Hacker News Reader

Comment by decimalenough | Hacker News Reader

It's fascinating how the pictures have that "Apollo moon landing" look. I'd always assumed that a huge part of this was just 1960s technology (film not digital etc), but apparently it's actually coming from the literally unearthly lighting conditions of being on the Moon.

View on HN

> 1960s technology

Still photography has gotten more convenient since then, but in the agreeable lighting and atmospheric conditions one would encounter while taking a vacation snap outside at noon Cynthian time, image quality now isn't better than then*

*Unless you're willing to spend $10,000+

> *Unless you're willing to spend $10,000+

OP is comparing photography tech that made it to the Moon, so not cheap tech. The "special" way the photos look like is probably more a product of the environment than just the equipment.

Different films have varied responses/curves to contrast than digital sensors. This is likely what GP is referring to.

They always get you on the delivery costs; every camera on the moon costs over $10,000+.

$300 for the gopro, $250,000,000 for 6-8 week (at best) delivery.

Well it's either that or the tin foil hat people will say they just rented the OG soundstage.

Nvidia did a great presentation about the lighting for the original. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=syVP6zDZN7I

Once SpaceX gets Starship launching weekly, it'll probably be cheaper to send a bot with a camera to the moon than to rent a sound stage and build a big set!

Oh, how dare you praise Musk indirectly! Haven't you heard, that's forbidden on HN now.

that's a great point about the lighting... it really does contribute to that distinctive look. i've also read that the lack of atmosphere on the moon sharpens the shadows and increases the contrast, which probably adds to that effect.

The moon has a very thin atmosphere, or at least so the mission science reporters said.

While it is measurable, it is so thin as to be irrelevant for most considerations including impact on photography.

Or...the Hollywood soundstage these are filmed on hasn't been updated since the '60s...j/k

a lot of "unearthly lighting" is because of regolith' contra-reflexivity

it reflects light in (roughly) the direction of light source

so you have /even bigger/ contrast between shadow and its border than you'd expect from "no air to soften shadows with dispersed light"

Is that different than rerto-reflection?

I think I simply made a mistake in remembering the word :I

thank you

Yeah it's the lack of atmospheric scattering.

Yeah due to the lack of a blue sky, shadows on the moon are basically completely black and challenging to photograph.

Also the Hasselblad camera they sent to the moon back then was actually pretty good even by modern standards.

Spectacular still by modern standards.

It was a medium format camera; it's going to be good camera at any point.

I think it had a 7x7cm film - that's a humongous, 49cm^2 sensor compared to a regular full-frame camera, which clocks in at 8.64cm^2. As far as I can tell, the iPhone's is a tiny 0.25cm^2.

Combine with no-holds-barred lenses and you're bound to get fantastic pictures even six decades ago.

https://www.hasselblad.com/about/history/500-series/

https://www.nasa.gov/history/alsj/a11/a11-hass.html#:~:text=...

To be fair, the optical light gathering ability of a full frame f/1.4 lens is slightly better than that of the Hasselblad 80mm f/2.8, and modern digital sensors have eclipsed 6x6 film in every respect, such as resolution, sensitivity, and indeed even dynamic range. Photo technology has in fact progressed a fair bit in the last half a century.

Of course, nothing can touch the light gathering ability of that Zeiss 50mm f/0.7, but then that lens wasn't very sharp anyway and modern digital sensors can go up to way higher ISO than possible with film while still making decent pictures.

I'd love to see a Phase One take some pics on the moon.

- 5cm x 4cm sensor

- 150 MP

- $60k

I am no expert, but to my knowledge the space flight tech evolves very slowly, if at all. One reason for that is that modern tech is supposedly too sensitive to radiation. So you want to balance what's worthwhile to upgrade, and fancy videos are probably low on that list.

The Apollo astronauts used Hasselblads for still photography. I'm pretty sure Firefly is not sending back rolls of 6x6 film.

What is the point? Are we comparing coconuts and apples?

Well, you were the one telling me "space tech evolves slowly", when Apollo was taking their pictures with a film coconut, Firefly is using a digital apple, and yet the output still looks eerily similar.

you are talking about stills. still don't know what the actual tech difference is.

Here's what Apollo used: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analog_photography

Here's what Firefly uses: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_photography

Hopefully you can see that from a raw tech level, there's practically no overlap between those things at all. The technology has moved on _completely_.

Last Apollo landing was 53 years ago…

Space engineer here, not exactly true, esp for non-critical systems. Check out the "Careful COTS" paper by Doug Sinclair

The paper is 12 years old. If there haven't been other methods to evaluate modern commercial tech, then it's an actual proof of tech evolving slowly due to radiation concerns. Even the process pointed out in the paper requires resources, but it just got a bit faster in the last years.

Apart from that, adding new components is also costly. You just don't order a random megapixel camera from alibaba and slam it on your 1bn space project.

Considering I made clear that i am no expert and my claims were under that context your response was simply arrogant and not helpful.

would be happy if someone would explain or differentiate "not exactly true"

The lack of an atmosphere to filter and diffuse sunlight makes all the difference.

we get a taste of this light when out in the countryside when it's a full moon. Very bright but cold light. Full, hard shadows. Just black and white. No diffraction, no softness.

It's like many of the current LED car and street lights.

How would that work? The hardness of the light on the moon is because the moon has no atmosphere. Moonlight at night is still affected by the atmosphere in the same way sunlight is.

It's because the moonlight is comparatively dim. Even when your eyes have fully adjusted there is a threshold below which you just can't pick up the light. The scattered moonlight is below your detection threshold so the shadows appear completely black. Your color cones are also less sensitive than the black and white rods, so colors are muted or even missing and you are left with a landscape of stark greys just like the moon.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com