Often people ask for details on the conversion of film cameras to digital cameras. Digital camera backs contain image sensors for digital image recording. They are attached to the back of modular analog camera housings and extend the corresponding camera system into a digital camera system. They are mainly used in the field of medium format and large format cameras. In the case of medium format cameras, the back is attached instead of the roll film cassette.
The first such digital back for a full-frame SLR camera was developed by Kodak in 1987 for military use. Subsequently, further military applications were developed. The first available digital back for a full-frame SLR camera was offered in 1991 (by Kodak), Kodak offered additional digital backs for Nikon and Canon SLR cameras, and until 1995 these represented the entire range of digital SLR cameras. In all of these cases, Kodak sold the digital back panels along with the associated Canon and Nikon cameras.
From 2005, Leica offered the Leica Digital Module R for the Leica R8 and R9. In 2011, Nikon filed a patent application for a digital camera back panel for its old F-series cameras. The still video backs, which were offered by Minolta as early as 1986 and by Chinon from 1988, are not included in the digital camera backs.
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Variants
Digital camera backs are offered in two different designs:
Scan backs
Together with a scan back, an analog camera becomes a scanner camera. According to the scanning principle, the pixels are not captured simultaneously, but line by line, one after the other. Depending on the resolution, this results in acquisition times of about 40 seconds to several minutes. Backs are currently offered with a resolution of over 250 million pixels without interpolation.
Chip backs
As in standard digital cameras, a CCD or APS chip is used, but it has a larger surface area and a higher number of pixels. At present, chip backs with 150 million pixels mark the technical state. With the availability of high-resolution chip backs, digital image capture has become established in almost all areas of professional photography.
With resolutions ranging from 20 million to over 250 million pixels and correspondingly large image processing sensors, a back wall often costs over 25,000 dollars, which is why they are used almost exclusively by professional photographers. Due to the high number of recorded pixels, there is a large space requirement for storage.
In studios, there is an option to connect the camera directly to a computer, so there are no problems with storing the large amounts of data. Many cameras can be controlled directly from the computer, and the image is then available directly on the monitor for control.
