What I imagine Mechjeb's pod camera system to be.

[jonathan_92]

Read the full article here: http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2012-08/rough-sketch-camera-takes-photos-100-times-bigger-average-point-and-shoot

It's pretty much a sciency replication of a human eyeball, only at 1 gigapixel resolution!

[sal_vager]

While this is good jonathan_92, this maybe should have gone in Off-Topic, or possibly the MechJeb thread

[jonathan_92]

You can move it if you want, just thought it was interesting

[phoenix_ca]

That's a pretty neat camera, and I especially love the creative way it's getting around some fundamental problems (one of the major ones that is fast approaching, and the one that it mainly works-around, is that a single photocell must be at least 4micrometres wide, as anything smaller is useless...for some complex mathematical reasons I'd rather not get into; wikipedia has good explainations). Such a device would probably be used in SLR cameras with some creative re-engineering.

The serious problem is with the lens though. Tbh, we aren't all that great at making perfect lenses. Many SLR cameras today have sensors that easily out-resolve many of the best lenses. This thing can clearly out-resolve even the best lenses on the market...and that really defeats the purpose. In terms of creative application, I don't see this being all that useful, since to get the image a photographer would want, they'd still need a medium- or large-format size lens to accommodate it.

Obviously though, for surveillance, science, and a few other specific applications, this kind of design is pretty awesome.

Though...where's the focus mechanism? We can make a sphere out of glass...that's not so bad. However, I don't know of any material off the top of my head that could deform the shape of a sphere like that, with the required optical properties. (It's possible to change the focus by moving the sensors, but I suspect that the reason such a system didn't arise out of natural evolution is the same reason we'd try to avoid it: it's really, really complicated. Adjusting the lens is easier.)

Edited October 1, 2012 by phoenix_ca