Most consumers are already overjoyed with the photo quality of an 8-megapixel camera. But when it comes to the high resolution images a 144-megapixel camera brings, they can prepare to be astounded. New York photographer Tom Watson and his business partner, Rob Howard, make a living by creating large-format digital photographs. They believe the technology they are using is "pushing the limits of location photography." Watson and Howard use a large-format 4-by-5-inch view camera and attach a BetterLight scanning back in the slot where the large sheet film traditionally goes. The scanner is tethered to a 10-GB hard drive hooked up to a laptop where the photographers monitor and make adjustments to their work. Each image is at least 140 MB -- a massive file size. By contrast, a typical high-resolution JPEG file taken with a 5-megapixel camera is around 4 MB. "One of the reasons the photos are of such exceptionally high resolution is that the BetterLight scanning back records all three colors equally, where a one-shot digital camera records 50 percent green and 25 percent each of red and blue pixels. The software then tries to make up the color deficiencies by interpolating the data," said Watson. Watson is convinced the combination of a large-format digital camera and BetterLight, a customized scanner that works with a camera to take high-resolution images, provides "the most color-accurate photographic system ever deployed."
