megalithic megapixel monstrosity. madness!


Right about now, the lomocam freaks are cradling their Holgas in awe-stricken denial. This digital camera right here just ripped the quirky cool throne from all those 9-frames-at-a-time plastic playthings. The Seitz 6×17 Digital does’t just look weird, get this: it takes panoramic photos measuring 6cm x 17cm (hence its name, duh) in staggering 160 megapixel resolution. That’s beyond ridiculously sharp and detailed photos that you can enlarge forever; you can probably take a wide shot of a Petaling Street scene in the evening and later blow up the photo til you can make out the spelling mistakes on the back of a pirated DVD cover. I mean, how else can you take a picture like this:

the size of the photo here doesn’t do it justice, but I’ve never seen so many windsurfers in one picture before. And it’s rare that i get to see price tags like these, too: the 6×17 comes in two versions, the stationary studio version goes for roughly RM124,070, and the more versatile mobile/outdoor version is RM133,460. Yeah. Lots of numbers, right? The Seitz 6×17 has a maximum exposure speed of 1/20000 (that’s fast okay. Frikkin’ fast) and an ISO range of 500 to 10000 (that’s wide okay. Frikkin’ wide). The image files for this behemoth are so large that Seitz gives you a Mac Mini as part of the package that acts as a mobile storage and file management device – each full-res photo weighs in at 1GB.

I can go on and on about this, that’s just how geeky I am. But I won’t pamper you; post up news about more interesting doodads in the Comments section, and I’ll try to cover those in future posts. And yes, you’ll get credit!