The Invisible Camera: Your Mind Will Be Blown

Chris Marquardt has developed a really mind blowing new camera called The Invisible Camera. Using ground breaking technology developed by the Max-Planck Institute in Germany, Chris has designed a camera that can properly expose an image even when the film is exposed to ambient light. The special film uses a technique called “directional desensitization” which prevents the emulsion from capturing light; the only light registered is from the very small projection created by the tiny pin hole. What’s even more mind blowing is this technique might allow for images to be captured at ISO 1/500th or 15 stops lower than ISO 100! Chris estimates that this increase in resolution would be equivalent to about 3,000 5D Mark II cameras which I can’t even imagine. Hopefully some of our more technical readers can explain this to me since I have a feeling it’s going on sale a week from this Friday and The Invisible Camera has offered a demo model to Fstoppers.

Update: Chris has uploaded a podcast about his invisible camera. Unfortunately I still don’t think he addresses the questions needed to debunk this as a hoax. Listen to his interview HERE and decide for yourself.

March 21, 2011

Patrick Hall

Film

Gear

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http://www.carlosfabrizio.com carlos yepez
Sweet! They agreed to send me one too. I’ll have it in 11 days also. Weird.
Jaymes Poudrier
A film negative is exposed with light, this “camera” presumably works the same way. How would you not expose the film walking around with it…exposed.
Terrapixel…Really? It uses film, the only way a pixel even factors into the equation is if the medium was scanned digitally. The resolution would depend on the device that was capturing it…
Assuming that this camera where even remotely close to being real, it would not work. If your goal is to capture the light energy in this case from every possible angle, then it would be impossible to hold the camera and tak an image. You could not mount it because you would block the light bouncing off the floor. If your hands where to hold it you would be blocking light from the sides.
Rob Mills
LOL…. Field testers wanted… April Fools . :)
Jaymes Poudrier
What would be the difference between this camera, and just holding up this film in one spot?
http://www.patrickhallweddings.com Patrick Hall Admin
I like the part at :48 seconds; reminds me of the knobs on some PA sound boards I used to play around with :) And no I’m not in on this, someone emailed it to us so I figured I’d play along….I hope he didn’t think we were this gullible.
Greg Gillis
This has to be a fake. I doubt if he’s even a photographer. Notice how he holds the light meter and says it amplifies the light? He’s holding it up (The wrong way) It would be reading the light at the top of the camera and not at the lens. Also I know its minor but he had the wrong side of the dark slide out for non exposed film. Every photographer I know has white side out till it’s exposed then turned around and put back with the black side showing.
http://mg-fotografia.com mario
FAKE- super mentiras
jannis
invisible camera?
i cant SEE that being released
Marie
I’m so gullible i actually believed it for a second! lol, but theres no doubt in my mind that this is a april fools day joke!
http://www.cymek.com CraigD
Obviously it’s just to draw attention to the megapixel myth. But to claim polarized glass then to say that the film only picks up very directional light so the ambient light wont’ effect it doesn’t make sense. Once the ambient light passes through the glass it would be very very directional, i.e. polarized. Also to say the film isn’t effected by daylight is stupid because even random light would hit their specific angle criteria.
http://www.cymek.com CraigD
And the funniest part is the beginning. When he says the electro-magnetic field idea won’t work. But if I may point out, light is an electro-magnetic field. I bet he also has a aura camera he is working on. But what can we say, his idea is working and drawing attention to himself.
RichA
The Invisible Camera?? So called because when those promised a field test model don’t receive it…. it is thus – the Invisible Camera.
If I had developed a product that could potentially revolutionize photography ‘the terapixal’ I wouldn’t be asking for applicants for field testers. I’d be approaching Canon or Nikon.
April fool or clever marketing.
MikeR
Well, I’ve just taken delivery of mine and am about to ebay it.
Beach
I’m just glad it got shared so many times on Facebook and Twitter. This kind of amazing technology needs to be out there in the public eye.
tobi
petapixel.com states that it’s a hoax. the camera is supposed to be released on april the 1st so the site wrote:
http://www.petapixel.com/2011/03/21/invisible-camera-shoots-terapixel-photos-at-fractional-isos/
http://www.heidrichphotography.com David
AHAHAHAH :D
Mike1052
FAKE, Nice aprils fools
sam madino
BIG F-ING HOAX. This is the biggest hoax and we all got fooled because it was on fstoppers.com.
Noel
The only resonating going on here are from the bells attached to my other leg.
A bit early for April Fools.
sam madino
This is the guys, personal email: chris@chrismarquardt.com
Let’s send him a lot of junk mail to get him back for his hoax. And this is his workshop link, let’s all email him about signing up for his workshops. He likes a hoax then why not: http://chrismarquardt.com/workshops.php
http://www.fluidr.com/photos/45404768@N08 zack
nice plexi box
that could be handy for keep some cool beer with some ice :)
http://www.patrickhallweddings.com Patrick Hall
@tobi, what’s hillarious is I don’t think there is a release date mentioned anywhere. I made up the 11 days in very first comment which would be April 1st and now every blog is running with that date. Oh well, it’s still a fun video
http://www.flickr.com/photos/taylor-mcbride/ Taylor Mcbride
i think it is real! There are three picture examples on the field test page: http://www.theinvisiblecamera.com/fieldtest/
http://www.photosbymotti.com/blog Motti
So, where are the photos takes with this camera??
Von Wong
I’d laugh if this turned out to be real
http://fialkowskiphoto.zenfolio.com/ Eric
I was expecting this to be something like “The best image capture device is your mind and your eyes are the best lenses. Put down your camera and enjoy the view.”
Seshan
@Patrick Hall, That’s because other blogs trust you, and now they can’t. But the video even lamer because it’s not a April fools joke XD Just a attempt at a viral video.
Also, some people are taking this a little serious, there is no reason to spam the guy. It didn’t hurt you to watch the video.
http://www.dutchfoto.nl Lawrence Mooij
April’s Fool’s :-)
within 11 day’s it wil be the 1st of April :-)
http://www.bertmclendon.com Bert
There are so many contradictions in this video. The main one being the directional light crap. If the film only exposed with light from 1 direction then the exposure would only be the size of the pin hole on the film. If the film is bigger than the hole there has to be an angle for the light to travel and thus contradicts what they’re saying about the directional light. One other main thing is that you can see through the box which means light enters box and therefore reflects off of everything in there depending on the reflective properties of each material (no matter what the coating is)and you can’t prevent light from bouncing in a direction that you don’t want it to. If the box were a black box and the “hole” was square (same size as the film) it would have been much more believable but a lot less cool looking. =)
http://www.bmcphotography.info Brian
Happy April Fools day.
kellyhofer
Patrick is finding out his readers are not dumb :D
no such thing as “light amplification” or “directional desensitization” exists. Even google, came up dumb.
nice try
http://www.patrickhallweddings.com Patrick Hall
@Seshan, yeah I just figured this was so blatantly fake that I was taking some liberty to have fun with it. Who knows when this camera was supposed to be released…my guess is another video will surface here soon.
http://www.patrickhallweddings.com Patrick Hall
@kellyhofer, oh I never under estimate the wit of fstoppers’ readers. Someone emailed us this video and it was so ridiculous I thought I’d post it on the front page and add some more ridiculous talk like we were about to get a test model :)
David Keller
i think its real, because who would be a big enough nerd to spend days producing a hoax video this good?
;)
jimjim
@carlos yepez, that would mean its april the first then
http://www.petapixel.com Michael
@Seshan, @Patrick Hall:
Haha, interesting how word gets around the Internet. We actually didn’t come across this story on f stoppers but rather through a forum. The date was also something we came across on a different blog.
We still trust Patrick ;-)
Zac H
March 21 + 11 days = April 1st. Nice April fools joke.
Gary
I’m a sucker on April Fools. I’ll admit it. I’m also formally trained as a scientist, so some parts of this actually made sense. The part that makes me suspicious is that not once did they show an image from the camera. One doesn’t call an imaging system revolutionary without showing the products of it.
That’s my $0.02 worth. My highly gullible $0.02 worth.
Alan
WOW!!!
Hoax or not. Some people take this stuff WAY. To seriously.
rlarsen
A well done parody of technology. Can we also get an invisible strobe so I can create well-lit photos for my invisible clients.
Shoot Out Loud
If the film is only sensitive to light coming from a very specific angle how could the pinhole work. As I recall light hitting the focal plane coming from a lens is angled ranging from somewhere around 45˚ degrees at one corner of the image to 90˚Degrees in the exact centre centre and 135˚ to the other corner, It just doesn’t make sense. then there is the fact that the sign-up starts exactly one week before April fouls day and last one week…… Hmmmmmm
Matt
@kellyhofer,
“no such thing as “light amplification” exists”
That’ll be apart from lasers then? ;)
http://www.idontgiveashit.com sam donner
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Roubin
@Beach, heh heh, the video said one of the Max Planck Institutes… another name waved around like a magic wand… like you wave CERN and the LHC oooh superelite!… but not much connected…
Roubin
@Tim Kang, Yes, and amplified in air… the perpendicular part, actually that’s possible (tech note: nonlinear susceptibility as a tensor with off-diagonal elements). But in air, no…
Roubin
@Beach, you’re a plant…
Roubin
@Tim Kang, And you’ll never see a polarized material that doesn’t cut out at least HALF the light — for random polarization, half the energy is in each orthogonal polarization… Your instincts are spot-on…
Roubin
@Roubin, (and the k-vectors are a problem too…)
Kev
@Patrick Hall Admin,
This is an April Fool joke.
http://www.JunaPhotography.ca Justin Morrison
You know what set off my BS alarm first? The title. It’s called THE INVISIBLE CAMERA people.
Gullibility is a weapon.
Well shot though!

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