slit-scan

This Raspberry Pi project stitches together images of passing trains

May 12, 2023 by John Aldred 3 Comments

This is quite a fascinating concept. Based around a Raspberry Pi, it takes photographs – lots of photographs – of trains passing through a station and then stitches them together to create a single long composite of the entire locomotive. It works on a similar principle to slit-scan photography, which is often used for capturing fast-moving subjects passing a fixed point – like horses finishing a race.

Slit-scan photography in the digital age typically shoots a stream of 1-pixel wide vertical slices. This is required if you’re trying to the capture speed between multiple moving objects, such as in a horse race. But in this project by “jo-m“, the “slits” are a little wider, which means fewer images are required in order to composite the final result together. But for applications such as this, it’s all that’s needed.

Emulate Slit Scan Photography for Beautifully Weird Images

Oct 31, 2017 by Ted Kinsman 6 Comments

The use of slit scan photography is actually quite old. It is often called line-scan, photo finish, or streak photography. Slit scan photography has a rich and colorful history rooted in chemical analog photography. This technique is often used to visualize high-speed events, such as missiles and bullets, although it is probably best known as photo finish photography that is used to determine the outcome of races.

In the past, slit scan photographic systems used a sheet of film that was moved past a slit. These cameras were most commonly used as photo finish cameras at races and, for example, could very precisely measure the time one horse might have won the race by. There were a number of designs of these types of systems. One of the most interesting slit scan cameras had the camera and film moving at the same time to create a panoramic picture. The last camera on the market to use this technique was the Spinner Dolphin 360 made by Lomography.

This DIY slit-scan medium format camera shoots long photos

Oct 4, 2016 by Udi Tirosh 5 Comments

Slit scan cameras are quite a unique breed. Rather then exposing a complete frame with every shutter click, they expose a small slit and advance the film while exposing.

You know whats cool about that, you can create very long photos, as long as your subject is moving in a predictable speed. (which will correlate the speed in which you advance the film)

Take this DIY slit-scan medium format camera from Hugo Cardoso. It was built on the remains of an old hand-drill, some plywood and some scraps.

The drill’s motor is used to advance the film, and a box keeps the light away. Quite a simple build. The results, however, are quite unique.

Building A Large Format Digital Camera

Jul 8, 2014 by Udi Tirosh 1 Comment

it is not often that a person builds their own camera, and even less common for them to build a large format camera, but Jimmy.c. Alzen just built one of those. The total cost of the build was less than $150 + several years of education and tinkering know-how.

The camera was submitted to Hack a day’s Challenge and as such it is pretty hacked up. The photographs that it takes, though, are dreamy.