Good Picture 2013: Aspects of Imaging

An RPS Symposium

On Saturday 14 December 2013, the Imaging Science Group of the Royal Photographic Society held another in its series of Good Picture tutorial seminars. The programme is detailed below together with links to some of the papers presented. These have been made available by kind permission of the authors. More may be added if and when the files become available to us.

This was the 11th in our series of annual Good Picture symposia. The aim of these lectures and discussions is to provide imaging practitioners, keen amateurs and students with insights into Digital Imaging and provide some tools and guidelines for assessing cameras and output.

Programme

Dr. Anthony Kaye ASIS FRPS: Are You Getting Good Value From All your Pixels?
Independent Imaging Consultant
The camera pixel race has not abated, many cameras have pixel counts that are far in excess of what is needed for a high quality print. Additionally we are now seeing cameras without anti-aliasing or low pass filters (lpfs) appearing on the market, do they produce more detailed images than from cameras with equal pixel counts but with lpfs? This talk will look at sampling, aliasing, the need for low pass filters, diffraction, and whether the effective number of pixels in your images is governed more by optical considerations than the number of photosensitive sites in a camera’s sensor.

David Bishop: PR Photography In The Healthcare Environment
Photography Supervisor, UCL Medical Illustration Services, Royal Free Hospital
A good PR photograph should tell a story in a single image: efficiently conveying a specific idea or event or illustrate a subject’s character and nature of their work. This can be challenging at the best of times, but can be even more so within hospitals, laboratories and medical education. David will discuss some of his recent photography projects together with the challenges that can be faced when trying to produce that ‘good PR photograph’.

Dr. Graeme Awcock: World-class, Life-saving Images From Space
School of Environment & Technology, University of Brighton
As Human population rises, and associated environmental degradation increases, more people will be living in hazardous terrain. Climate change tends to increase the severity of geohazards related to storms, etc. So both the frequency and severity of disasters is expected to increase. Many geohazards occur in developing countries where local systems struggle to assess and mitigate them. Satellite remote sensing can help us to rapidly assess, and therefore manage, geohazards, wherever they occur…

Julian Pinn: The Art and Science of Cinema Imaging From Capture to Exhibition and its Trends
Julian Pinn Ltd, julianpinn.com
21st century cinema has matured beyond recognition since its 19th Century genesis. Continuous commercially-successful scientific innovation has unlocked new artistry in the capture, post-production and exhibition of motion-pictures. With the last decade seeing the conversion of the majority of the world’s cinemas from photo-chemical film projection to Digital Cinema, what does this actually mean to the average cinemagoer and to the industry at large.

Becky Smith: How Does Imaging The Eye Work?
Moorfields Eye Hospital
Being the one of the only organs in the body you can look directly into without surgery, the eye is the window to the soul. Imaging techniques used in practice to record the state of eyes both on the outside and inside will be explored. As technology has advanced in recent years, ophthalmologists are able to better understand conditions of the eye. What imaging technologies are there for the future?

Robert Massey: Imaging The Universe
Deputy Executive Secretary and Press Officer, Royal Astronomical Society
More than four hundred years have passed since the invention of the telescope. In that time astronomers have always sought to make accurate records of stars, planets, comets, nebulae and galaxies, from sketches at the eyepiece in the 17th century to the sophisticated electronic detectors that survey our skies today. In this talk I will discuss how technology led to dramatic changes in our perception of the cosmos, describe the tools astronomers use today and look at what we might expect in the decades ahead.

Dr Alan Hodgson ASIS FRPS: Creative Options For Digital Cameras
3M UK, PLC
Creating you own digital camera is neither hard nor expensive. It can also open up creative possibilities that would be otherwise out of reach. The aim of this work was to illustrate how a pile of old camera gear can gain a second life for IR video, monochrome and macro photography. And in these days of highly sophisticated DSLRs it is sometimes good to get back to basics!