Preface ........................................................ IX
1 Making Pictures .............................................. 1
1.1 The Magical Process ..................................... 1
1.2 A Brief History of Photography - It All Started with
a Hole in the Wall ...................................... 3
2 Digital Images: Pixels and Bits ............................. 17
2.1 So, What Exactly Is a Digital Image, Anyway? ........... 17
2.2 Making the Numbers—How to Make a Digital Image ......... 25
2.3 Is That Really a Picture of an Alien? .................. 27
3 Light: The Essential Ingredient ............................. 35
3.1 A Heavy Understanding of Light ......................... 36
3.2 Light Interrupted ...................................... 40
3.3 A Horse of a Different Color ........................... 43
3.4 Light as the Camera Sees It ............................ 45
4 Camera Optics: Taking Control of the Light .................. 47
4.1 Getting the Light into Shape ........................... 47
4.2 Lenses ................................................. 48
4.3 Mirrors ................................................ 52
4.4 /-Number Basics ........................................ 54
4.5 Forming the Perfect Image Is a Tall Order .............. 57
5 A Simpler Math .............................................. 61
5.1 Don't Be Frightened by LSI ............................. 61
5.2 A Fourier What? ........................................ 65
5.3 Modulation Transfer Function, or How I Learned to
Blur an Image .......................................... 69
6 Sensing the Light ........................................... 77
6.1 Turning Light into a Digital Image ..................... 77
6.2 Making Numbers ......................................... 78
6.3 Making Noise ........................................... 82
6.4 Sampling and Psychedelic Pinstripes .................... 83
7 Camera Considerations ....................................... 87
7.1 Making Sure the Left Hand Knows What the Right Hand
Is Doing ............................................... 87
7.2 Taking Pictures in a World that Won't Stand Still ...... 88
7.3 Seeing the Detail: Resolution and Camera Size .......... 92
7.4 The Story of Q: Designing the Optics and Sensor
in Harmony ............................................. 96
8 The Magic of Computers: Making a Picture Better ............ 101
8.1 The Numbers Game ...................................... 101
8.2 Taking Away the Drab .................................. 103
8.3 Eyeglasses for a Digital Image ........................ 108
8.4 Changing Size and Filling in Details: Reality Versus
Hollywood ............................................. 110
9 The Way We See It .......................................... 115
9.1 You See What in that Image? ........................... 115
9.2 A Matter of Interpretation ............................ 116
9.3 Camera Designers Need to Keep Our Minds in Mind ....... 119
9.4 Crummy Viewing Equals Crummy Image .................... 121
10 Afterword: Now What? ....................................... 123
Index ......................................................... 127
|
