Series

Exposure — the series

5 essays on one idea, from the one that introduces it to the one that assumes the rest.
  1. 3 m · 47 px6 m · 24 px12 m · 12 pxnear ÷ far = 4.000 against a depth ratio of 4.000exposure 33.3 ms · 6 m/s across the frameeach streak is straight; the set of them is not one kernel

    A frame is an interval

    An exposure is not an instant, so a frame is an integral of projections and every moving point draws a streak. The streak is straight, because the image of a straight path is straight — and its length goes as one over the depth, so two objects at 3 m and 6 m blur by lengths in the ratio 2.000. No single kernel describes the frame.

    part 1 · sensor
  2. 23468121632640.010.1110depth (m, log scale)streak length over the exposure (px, log scale)turning: still worldturning: moving with ittravelling: still worldtravelling: everything moving with the subject 0e+0 px4 m/s at 8 m · 33.3 ms

    Turning and travelling blur different worlds

    A subject 8 m away crosses the frame at 4 m/s, and the camera keeps it sharp over a thirtieth of a second. Turn to follow it and every still thing blurs by the same 13.5 px, whatever its depth. Travel beside it and the still world blurs as one over its depth — 49 px at 2 m, 1.5 px at 64 m — while everything moving with the subject is sharp at every depth.

    part 2 · sensor
  3. the bend's centrethe camerathe roadlarge dots: under a pixel · then one to four pixels · then more · dashed: the circle through the camera and the centre50 m bend, 10 m/s, 33.3 mssharp on a circle

    A camera on a bend is sharp on a circle

    A camera car rounding a 50 m bend at 10 m/s, aimed into the bend, blurs the still world everywhere except at the bend's centre — and under a pixel from 42 m to 63 m along its axis. Off the axis the sharp place comes nearer as the cosine of the bearing, on the circle through the camera and the centre. Above the ground only the vertical line through the centre stays sharp. Aimed along the road, the camera has no sharp distance at all.

    part 3 · sensor
  4. correct from 17 cm, at 160 mm widereadout 33 ms · arrows ×6

    A rolling frame on a bend is right at its centre

    Read a camera car's frame row by row as it rounds a bend and every still point moves — except the bend's centre, at every height, and the horizon row, at every depth. Each mark's displacement is its streak scaled by its row time, so the rolling frame is undistorted wherever the global one is sharp. And the usual repair makes it worse: a gyroscope that undoes the turn row by row puts 0.73 px back into the centre and is a net loss everywhere nearer than twice the bend's radius.

    part 4 · sensor
  5. 12 m+39.0525 m+12.3350 m+0.00100 m-6.17150 m-8.22readout 33 ms, 10 m/s; leans in thousandths of a px per row, drawn ×20upright at the centre

    A rolling frame on a bend is a coarse curvature gauge

    Read row by row on a bend, a frame leans every vertical by an amount proportional to one over its range less one over the bend's radius, so posts at several ranges lie on a straight line that crosses zero at the radius — exactly, to a thousandth of a metre. Off the axis the zero moves to R·cos of the bearing, the circle on which a camera on a bend is sharp. As a gauge it is coarse: one frame's eight posts read a 50 m bend as 45 m (35–74) with tops placed to half a pixel, and sixteen frames as 51 m (47–55). The slower the sensor reads, the better it measures the road.

    part 5 · sensor

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