Flatbed Scanner Pin Hole Camera?

[laser_jock99]

Messiah Kahns post about large format cameras got me thinking again- has anyone ever built a huge scanning back out of an old flatbed scanner? In theory it ought to be possible if you disabled the cold cathode lamp and scan in transparency mode. All you would need for basic imaging is a pin-hole lens.

The interesting bit is the image sizes you could end up with. Take a basic A4 1200dpi scanner - available for about 25 quid new.

You'll get 12" x 1200 pixels on one edge and 8" x 1200 pixels on the other edge. So 14,400 x 8,800 pixel images would result. In other words a staggering 126 Mega Pixel camera!

Some better flatbeds are 4800 dpi which would yield a 2211Mega Pixel image or if you used an A3 flatbed 4422 Mega pixels! I'm not sure many computers could handle that!

The only real problems would be portabilty- it would be a studio only camera since it could only work tethered to a computer. Plus it would only be good for still life subjects since the scan might take several minutes.

I have been considering butchering a cheap scanner and giving it a go. Surely I am not the only person to have thought about this?

 

[dazzajl]

Surely I am not the only person to have thought about this?

Not at all. Thats basically what the betterlight digibacks for LF cameras are. They work very very well as long as there isn't too much movement in the frame.

I think your idea is great and I'd love to see you build one.

 

[Steep]

Could you make a cardboard bellows and attach a lens to it?

 

[laser_jock99]

Not at all. Thats basically what the betterlight digibacks for LF cameras are. They work very very well as long as there isn't too much movement in the frame.

I think your idea is great and I'd love to see you build one.

Yes - I know all about the little scanning backs, but how about an A4 or even an A3 sized back for a fraction of the price?

EDIT- just done some web searching on the subject and it seems various people have tried it already with mixed results

http://www.stockholmviews.com/diyphotogear/scannercamera.html

http://johnvanhornphoto.com/lgformatdigitalphotography/camera2007/Camera2007.html

This guy even made it the subject of his PhD- looks like they got a 490 Mega Pixel camera for $200!!!

http://www.cs.ubc.ca/~heidrich/Papers/EG.04.pdf

Some good images at the end of the paper.

 

[dazzajl]

Could you make a cardboard bellows and attach a lens to it?

you could but you'd need a pretty long lens with a huge image circle and it would probably make that little 'L' stuff look very bargain bucket.

but how about an A4 or even an A3 sized for a fraction of the price?

Oh I agree, that would be extremely cool. I can't imagine clients being too impressed but I sure would be.

 

[joxby]

I was reading some forum somewhere that had made such an apparatus, and the biggest problem they had was resolution.
It seems (and I dont suppose it includes all scanners) the scan had to be full res, something daft like 6000dpi, which their particular scanner took almost 8 minutes to complete.
Got to be still life or the stillest scapes.
Still life you can put directly onto a scanner and forget about lenses, if it will fit.
This Katinka Matson does some wonderfull still life scans, I'm not sure its photography though.....dunno