Gizmodo: shutter

RollingShutter Reminds Us That While Jello Wiggles, Videos Should Not

Rosa Golijan — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 23:40:00 EDT

What's wrong with that video from last night? Things seems a bit skewed, distorted, and wiggly-jiggly. No, I'm not focused on that redhead in the tiny pink shirt, I'm talking about a fixable issue with CMOS-based video cameras.

RollingShutter, a plug-in for After Effects and Nuke, recently came to our attention, not because it's a good plug-in (although it is), but because it brings up a flaw with CMOS sensors: Video cameras using CMOS sensors tend to suffer from a major annoyance in the form of skewing anytime the camera is shifted or a fast-moving object flies through the frame. This is mainly due to the line-by-line top-to-bottom scanning done by these cameras and it will make your videos look like a mild acid trip.

The good news is that this pesky issue can be corrected post-production with tools such as RollingShutter. What RollingShutter does is use Local Motion Technology to correct that unsightly jiggling. This means that rather than globally correcting entire frames, the plug-in corrects individual parts of the images and prevents accidental introduction of new distortion.

Your camera won't learn to focus on the fly all of the sudden, but the difference in the before and after clips in the video is pretty huge and almost makes RollingShutters $500 price tag an easier pill to swallow for those who only want their jello to wiggle and jiggle. [The Foundry via badrobot]

Japanese iPhone 3G Is Perverts' Worst Friend

Jesus Diaz — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 06:58:00 EDT

According to reporter Nobuyuki Hayashi, the camera of the iPhone 3G sold in Japan will make a shutter sound every time you take a photo, even if you put the telephone in silent mode. The reason: all those pervs taking photos up the skirts of unsuspected women in public places.

According to Hayahi, the problem of up-skirt photography is so bad in Japan that most new cellphones have this feature (if you are a women) or bug (if you are a perv.) According to him, "some manufacturers have even put a louder shutter sound." The Japanese edition of the iPhone, however, just makes the normal one.

I really don't see the point of this measure however: the iPhone doesn't have a physical photo button, which really makes extremely difficult to take a clear up-skirt shot.

I mean, I can only guess that's the case.

Two things to Japanese pervs everywhere: fiber optics and video cameras.

Update: as readers have noticed, you can use Pwnage to jailbreak your iPhone and remove the sound. Why would you want to do this, I don't know.

DIY Lightning Activated Camera Trigger

Jason Chen — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 17:00:19 EDT

Want to get great pictures of lightning without sitting outside all night? Check out this DIY lightning activated camera shutter trigger. It works by detecting really fast changes in light—which is either a lightning flash or your 2-year-old going nuts with the light switch—and triggers the camera shutter. The result is a convoluted way to automatically capture lightning without doing work yourself. Unless you count building the thing as work, which may actually be more work than sitting outside. [Solorb via DIYLive via Make]

It's All Butter with Mitsubishi's Flutter Shutter

Travis Hudson — Wed, 30 Aug 2006 18:32:16 EDT

A research team at Mitsubishi has developed a new type of digital camera shutter that will do a significantly better job at stopping motion and deblurring images. It works exactly how its odd name describes, the shutter flutters. With a traditional exposure, the shutter will open during the duration of the shot. The flutter shutter flutters multiple times and able to capture objects with an exposure time of 50 milliseconds.

The creator of this invention, Ramesh Raskar and his team at Mitsubishi has teamed with MIT to further develop this invention. Looking forward to seeing this developed further. – Travis Hudson

Mitsubishi Electric Develops Deblurring Flutter Shutter Camera [Digital Camera Info]