140,000 megapixel Daguerreotype panorama

[feppe]

Here is a short news piece about restoring an incredible Daguerreotype of Cincinnati waterfront from 1848. Although the megapixel claim is fuzzy, it is nevertheless claimed to hold up to 30x magnification after restoration, and it has so much detail the time can be told from a clock tower just 1mm across!

Perhaps Michael should include Daguerreotypes in his challenge between 8x10 film and Phase IQ180

Found on Large Format Photography Forums.

[BJL]

Wow, what a vastly inflated pixel equivalent! It would require resolving down very close to the wavelength of light. The clock face is about 50 pixels wide, and at that count the whole panorama would be about 1000 MP. And the clock crop is far from "pixel sharp"; I would estimate about half the linear pixel density is all the image detail warrants, so about 250 MP or less.

Still impressive, and I am always struck by the sharpness of Daguerreotypes when I get to see them in museums; they make the "negative-positive" processes of the same era look like a big sacrifice of quality for convenience.

[Justinr]

Before we get too carried away in the rush to count pixels it's worth remembering that it is the lens that actually forms the image, pixels merely record it. The fact that a 150 year old lens could achieve this level of clarity just goes to show how willing we are to underestimate the achievements of past generations in our self satisfied assumptions of modern brilliance.                                           

[Patricia Sheley]

Glad you spotted this article!