Unintended Technological Effecta

[andrewducker]

What happens if you take a photo of a spinning propellor with an iphone camera - which scans left to right, meaning that different parts of the shot happen at different times.
From

Anyone know if all digital cameras would do this?

Comments

[anton-p-nym.livejournal.com]

This is the first I've seen of this particular artifact in any digital camera.

-- Steve has a positively ancient Fuji digital camera, the Finepix 2800Z sporting a whopping 2 megapixels and a jaw-dropping 128MB SmartMedia memory card, that takes better pictures than that.

[opusfluke.livejournal.com]

Ooh. The fun to be had with crap cameras and hi-rpm objects. I feel a gallery developing.

[drplokta]

No, real digital cameras won't do this. It's because the iPhone camera doesn't have a physical shutter.

[joexnz.livejournal.com]

how very Futuristism

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Futurism

[broin.livejournal.com]

Yes! My first thought was 'Nude Descending a Staircase'.

[call-waiting.livejournal.com]

Interesting. This effect is only possible if the exposure of one column more or less entirely precedes the exposure of the next. I had assumed that they'd begin the exposure of all the columns before reading out, but on thinking about it for a few minutes, there's really no reason why this should be the case as there should be no reason not to have independent control on the drain/fill/whatever-they-call-it.

So, presumably the frame begins with each column being drained, in turn at the same rate as the readout process, which 'follows' behind by a number of columns / period of time for the exposure time. Neat. In which case this sort of effect should be far less visible in low-light conditions where the exposure time is closer to the full-frame time.

Huh. Neat!

[heyokish.livejournal.com]

see also: http://golembewski.awardspace.com/ for scanner photography that produces some gorgeously strange effects, particularly when objects are moving.

[0olong.livejournal.com]

My impression is that it's pretty common with camera-phones, but nowhere else.