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Physics

This camera’s shutter speed goes up to 1/1,000,000,000,000 of a second

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One limit that often faces high-speed photographers is the 1/8,000 or 1/4,000 max shutter speed of their DSLR or mirrorless cameras. Fortunately, mirrorless cameras are bringing this up to 1/32,000 with the electronic shutter now in some models. However, many photographers will still revert to flash to get exposure times faster than the camera’s shutter speed is capable.

But even super fast flash durations aren’t a patch on the “Neutron” camera. Developed by a team of researchers at Columbia University in New York, it can shoot with shutter speeds as fast as a trillionth of a second. That’s one and twelve zeroes! This camera isn’t like the ones we’re used to, though. It’s designed to capture a process known as “dynamic disorder”.

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Here is a room you can never fully light with one light

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In photography, light is everything. After all, that’s the key part of its very name. When taking photos indoors, there are many setups you can make with just one light. And did you know that, in theory, almost every room will be lit no matter where you place the light?

However, here’s something I’m sure you’ll find interesting. When there are mirrors on the walls, any room shape will be fully lit but one. It’s called the Penrose unilluminable room, and in his video, Steve Mould talks about this interesting phenomenon.

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This new tiny camera overcomes the problems of metalenses by using a whole bunch of them at once

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Metalenses have been a thing for a while now. We first wrote about them here on DIYP back in 2016 when a team at Harvard first built a lens that’s even thinner than the waves of light being focused. The goal of such lenses is to essentially shrink cameras down as much as possible. They use nanostructures to focus the light instead of the optics we’re used to in more traditional lenses, but they have something of a flaw.

It’s kind of a fatal flaw, too, and that’s image quality. The images aren’t really sharp, nor are they high resolution – especially when it comes to wide angles. They’re “ok” with a little help from AI, but they’re not great. Now, though, a team of researchers at Nanjing University in China believe they’ve solved the issue, by not just using a single metalens, but a whole array of them, with each tuned to a range of different angles.

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Scientists have developed a fully working camera that’s the size of a grain of salt

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Teeny tiny micro-sized nano-optics cameras are a relatively new development and it’s been very exciting to follow. They just keep getting smaller and better. Now, researchers at Princeton University and the University of Washington have managed to create a fully functional camera that’s as small as a grain of salt. A large grain of salt, but still, that’s mighty impressive.

The “size of a grain of salt” thing has been used before, back in 2016, with respect to the lens, and array of which was placed onto a high resolution CMOS sensor. Now, though, it’s a complete camera at that size.

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This simple blackboard model explains how a Fresnel lens works

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Fresnel lenses are found in all kinds of things from the lenses and light modifiers we use in photography and filmmaking to lighthouses that guide ships at sea. The lens was developed by French physicist Augustin-Jean Fresnel, after whom it was named, specifically for use in lighthouses. It allows for the construction of huge aperture and short focal length lenses but using less material than more traditional lens optics.

How exactly do they work, though? In the video above, David Willey explains how a Fresnel lens functions and why it is the shape that it is using a simple blackboard model and some magnetic strips. But essentially, Fresnel lenses are just regular lenses with big chunks taken out of them.

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Goodbye aberration: physicist solves 2,000-year-old optical problem

When you look through your viewfinder and things seem a little bit blurry or lacking definition, it’s probably because you are using an “el cheapo” lens. So you read reviews and buy a much more expensive lens, and what do you do next?

You don’t go out to learn about composition and lighting to make better pictures. No. If you are a conscious and professional photographer, you start pixel-peeping to rationalize your expensive purchase.

And what do you find then?

The problem is still there. Right there, in the corners. They’re soft. The center is OK, but the corners are still soft. So you read more reviews and buy a better lens.

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How to see heat and shockwaves using a regular camera and Photoshop

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Making cameras see things that our eyes cannot is something that’s always really fascinated me about photography. Whether it’s super extreme macro, infrared & ultraviolet or, as is the case here, heat and shockwaves.

In this video, Kelly Hoffer at Theory of Curiosity talks us through Background-Oriented Schlieren (BOS). It’s a technique that lets you see heat and other atmospheric distortions in photographs. Here, Kelly shows it off using just a regular camera and Photoshop.

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This Moon Terminator Illusion explains why light can appear to bend the wrong way

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And no, the Moon Terminator is nothing to do with Arnold. The “terminator” in this case is the line between the lit and dark sides of the moon. During those times when the moon and the sun are in the sky together, there’s something odd about it. The line defining the lit side of the moon doesn’t line up with the sun, the thing that’s lighting it.

This video from YouTuber Vsauce attempts to explain the phenomenon of the Moon Terminator illusion. A camera is used to explain some of the various principles involved. It’s well worth watching, as it also goes some way towards also explaining some of the issues photographers hit regularly. Understanding the causes of them can help us to resolve them.

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Everything You Need To Know About Depth of Focus and Lens Equivalency

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After learning about the history and science of lenses, and gaining some knowledge about the properties of modern lenses, it’s time to take a deeper look at depths of field and how it’s affected by sensor size.

Kick back as John Hess of Filmmaker IQ takes us on a 17-minute long journey through the optics, the terms and the calculations that will help you understand how depth of field works once and for all.

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