Seitz scanning camera offers 160 megapixels

Stephen Shankland | Jan 21, 2008

Got US$45,600 burning a hole in your pocket? Try out Seitz Phototechnik's 160-megapixel 6 x 17 Digital Camera. And save a bit more of your allowance for a lens, too.

The mammoth device is able to take an image measuring 60 x 170mm, a big notch up from high-end SLRs with a 24 x 36mm frame. It's got huge handgrips on either side that cry out to be grasped, but it's 18 inches wide and weighs 10 pounds, so it looks either like a great workout or tripod material to me.

It can be purchased with a tablet PC to operate it, too. That's doubtless handy, because a single high-resolution file is 307MB in raw format, the company said.

The 6 x 17 Digital employs a digital scanning back made by Dalsa. Scanning cameras employ a linear light sensor detector similar to that used in flatbed scanners; it moves across the field of view to take the photo rather than using a two-dimensional sensor that captures the entire scene simultaneously. It's a good way to get high resolution, but it comes at a cost: it takes a single second to take a full-resolution 7,500 x 21,500-pixel image.

Via Crave CNET

Filed under: Digital Cameras
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