
The pictures below show CSNTM using specific, monochrome lights in order to gather data for twenty different colors.ĬSNTM’s MSI camera images can provide extremely accurate data, precisely counting the reflection of light waves and giving us much-needed information about a New Testament manuscript. Unlike a typical DSLR camera with its designated red, green, and blue receptors, an MSI camera can gather the exact color value hitting every single pixel at the moment the shutter opens and a photo is taken-but only as long as one color shines at a time.
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Software can then compile each different monochrome photograph and construct a composite image.Īn MSI camera, then, takes only monochrome photos, and digitizers have to capture one color photo at a time. An MSI camera records practically perfect measurements of various colors in an object-whether amber, blue, ultraviolet, or even infrared-depending on which single-colored lights the digitizers decide to use. And if a researcher can find out the type of ink, he or she may also discover the production location or age.

Measuring the specific amount of blue in a manuscript’s ink can reveal the chemical compound of the ink the scribe used. This explains why your family photographer paid thousands of dollars for a DSLR camera to produce stunning colors-and why your family doesn’t need to pose for two whole minutes.īut if an organization or research institution uses an MSI camera, they aim to produce more than just a “pretty” picture.
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But with a hard-working little computer involved that knows how to assume the change in red throughout the image, the camera can guess what amount of red would have actually existed at that pixel. So, for all the red pixels dispersed throughout the camera’s sensor, blue or green light will skip over those pixels. A pixel that knows only to absorb red light “ignores” green light. But the 12 megapixels are divided into three groups of color receptors: red, green, and blue. So why go through such trouble? Why shoot photos with an MSI camera instead of an easier-to-use, high-quality DSLR?Ī DSLR camera might have 12 megapixels ready to absorb light waves. Of course, the manuscripts must remain extremely still, or the images-once compiled-will look blurry. If your family had to sit still for twenty different shutter clicks, can you imagine how long one picture would take? When we measured one round of images with our camera, each complete photo took more than two minutes to capture. Unlike a typical digital SLR (single-lens reflex camera) that your family photographer might use that takes photos in natural light and with objects in motion, an MSI camera takes several different captures-one color at a time.


What our staff spent the better part of a week learning, we want to share with you (in an abbreviated form, of course). Last month, CSNTM trained more of its staff on a device originally developed by NASA for satellite images-a camera that uses MSI.
