A device used to record static or moving images, either digitally or on a physical medium. The images captured may be in any region of the electromagnetic spectrum such as x-ray, infrared, visible, or ultraviolet and beyond.
Questions tagged [camera]
185 questions
55
votes
1 answer
What causes the Sun to appear to be in front of a building in this picture?
I took this photograph a few days ago, during sunrise, using my smartphone camera and digital zoom:
It seems that the sun is in front of the building. How is this explained?
Lior
- 3,490
41
votes
5 answers
Why doesn't Earth appear smudgy or blurred in space photographs due to its fast rotation?
Whenever we take a photograph of something moving at a considerably high speed, its image appears fuzzy/smudgy/distorted due to motion blur. Why doesn't this happen in case of Earth photographs from space, taking into account the fact that Earth…
user139580
33
votes
3 answers
Why are there no stars visible in this photograph?
Pluto and Charon, photo taken by New Horizons on July 8, 2015 from a distance of 6 gigameters.
It's hard for me to believe there were no stars behind the twin dwarf planets in the field of vision. I also would not expect the planets to be…
robert bristow-johnson
- 1,785
28
votes
5 answers
Why does a pinhole create an image of the Sun?
When I was a kid I happened to encounter a solar eclipse. I was taught that I should not look at the Sun directly when it is undergoing an eclipse, but I was extremely curious to see it.
Somebody suggested to me that if I created a pinhole in…
Devansh Mittal
- 2,577
27
votes
3 answers
Why are the northern lights so much less visible to the naked eye than to smartphone cameras?
The northern lights have been visible where I live recently, but I've found them to be practically impossible to see with the naked eye. Phone cameras, however, show them quite brilliantly. How is this difference explained?
Ryan_L
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26
votes
2 answers
What is this blue thing in a photograph of a bright light?
It looks like the bulb of the lamp beside it but how why what
Nads
- 293
25
votes
12 answers
Why do images not appear inverted when looking directly through a pinhole camera?
I understand that the way light takes through a pinhole creates an inverted image on a surface behind the pinhole. I remember this effect from school experiments, it's also described in this wikipedia article. I punctured a piece of paper and looked…
heinrich
- 375
23
votes
7 answers
Is there a maximum frames per second (FPS)?
Take a video camera and crank up the frames per second rate.
Disregarding current technological advancements, could a camera's FPS go so fast that any two captured images be identical? Would accomplishing this defy "time"?
CoolQuestionsGuy
- 575
21
votes
2 answers
Land proportions in NASA blue marble photographs
What is the explanation for the apparent size difference of North America in these two photos from NASA?
Image source
Image source
Simplex
- 363
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20
votes
3 answers
Cameras in Voyager probes
I've always wondered about the cameras in the space probes, especially in the Voyagers.
1) What kind of cameras do they have? Digital? (Electronic - what kind of sensor and megapixel count?) Analog? (Do they develop the film and then scan it, as…
Andres
18
votes
6 answers
Is there any advantage in stacking multiple images vs a single long exposure?
Suppose I have a source object that is not time varying, to be concrete let's say it's a galaxy. Is there anything additional that can be learned or done with multiple short exposure images of exactly the same field as compared to a single long…
Kyle Oman
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votes
6 answers
Why doesn't a pinhole camera work with a large hole?
All the explanations in the internet about pinhole cameras show two rays from outside passing through a small hole and produce an inverted image inside. Why doesn't it work with a big hole? Or basically without holes? Why are we not seeing images of…
arjunsiva
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15
votes
3 answers
Why can a regular infrared camera not show temperature (thermography)?
There are a lot of questions here dealing with infrared cameras and thermographic cameras. I think I understand the reason why a thermographic camera is able to retrieve the temperature values from any object and convert them to a falsecolor…
flor1an
- 275
14
votes
5 answers
Technical explanation of "Hitachi lensless camera"
Hitachi is bragging about a thin lensless camera. I can't find any technical information on how it works---just press releases etc.† Can anyone work backwards from the published descriptions to reconstruct how this works?
The "concentric-circle…
Steve Byrnes
- 17,082
13
votes
3 answers
Does 'focal length' mean something different with lenses and pinhole cameras?
Sometimes different but related things have the same name by some tradition or accident, causing a lot of headache to newcomers to a field.
I would like to come to clear terms with this: does the expression 'focal length' mean something distinct…
isarandi
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