Missile Defense Shield or "That Thing I've Seen Pictures of all my Life in PopSci"

Hey, this is a pretty cool image.
I hear all these rumors in the blogosphere about Obama and the missile defense shield. Like, it's not feesable, that we can't have it. That the current budget can't afford it.
Well, if you think that wacky program was off the rails for good I've got a picture for you!

This is a infrared imaging photo posted on Engadget, possibly my most frequented techblog.
The blob on the left is a air-based missile being dominated by the blob on the right, a project spanning multiple decades, Boeing's Missile Destroying 747.

Wicked stuff here

NK Remote vs. Nikon's built in Intervalometer

Time Lapse. It's a subject of much interest for me and others. Including my Australian brother who was having some difficulty with the integrated D300 intervalometer last night while shooting some star trails.
Essentially he would like to take 30 second exposures, one sequentially following the other for a duration of one hour. Let's use this example as our benchmark to compare how the two different tools mentioned in the title stack up against eachother and the workflow required. Let's begin...

D300 Intervalometer: 
1) Go into the shooting menu, select interval shooting and select a period between intervals
2) Select a number of intervals
3) Now is where it gets tricky. The camera software will factor in the time it takes to take the exposure against the time you've preselected between shots. I was shooting full manual with a fully open aperture and 30 second expose time. As you can see on the left column when I select 1 second intervals, the number of intervals decrease at a more rapid rate. Over the course of one 30" exposure it goes from 999 to 966.

Instead, choose the approximate time between exposures as the interval time as demonstrated in the right column. This results in going from 999 to 997. The following shot not pictured shows 996 remaining intervals. The varying speed likely relates to noise reduction or the amount of time writing the file to the disk.
Note: editing the number of shots per interval results in the camera taking immediate sequences as fast as possible in the span of a single interval. This is really only useful when you're bracketing exposures because the time between shots is biased a great deal.

NKRemote

The other tool available is a software solution. Albeit this requires having a computer in the field, but laptops are the best selling machines in the market. They also have batteries which will usually last an hour or so.
1) Connect the camera.
2) Go to Camera -> Time Lapse
3) Set up the number of intervals and the time between each interval.

Using this method the software will report that it's 'running late', but it will take the full number of programed shots.


Conclusive Remarks:
Using the integrated intervalometer you can do most of you need while working in the field, but you're limited in the way that you can't rely on how long your project will take. The camera changes this based on:

• How long the exposure will take
• How long it will take to write to the disk.
  

This essentially means shooting in Av mode you can't rely on how much time you have before you have to 'restart' your sequence.

With NKRemote you have a little more control over how long the project will take which works a great deal better when your project is taking more time, or occurring in varying light (ex: Sunset) but of course you'll need extension cords, batteries, and a weatherproof PC in the field.

My NEXT Camera #2

Ok, so molecular imaging is coming far in news this week.
Prediction: Digital camera's are reaching a point of ultrahigh resolution - the finale would be the ability to image the location and movement of every molecule in a 3D system. The issue is with the scanning time involved


Anyway, this is not a new idea (even I've made mention to it in the past). But it has some attention in the news.
Published by Wired News, there is a new contender for fastest camera. With this new design "Light itself moves just a fraction of a centimeter in that time."

It would appear the road trip to California has a little bit of ammunition: at UCLA, Keisuke Goda focused on this idea of serial time-encoded amplified microscopy (STEAM).

Anyway, interesting stuff.

Automated Camermen 2

The machines would be able to self organize via GPS and modify configuration.
Here the system has been adapted as a rail for the camera to follow while recording.

Autonomous Cameramen Continued

If the robot recognizes the position of each camera actuation and compiles that data with the video (which would be aided by currently existing RealD 3D technique) you could produce a much more stable and information-rich model of what you're filming.

This would be an advantage for next-generation holographic display.
Multiple units such as these could act in synchronization in capturing a scene for 3D use.

The green and blue regions (x and y axis actuations) outline where the AI system would receive the position information from. Also note the Segway/PUMA design, for maximum stability.

Robotic Cameramen

A feature that is likely to recur.

But I want to focus on something specific about that idea, if you have a camera system, that could be fully actuated, and fast; would it be possible to scan an area completely in 3D with multiple cameras and a good use of thinking software running on fast computers, thereby replacing green screens completely, because you could just replace the backdrop in a camera generated 3D image?

I think yes, in the holographic age, yes.
(Patented Pending)

My NEXT Camera #1

Ok, so I would like to outline a feature that should exist in the camera of tomorrow. I numbered the tag in the title because I plan on discussing this more as time goes on.

Ok, so a tool I use sometimes is a BIC lighter. Aside from it's obvious function, it is also a very perfect scale anemometer with a really good feedback.
So you can measure tiny air currents.

Ideally I can observe that from a single position. With a 200MP plus system, and developed intelligence systems could probably calculate changes in air flow. Dust particles. On that note a camera that could scan the movement patterns of the dust in a projector beam. I think this is a feature that will be available in the not too distant future.

One thing you might be able to do is plane a 3D cubic grid over the image and move a flame around to see how the wind reacts.
As supercomputing abilities shrink to the size of a camera this will be a standard feature.

3D holographic anemometers that work from scanning ONLY photon movement from a single perspective.