light passes to the subject is about one to two mm "wide" The subject is
attached on an upwardly mobile stand such that, in a darkened room, the
subject is raised up through the narrow "band" of light". It is most often
used for photomacrography. It is not so much the camera that is "special"... but more the illumination "technique" with the shutter set on "T". There is
no reason a similar technique could not be used for "larger" subjects."
Correct. Although only one light is really required (of course this makes the
lighting very directional!) The subject simply needs to move towards or away
from the camera lens (not necessarily up/down) Generally the width of the sheet of light should be somewhat less then the depth-of-field. There is some
debate as to exactly how wide the "sheet" should be for best results. Anyway,
Ken pointed out the operating principle.
There was a patent issued for this technique to Lachlan (I think) in the early
'60 or so ... maybe late 50's) and Darwin Dale published a major illustrated
article in Popular Photography about it. One of my colleagues, Nile Root, was
instrumental in "getting the word out" to the Biomedical community in
particular through several papers published in the BPA Journal. I learned about
the technique from Nile myself.
You can read an article about light scanning photomacrography I prepared at: http://www.rit.edu/~andpph/text-peak-store.html
Andy
