This pocket-sized camera makes it much easier to take photos of stars
SINGAPORE -- Often, what separates the pros from amateurs when photographing under challenging situations is having the technical knowhow to get the shot.
Astrophotography pretty much ranks up there in the realm of tough scenarios. First, you'll need pretty fancy equipment (good quality telephoto lenses don't come cheap), and after that you're going to need to know how to process the final shot on your computer to make it pop.
TinyMOS, a startup from Singapore which is producing a pocket shooter for stargazers, dropped by the Mashable office to show us some tricks it's building into its camera's brain, to help amateurs close the gap with the pros.
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One method the camera's processor will do is called stacking, where it takes multiple shots of a scene and analyses them to eventually produce a composite of all the sharpest portions.
Grey Tan, one of TinyMOS' founders, explained that similar to the way a long road appears to be "waving" on a hot day as moving air distorts one's vision of it, this effect is multiplied through the atmosphere while looking at a faraway planet. Taking multiple pictures allows the camera to capture different parts of a scene that are waving in and out of focus, so the final shot is sharper.
The idea is to try to automate image processing methods so amateurs get a better chance of a nice shot of the moon.
Secondly, the camera will perform some smart processing to reduce image noise -- the little flecks and imperfections you sometimes see in photos. The traditional method, known as dark-frame subtraction, involves the photographer covering the lens and shooting the dark scene to expose these flecks, before combining the shots later in Photoshop to remove them from the photo.
But the Tiny1 will try to do this itself by scanning its own sensor -- the digital "film" that it captures shots on -- each time it's charging, so it has that blueprint of dots and flecks that it'll use to process the shot.
This process is especially necessary in astrophotography, because image noise is very much exacerbated for long exposures in darkened scenes.
These software techniques aren't new to photographers or astronomy buffs, who already know how to stack photos to get them sharper and remove noise in Photoshop. But the idea is to try to automate these methods so amateurs get a better crack at producing a nice shot of the moon, Tan said.
And just in case you need to know where to point the camera in the first place, the team is building in a feature that'll show you what you're pointing at in the sky, similar to apps like Star Walk. That's how dummy-proof TinyMOS wants it to be.
The camera is nearly a reality
Like most crowdfunded products, the Tiny1 isn't quite ready yet. For now, the prototype's touch screen doesn't work, the team said.
But for the startup, which has been chasing its dream for the past two years, success may soon be well in sight. TinyMOS hit its Indiegogo goal of $100,000 within four hours of launching the campaign on Monday, which has so far attracted 616 backers.
Tan also revealed that the Indiegogo campaign is getting more backers adding on adapters for traditional lenses than expected, and that the team is receiving requests for Sony and Micro Four Thirds mounts, in addition to the Canon and Nikon lens mounts it already offers.
"That makes sense. People who use Sony and Micro Four Thirds cameras really care about portability," Tan said.
The prototype was made in Germany, but the team will move manufacturing to either Singapore or the neighbouring Indonesian island of Batam, where they can keep a closer eye on production.
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Topics Cameras
Victoria Ho is Mashable's Asia Editor, based in Singapore. She previously reported on news and tech at The Business Times, TechCrunch and ZDNet. When she isn't writing, she's making music with her band
