This article needs additional citations for verification .(April 2009) |
Photo instrumentation refers to recording information of a diagnostic nature via a photographic process. The information recorded is usually used to determine the motion of a particular object through the camera's field of view. The camera is typically a high-speed still camera, or motion picture and video cameras, or other specialized devices.
One of today's most common applications is the car crash test. Measurements of the object's position in successive pictures provide the object's motion. The time interval between the pictures is also known, and so the object's speed and direction can be determined. Information on the object's motion, combined with its known physical characteristics, such as size and weight, allows calculation of many parameters including velocity and force for any desired points within the image. The motion of individual elements of an object can also be determined. The "photo instrumentation" provides both quantitative (numeric) and qualitative (descriptive) information that helps the observer understand the event.
Similar techniques have been used to study how hummingbirds hover. [1]
Cameras range from conventional single picture cameras to 'movie cameras' that take over 2 million pictures per second. Specialized optics, illuminations, and films are used to record images of things that the eye cannot see such as movement of air, surface temperature of objects, and stress patterns. Cameras can be used in environments where humans cannot go.
In digital imaging, a pixel, pel, or picture element is the smallest addressable element in a raster image, or the smallest addressable element in an all points addressable display device; so it is the smallest controllable element of a picture represented on the screen.
A camera is an optical instrument that can capture an image. Most cameras can capture 2D images, with some more advanced models being able to capture 3D images. At a basic level, most cameras consist of sealed boxes, with a small hole that allows light to pass through in order to capture an image on a light-sensitive surface. Cameras have various mechanisms to control how the light falls onto the light-sensitive surface. Lenses focus the light entering the camera, and the aperture can be narrowed or widened. A shutter mechanism determines the amount of time the photosensitive surface is exposed to the light.
Motion blur is the apparent streaking of moving objects in a photograph or a sequence of frames, such as a film or animation. It results when the image being recorded changes during the recording of a single exposure, due to rapid movement or long exposure.
Cinematography is the art of motion picture photography.
Motion capture is the process of recording the movement of objects or people. It is used in military, entertainment, sports, medical applications, and for validation of computer vision and robots. In filmmaking and video game development, it refers to recording actions of human actors, and using that information to animate digital character models in 2-D or 3-D computer animation. When it includes face and fingers or captures subtle expressions, it is often referred to as performance capture. In many fields, motion capture is sometimes called motion tracking, but in filmmaking and games, motion tracking usually refers more to match moving.
In photography, bracketing is the general technique of taking several shots of the same subject using different camera settings. Bracketing is useful and often recommended in situations that make it difficult to obtain a satisfactory image with a single shot, especially when a small variation in exposure parameters has a comparatively large effect on the resulting image. Given the time it takes to accomplish multiple shots, it is typically, but not always, used for static subjects. Autobracketing is a feature of many modern cameras. When set, it will automatically take several bracketed shots, rather than the photographer altering the settings by hand between each shot.
A camera phone is a mobile phone which is able to capture photographs and often record video using one or more built-in digital cameras. It can also send the resulting image wirelessly and conveniently. The first commercial phone with color camera was the Kyocera Visual Phone VP-210, released in Japan in May 1999.
A high-speed camera is a device capable of capturing moving images with exposures of less than 1/1,000 second or frame rates in excess of 250 fps. It is used for recording fast-moving objects as photographic images onto a storage medium. After recording, the images stored on the medium can be played back in slow motion. Early high-speed cameras used film to record the high-speed events, but were superseded by entirely electronic devices using either a charge-coupled device (CCD) or a CMOS active pixel sensor, recording, typically, over 1,000 fps onto DRAM, to be played back slowly to study the motion for scientific study of transient phenomena.
The science of photography is the use of chemistry and physics in all aspects of photography. This applies to the camera, its lenses, physical operation of the camera, electronic camera internals, and the process of developing film in order to take and develop pictures properly.
A photo finish occurs in a sporting race when multiple competitors cross the finishing line at nearly the same time. As the naked eye may not be able to determine which of the competitors crossed the line first, a photo or video taken at the finish line may be used for a more accurate check. Photo finishes make it less likely that officials will declare a race a dead heat.
High-speed photography is the science of taking pictures of very fast phenomena. In 1948, the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE) defined high-speed photography as any set of photographs captured by a camera capable of 69 frames per second or greater, and of at least three consecutive frames. High-speed photography can be considered to be the opposite of time-lapse photography.
Digital photography uses cameras containing arrays of electronic photodetectors interfaced to an analog-to-digital converter (ADC) to produce images focused by a lens, as opposed to an exposure on photographic film. The digitized image is stored as a computer file ready for further digital processing, viewing, electronic publishing, or digital printing.
Image stabilization (IS) is a family of techniques that reduce blurring associated with the motion of a camera or other imaging device during exposure.
Scanography, more commonly referred to as scanner photography, is the process of capturing digitized images of objects for the purpose of creating printable art using a flatbed "photo" scanner with a CCD array capturing device. Fine art scanography differs from traditional document scanning by using atypical objects, often three-dimensional, as well as from photography, due to the nature of the scanner's operation.
Forensic photography may refer to the visual documentation of different aspects that can be found at a crime scene. It may include the documentation of the crime scene, or physical evidence that is either found at a crime scene or already processed in a laboratory. Forensic photography differs from other variations of photography because crime scene photographers usually have a very specific purpose for capturing each image. As a result, the quality of forensic documentation may determine the result of an investigation, in that with the absence of good documentation, investigators may find it impossible to conclude what did or did not happen.
Long-exposure, time-exposure, or slow-shutter photography involves using a long-duration shutter speed to sharply capture the stationary elements of images while blurring, smearing, or obscuring the moving elements. Long-exposure photography captures one element that conventional photography does not: an extended period of time.
Most digital cameras support the ability to choose among a number of configurations, or modes, for use in various situations. Professional DSLR cameras provide several manual modes; consumer point-and-shoot cameras emphasize automatic modes; amateur prosumer cameras often have a wide variety of both manual and automatic modes.
Rolling shutter is a method of image capture in which a still picture or each frame of a video is captured not by taking a snapshot of the entire scene at a single instant in time but rather by scanning across the scene rapidly, vertically, horizontally or rotationally. In other words, not all parts of the image of the scene are recorded at exactly the same instant. This produces predictable distortions of fast-moving objects or rapid flashes of light. This is in contrast with "global shutter" in which the entire frame is captured at the same instant.
A film – also called a movie, motion picture, moving picture, picture or photoplay – is a work of visual art that simulates experiences and otherwise communicates ideas, stories, perceptions, feelings, beauty, or atmosphere through the use of moving images. These images are generally accompanied by sound and, more rarely, other sensory stimulations. The word "cinema", short for cinematography, is often used to refer to filmmaking and the film industry, and to the art form that is the result of it.
Strip photography, or slit photography, is a photographic technique of capturing a two-dimensional image as a sequence of one-dimensional images over time, in contrast to a normal photo which is a single two-dimensional image at one point in time. A moving scene is recorded, over a period of time, using a camera that observes a narrow strip rather than the full field. If the subject is moving through this observed strip at constant speed, they will appear in the finished photo as a visible object. Stationary objects, like the background, will be the same the whole way across the photo and appear as stripes along the time axis; see examples on this page.