converting a 3-ccd camera to HDR ?

[Seth Marshall]

No, but I’m assuming you’re considering combining the luminance channels in each color to do this?

[Richard Herd]

[Seth Marshall] “combining the luminance channels”

Yes!

A black and white image would be the goal…for now.

It would also be ideal if the gain switch was a “contrast ratio” switch. In effect, 0 gain meant capture the image as:

CCD1: -1 EV
CCD2: 0 EV
CCD3: +1 EV

+3 gain captured the image as:

CCD1: -2 EV
CCD2: 0 EV
CCD: +2 EV

And so on.

[Seth Marshall]

I have no idea where I may have heard this before… Or maybe it was something I contemplated on my own even. These are the things I end up staying awake all night trying to refresh my memory.

Have you heard of anyone doing this before or was this your idea? To use the gain to set exposure brackets/differentials sounds interesting although a complete rework of it’s intended technology which may require significant tinkering.

In the end how would you plan to recombine for HDR?

Man, I wish I remember when I was thinking about this. Feel like it was during an HDR craze I went through a few years ago.

[Angelo Lorenzo]

I’ve not tried converting a camera but my general thought is the only conversion you can make is independent gain for each chip.

You’re already generating the possibility of an HDR black and white image just from the color image. Just use after effects to seperate channels, you can run out each channel and convert to HDR in Photoshop or Photomatix Pro.

I’ve tested it, and to be fair, unless you have large differences in the channels due to having objects in strong primary colors, you really aren’t ending up with a true HDR level of detail.

The independent gain is the key.

——————–
Angelo Lorenzo

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