O. M. F. G.

wow

totally does NOT fit in your pocket!

freudianslipper, you haven't seen MY pockets.

Applying Moore's Law to digital photography, now would be the time to prepare for the GIGAPIXEL camera. Whew.

Well, I mean, you might as well just GO there, right? What's the point of the photo at that point? Especially when it probably cost more to make than the plane ticket to get your own (possibly lower-resolution) eyes to the scene itself?

(I kid, of course... that's freakin' cool.)

Excuse my ignorance, but how do you view an image with a resolution of 7500x21250? A 1080p HD monitor displays 1920x1080, yes?

Am I supposed to have lens envy or something?

Is that really completely necessary?

I was going to submit this on digg, but of course it's already there.

This has been in development for a couple years. It's intended for taking Ansel Adams-esque landscapes ...and not much else. But damn if it's not cool.

Um, did anyone else think of goatse when they saw that image?

Excuse my ignorance, but how do you view an image with a resolution of 7500x21250? A 1080p HD monitor displays 1920x1080, yes?

You print it out?

mullacc: zoom out or pan (duh).

Um, did anyone else think of goatse when they saw that image?

That's what it was that was squicking me out about the design.

I don't understand why it's so large. You can clearly see the digital scan back package is much smaller than the whole camera package. Is it for mounting very large format lenses and bellows and such?

The remote view function and control is pretty awesome though. And what's that "special computer" in the bag? A Mac Mini?

As for the pixel count, at what pixel count do we digitally "surpass" or exceed fine grain large format film in terms of resolution?

You print it out?

I don't know, do you? I have no reference for judging pixels. If my TV can display 2 million pixels and it looks pretty damn true to life, I don't even know what to expect from a camera that achieves 160 million pixels. Is it 80x more clear? What kinda of resolution am I getting from my eyes?

I don't really get it either. The only two applications I can think of where that much resolution would add something would either be building-sized ads that you also want people to be able to look at from a couple feet away (sort of a cool idea though -- one big picture from a distance, then the closer you get, the more little details you can pick out. But god, imagine the cost of having the ad printed/painted...), or having the ability to print really small crops (which would still run afoul of the precision of the glass itself, the sensor's max res nonwithstanding). It's pretty far beyond the necessary/possible resolution for print in any formats that people look at close-up. Maybe it would be worthwhile for truly huge art prints that are supposed to go on someone's wall. Or cover the wall.

It seems more useful as a surveillance tool! It would make the maddening CSI "zoom in" thing possible, and the panorama format means it could make a zoomable record of a big area in one shot. Although the storage requirements are kind of mind-boggling.

*me travels back in time to 1950*

"This Kodak COLORAMA is incredible!"

"Yeah, but who really needs a picture THAT big?"

But, wasn't Kodak the only customer for its Colorama process? I agree with you that "640k should be enough for anybody" is a sucker's bet, though.

If my TV can display 2 million pixels and it looks pretty damn true to life, I don't even know what to expect from a camera that achieves 160 million pixels.

What me3dia said: it's mostly meant for taking landscape pictures (this is what wide format cameras are typically used for). You'll need high resolution for such shots because of the sheer size of the printout -- but isn't the only thing that counts. Larger images are also better to manipulate, for the loss of data will be smaller.