, comes
in revamping sensor design based on the company’s
own Bayer Pattern, the arrangement of red, green and blue
pixels that has become standard in the industry since being
developed by Kodak scientist Bruce Bayer in 1976.
In the Bayer Pattern, half the sensors are used to collect
green light. The other half are split evenly between gathering
red light and gathering blue light. After that, as Kodak explains
in its release, the software reconstructs a full color signal
for each pixel in the final image.
 What Kodak’s new technology does is to introduce
a fourth type of panchromatic or “clear” pixel
to the existing red, green and blue ones. Since the panchromatic
pixels are sensitive to all wavelengths of visible light,
says Kodak, “they collect a significantly higher
proportion of the light striking the sensor.”
And that means, that with new software algorithms from
Kodak, there’s a direct increase in photographic
speed that improves low-light performance.
As well, says Kodak, this means that blur-reducing faster
shutter speeds can be used (partially through an opening
up of the green channel). And smaller pixels can be designed
to lead to higher resolutions in a given optical format
while retaining performance.
All in all, great news, if everything works out after
the first CMOS versions of the sensor become available
as samples
for camera manufacturers to test in the early part of 2008.
The technology can also be used in CCD sensors, but Kodak
seems to be going for CMOS use first.
 This has led some observers to speculate that the first
market for the new sensors will be in the likes of camera
phones and less expensive point and shoots, where CMOS
sensors, with their lower manufacturing costs, tend to
dominate. But that’s just for starters, with Kodak
firmly stating that it intends to make the technology available “across
Kodak’s full portfolio of image sensors, including
products targeted to applied imaging markets such as industrial
and scientific imaging.”
As with most such news of breakthroughs, there is a downside – or
at least a potential one. And that’s if you introduce
the panchromatic pixel to a sensor you have to do away
with some of the colour-capturing pixels. You might be
able to shoot in lower light, but with the saw-off that
there’s less colour information available.
By far the best information on this entire topic is provided
by Kodak on a company blog (at 1000nerds.kodak.com),
where two Kodak researchers who came up with the new design,
John Compton and John Hamilton, discuss the science behind
what they’ve done and what the possibilities are for
its use.
As well, you can look at example photos by Kodak, contrasting
flash shots with those taken with the new sensor.
For years I’ve been been plodding along with a 17-inch
LCD computer screen (oh, I know, good old fashioned CRT is
better for accurate colours, but let’s not get into
that now). Recently, however, I made the plunge to a 24-inch
iMac and the amazing amount of screen real estate that it
provides for doing photo editing.
The first thing I had to do was to turn down the brightness
to about a third of the level set by Apple. Nobody needs
that much light blasting into their eyes, but I guess it’s
nice to know that you have it available if you ever need
it to fry a chicken or two.
Then I went into the control panel and did a little fiddling
around and set my own profile, but I still wasn’t
satisfied. It just didn’t look right to me, not that
I had any scientific proof of that, mind you.
After reading about the ColorVision monitor calibration
tools (www.colorvision.com/product-mc.php) in various places
online I thought I might well send away for one. The word
was
that with a little effort, and faith in ColorVision you could come up with an
acceptable calibration.
However, procrastination set in. I don’t mind buying downloadable software
online or clothing, but I get nervous when it comes to actual physical hardware.
I’d rather just pick it up myself.
Then, a couple of weeks ago when I was doing my weekly perusal
of the electronic flyers that come my way, there was an ad
for both the ColorVision Spyder2express and the Spyder2Suite,
available at a store only a couple of miles' drive from my
house.
The upper-level Spyder2Pro wasn’t available, but then it’s for professionals
and that doesn’t describe me at all. So I settled for the Spyder2Suite,
aimed at, as it says on the ColorVision site, “serious photographers.” Well,
I own some cameras and I like to take pictures and sometimes I can be very
serious, so that seemed to be about right and I bought it.
For a couple of days I again procrastinated because,
well, things do go wrong.
But I needn’t have worried. I simply installed
the software (which, according to the ColorVision website
was the latest version), fired it up, answered some
questions and followed the instructions for dangling the ColorVision
device over the front of my screen and aligning it with
an area the software marked out on
my screen. Nothing to it.
Then I sat back and watched, apprehensively, as the calibration
took what seemed to me to be about 15 minutes to complete.
After that, the
software
created
a profile for me called 1-iMac and that was it. If I wanted to go
back to any of
the other profiles available in the systems preferences control panel,
including my own — designated as iMac Calibrated — I
could do so with no trouble.
The software suggests that I should
re-calibrate every two months
or so, and I intend to do that.
One small item, the Spyder2Suite also included printer
profiling software called PrintFIX PLUS that was out of
date. A newer version — with far more printer
profiles included — was available in the ColorVision site’s
download area.
It’s always good whenever you buy hardware with software (like say a printer
and printer drivers) to check online to get the most recent updates. Sometimes
problems with the product you didn’t even know about
have been solved in the time between shipping to the store
and your purchase of the item.
(Of course, sometimes the new software includes problems
that weren’t in
the original. I often Google the name of the printer driver just to see what’s
driving people crazy about it, but then I’m an overly-careful
person.)
Am I happy with what I now have in the way of colour
on my
monitor? Yes. It seems to me to be a major improvement. However,
I didn’t carry out any tests
(I’ll leave that to people who really know what they’re
doing), so your mileage may vary.
I’m not in any way suggesting you hustle out and
buy this as I did (and, no, I didn’t get a free sample).
It’s just something
worth considering. You should also check out the word on
competing products from Pantone and X-Rite.
Links to Peter's previous commentaries:
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