
New Camera Sensor Eliminates Need for Flash - bcn
http://www.technewsdaily.com/18220-graphene-imagining-sensor-takes-clear-pictures.html
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ChuckMcM
What a strange story, basically "Oh gee, we've created a sensor that is better
than all other sensors using the material that everyone thinks is a super
material" followed by "If the industry chooses to adopt his design, Wang said
it could lead to cheaper, lighter cameras with longer battery lives for all."

Really? Ok so if you really create a sensor with a 1000x the light gathering
capacity of CMOS sensors and a commensurate 1000x reduced sensitivity to
noise, and if it can be manufactured in volume, why _wouldn't_ someone build a
camera with it? So why the 'If' in that last paragraph?

This guy published a paper two years ago [1] on creating light cavities in
Graphene, This is the paper that they article is working from [2] apparently.

[1] <http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11468-011-9260-1>

[2]
[http://www.nature.com/ncomms/journal/v4/n5/abs/ncomms2830.ht...](http://www.nature.com/ncomms/journal/v4/n5/abs/ncomms2830.html)

~~~
chaz
From a different source:

"In reality, though, and contrary to some big-name publications, this graphene
sensor isn’t going to replace the silicon sensor in your camera. Graphene is
still incredibly hard to work with on a commercial scale (here the researchers
are still mechanically exfoliating graphene and placing it on a silicon
substrate with tweezers), and there’s no indication that this method would
ever scale up. What is far more likely is that these graphene photodetectors
might be used in optoelectronics, where optical and electronic components are
squeezed into the same system/chip, or in enabling faster fiber-optic
networks."

[http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/157082-graphene-sensor-
is...](http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/157082-graphene-sensor-
is-1000-times-more-sensitive-to-light-could-enable-ultra-low-light-
photography)

~~~
jonmrodriguez
If it's possible to do a manufacturing process by hand with tweezers, I'll bet
it's possible to invent a machine that does the same process faster and at
scale.

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mapt
"1000 times more sensitive"

What does that even mean?

Even 10 times higher quantum efficiency shooting wide open on optical band
targets would be physically impossible.

On top of that, 'Eliminates need for flash' is not a great title - most people
who care about photography don't use flash much for direct illumination; very
flat targets, indirect illumination, close-range zoomed in macro shots, and
filling in a dark foreground are the exceptions. Cell phone shots look like
cell phone shots in part 1) because they compensate for the tiny sensor with
crappy LEDs, not even proper xenon bulbs, but mainly 2) because a 1/4" class
sensor can only offer 1/3 the SNR of a cheap point & shoot 1/2.3" class sensor
on a good day, for the same level of illumination: they _need_ the flash to
work, and so you get flash-based shots, which usually look horrible because of
the distinctive way it lights the scene.

~~~
stan_rogers
> ...most people who care about photography don't use flash much for direct
> illumination...

You might want to tell that to the nice people at Elinchrom, Profoto,
Broncolor, Hensel, Bowens, Quantum, Paul C. Buff, and so on. Even on-camera
flash for good wedding and event photography is normally the primary lighting
indoors, since it can be controlled when the environmental (ambient) lighting
can't be. "People who care about photography" master the light rather than
letting it master them.

~~~
mapt
I was careful with my wording: 'direct illumination' - point xenon/LED
directional flash at target, shoot, enjoy off-axis vignetting, severe distance
limitations, extreme inverse square contrast effect, & sharp nearly-incident
shadows. Reflectors ('umbrellas'), big diffusers, aiming the flash at the
ceiling, all the hardware that the places you mentioned sell, are aimed at
avoiding these effects while still controlling the light quality.

Amateur photographers don't know this. They use on-camera flash because their
cameras _force_ them to use flash to get a reasonable signal to noise ratio.
For them (who will never even attempt to use specialized flash
diffusers/reflectors), the best option for dynamic indoor & evening scenes is
a bigger sensor camera, or if they want to get really fancy, aiming a speed
flash at the ceiling.

~~~
stan_rogers
Much of the lighting I do is very much direct lighting; softboxen and other
play-it-safe modifiers have their place, but you couldn't emulate, say,
Karsh's style with them. And the inverse-square law is your friend, not your
enemy. Light is merely a tool to get the shadows in the right places.

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salimmadjd
Here's the PDF version of the paper,
<http://cdpt.ntu.edu.sg/Documents/ncomms%204%201811.pdf>

This is very exciting and has multiple uses:

1 - drastic improvement to P&S and mobile photography (largest source of
photos now). Most of these photos at night suffer from noise and harsh flashes
and significant redeye

2 - improving dynamic range in SLR by providing two photodiodes per each
pixel. One for high sensitivity (large) and one for low sensitivity to
preserve highlights.

3 - providing a great boost to the micro 4/3 systems. The 4/3 makes a great
portable platform (size, weight, etc.) however suffers from tremendous shadow
noise and as such make it less ideal as a replacement for full-frame (35mm
sensors ) SLRs.

4 - might give a new life to Lytro and similar systems. It would allow them to
provide higher resolutions images to make them appealing to more demanding
phitographers.

5 - worst nightmare for people concerned with government intrusion. It enables
cameras to operate in dark streets or other places and keep people under
constant watch-day or night.

~~~
cclogg
I wonder if it'll affect the 'look' of the image too (when you put all of
these things together). I've never been a fan of the way digital looked (curse
you Bayer filter!!), except for maybe the Foveon sensor now. I've actually
been having a lot of fun shooting film lately, and scanning it. Skin tones
baby!

~~~
salimmadjd
With increase resolution, Bayer's side effects become less and less visible.
Nikon has started to remove antialiasing from their recent cameras. Color
analog film may look better SOOC for soe images, but you can exceed that in
post-processing

~~~
cclogg
I guess the problem I still see is like in this image (film left, digital
right): [http://annawu.com/blog/wp-
content/uploads/2011/03/81420015b_...](http://annawu.com/blog/wp-
content/uploads/2011/03/81420015b_rt-900x299.jpg) The shadows just fall
differently, the skin has a nicer tone (my opinion)... less harsh. I'm sure
you could Photoshop/grade it to match more, but only to a certain extent.

I'm all for the convenience of digital, just wish they'd improve sensor
technology rather than megapixels. But anyway, I'm getting a bit off topic...

~~~
justincormack
Well the film image looks slightly out of focus and the lighting looks
marginally different, so it is not the best comparison. But there are
differences, although they are much more noticeable on larger than 35mm film -
if you really want something with a different look shoot medium format or
large format. You can't really do stuff like George Hurrell any other way
<http://georgehurrell.com/>

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claudius
Just recall that less than ten years ago, nobody even _knew_ of this material
and it was only the subject of strange theoretical research at ivory tower
universities.

Please continue to fund science. =)

~~~
georgemcbay
Today a lot more people know of the material, but it is still known as the
subject of strange theoretical research at ivory tower universities.

I 100% support the idea of funding science and graphene is very exciting, but
you still can't buy any of these wonder products it is going to be responsible
for and you won't be able to for many years yet because nobody knows how to
manufacture it at useful scale.

IMO this is probably one of the areas in which most commercial entities
limiting or eliminating their long-term R&D in the name of short-term gains is
probably hurting us. If there were more effective cross-over between
industrial manufacturers (which have mostly moved the manufacturing offshore
anyway) and theoretical research, there would be a better pollination of ideas
that might help solve these problems quicker.

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gjm11
The article says this new sensor is ~1000x more sensitive than the sensors in
today's cameras. Comparing it with the extremetech article linked by _chaz_ ,
it's clear what's happened:

The sensor is _not_ ~1000x more sensitive than the sensors in today's cameras.
It's ~1000x more sensitive than _previous graphene sensors_.

(And the 1000x improvement is when you measure amps of current generated per
watt of incident light, which isn't necessarily the best measure of how well
the sensor will actually perform.)

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ams6110
Might benefit the casual snapshot photographer, but pros use flash more for
fill-in lighting when there are sharp shadows and for freezing motion e.g. in
sports photography.

~~~
ISL
_Avoid making a commotion, just as you wouldn’t stir up the water before
fishing. Don’t use a flash out of respect for the natural lighting, even when
there isn’t any. If these rules aren’t followed, the photographer becomes
unbearably obstrusive._ \- Henri Cartier-Bresson

"American Photo", September/October 1997, page: 76
<http://www.photoquotes.com/showquotes.aspx?id=98>

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henri_Cartier-Bresson>

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zwieback
Sounds interesting although I suspect it's the fact that the sensor uses
graphene that makes this a news item.

I wonder how fast a sensor like this would be. If it's so sensitive I'm
guessing that you can build a super-fast camera, which is something engineers
are always looking for. For our high-speed applications in the microsecond
exposure time it's hard to get enough light and fast enough shuttering. Even
if this thing isn't going to replace CMOS and CCD it could be interesting for
high speed metrology.

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mosqutip
If it gathers light in the infrared spectrum, how is noise eliminated? Ambient
room temperature is an infrared-peak blackbody. I'd like to see more on the
filtering that has to go into images taken with such a sensor.

~~~
mapt
"infrared" is actually an extremely large portion of the spectrum when viewed
on a proper log scale. It's a poor label because it often leads to this
confusion.

400nm to 700nm is 'visible light', a factor of 1.75x, infrared is 700nm to
1mm, a factor of 1428x.

Only a small portion of this is significant for thermal infrared applications,
which at room temperatures are about 8um-15um.

Near infrared, up to about 1500nm, acts pretty much like light we can't see,
and can be detected well on the same CCD/CMOS sensors (which need filters to
block it out).

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lucb1e
But then how do I use my phone as flashlight?

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harel
I've actually read this (in my mind) as: "No need for flash plugins to connect
to a computer's laptop"...

