CCD Sensor

pixbyjohn

Radio Amateur Wins Nobel Prize

Radio Amateur George Smith, AA2EJ, was awarded the
Nobel Prize in Physics for the invention of an imaging
semiconductor circuit - the CCD sensor.

Around 5:30 on the morning of October 6 2009, George E.
Smith, AA2EJ, of Barnegat, New Jersey, got a phone call
that changed his life: He had just found out he had won
the Nobel Prize in Physics for 2009 "for the invention
of an imaging semiconductor circuit -- the CCD sensor."

AnCatDubh

So why couldn't he have invented it as full frame - would have saved us all a packet :pac:

But seriously, was this guy working for a Canon/Nikon/Sony/Fuji or the reference to amateur that he was just sitting in his bedroom on the ham radio and thought - oh yeah what would happen if I had a bit of wafer which could replace camera film...... hmmmmnnnnn.....

Do you know I always wondered why some bright spark didn't develop a 35mm canister with a digital sensor which could be loaded into film bodies / act like film but yield digital...... reuse of the older bodies/best of both worlds etc... (sorry if this last point is slightly off topic).

Chorcai

AnCatDubh wrote: »

Do you know I always wondered why some bright spark didn't develop a 35mm canister with a digital sensor which could be loaded into film bodies / act like film but yield digital...... reuse of the older bodies/best of both worlds etc... (sorry if this last point is slightly off topic).

well Im sure someone will, doesn't look all that hard :P

pixbyjohn

The CCD -- invented in about an hour over lunch when Smith and Boyle worked together at New Jersey's Bell Labs -- was, according to Wired Magazine, the first practical way to let a light-sensitive silicon chip store an image and then digitize it. In short, it is the basis of today's digital camera.

According to Wired, the "most amazing thing about the invention" is that Boyle and Smith came up with the design so quickly. With Bell Labs threatening to take the funds from their department and transfer the money to other research, Boyle had to come up with a competing semiconductor design. He got together with Smith, and within an hour, they came up with the idea and sketched it all out on a blackboard.

http://www.arrl.org/news/stories/2009/11/03/11182/

No one initially predicted that the CCD would become indispensable to the field of astronomy. But it is precisely thanks to digital technology that the wide-angle camera on the HST can send the most astonishing images back to Earth. The camera's sensor initially consisted of only 0.64 megapixels 800×800 pixels); however, as four sensors were interconnected, they provided a total of 2.56 megapixels. This was a big thing in the 1980s when the Hubble was designed. Today, the Kepler satellite has been equipped with a mosaic sensor of 95 megapixels, and the hope is that it will discover Earth-like planets around stars other than the Sun.

kumate_champ07

AnCatDubh wrote: »

Do you know I always wondered why some bright spark didn't develop a 35mm canister with a digital sensor which could be loaded into film bodies / act like film but yield digital...... reuse of the older bodies/best of both worlds etc... (sorry if this last point is slightly off topic).

well the sensor would fit but what about the processor and all the electronics?

I dont think there was ever a 35mm digital back like they have for medium format

AnCatDubh

kumate_champ07 wrote: »

well the sensor would fit but what about the processor and all the electronics?

Well, here's where I don't know what i'm talking about, but that's never stopped me before....... :pac: my crazy mind was thinking - couldn't someone design the 35mm canister to hold the processor/electronics/mini sd 64GB memory, powered by two watch batteries (rechargeable of course). You'd have two sides of the 35mm film back that you potentially could fill in a single cartridge (allowing for spools, etc...) - I'm think a 'canister' along the lines of a 110 style (two circular tubes interconnected) but in a 35mm size/format that could be loaded into any 35mm film camera - SLR or P&S. Granted they'd have to stuff the electronic in there but all the mechanics of the lens/mirror/shutter would be reusable in this context.

I know,.... all this is wishful thinking, but it's ok to have a crazy idea every now and again.

DaireQuinlan

AnCatDubh wrote: »

I know,.... all this is wishful thinking, but it's ok to have a crazy idea every now and again.

Someone actually DID try this a few years back. Opinion is divided as to whether or not it was vapour ware or not, but alledgedly there was a few prototypes floating around. All the electronics fit into the 35mm canister, and the sensor was on a strip that fit it exactly on the film gate. Evidently it proved impossible to fully make work, or there was no market for it.
Arguably the first DSLRs were the early Kodak models, which were nikon bodies (F-90 iirc at first, later there was some version built on the F5) with enormously bulky kodak digital backs.
I'd say anyhow, even if the technology did exist today to make the 'digital sensor in a canister' a reality the camera manufacturers would never go for it. They must be amazed at the publics' appetite for dumping their cameras every two years and buying new ones with a few more megapixels, or another stop of sensitivity. They're practically printing money. Me, i'm happy with my version of the above, which is a roll of ektar and my coolscan

kumate_champ07

AnCatDubh wrote: »

Well, here's where I don't know what i'm talking about, but that's never stopped me before....... :pac: my crazy mind was thinking - couldn't someone design the 35mm canister to hold the processor/electronics/mini sd 64GB memory, powered by two watch batteries (rechargeable of course). You'd have two sides of the 35mm film back that you potentially could fill in a single cartridge (allowing for spools, etc...) - I'm think a 'canister' along the lines of a 110 style (two circular tubes interconnected) but in a 35mm size/format that could be loaded into any 35mm film camera - SLR or P&S. Granted they'd have to stuff the electronic in there but all the mechanics of the lens/mirror/shutter would be reusable in this context.

I know,.... all this is wishful thinking, but it's ok to have a crazy idea every now and again.

if it was possible in 35mm format CMOS technology would have to be used!