Scanning Camera is a digital camera with a line sensor in the field of photography for reprography. Reprography is a method of reproduction technology. Scanning Camera is actually a combination of an analog camera with a scanner as a unit. So, in case of our conventional digital photography, we are actually using a 2D sensor to capture the image, but in case of a Scanning Camera, the senor is able to move, that is working like a 3D sensor. Scanning Camera is sold as a unit and cost a huge, but many enthusiasts actually working with DIY Scanning Camera, those cost just few hundreds, simply as the sensor is actually a flat bed scanner.

Working mechanism of a Scanning Camera

You might have noticed that the images taken by your flat bed scanner sometimes get a bit more realistic. Typical example is if the paper you are going to scan has something that is making it a non-flat object, like a photograph pasted on a paper or a stapler pin. The image is scanned line by line, while the line sensor is mechanically activated by a stepper motor is moved over the image area. That is why the image from it looks much realistic. This is the working mechanism of a Scanning Camera. The progress of Scanning Camera came in to production after Seitz marketed their 10 Pound weighed Scanning Camera which costs around USD 45K.

Reprography and Scanning Camera

Reprography is a branch of photography that deals with the accurate reproduction of two-dimensional templates. The size of the senor virtually can be of A1 or A2 size. Scanning Camera is actually a kind of Reprography, but the usage of Reprography is mostly for production level or organizational level. But a Scanning Camera is intended to take very high quality pictures non production level.

Features of a Scanning Camera

Quite obviously there is a depth in the images produced by a Scanning Camera. In 2D photography, this depth is ‘made’ by lens blur and artistic artifacts like bokeh. In real, do your eyes see a bokeh? No. Scanning Camera just reproduces what we actually perceive. Because of the setting resolution of 10K x 15K pixels or more can be produced. If you calculate the megapixels of a Scanning camera, they will exceed four digits. Quite obviously the size of a single image taken by a Scanning Camera can exceed one GB.