At 8 x 10 inches, the Maxback is the biggest camera sensor in the world. It was commissioned by professional photographer Mitchell Feinberg and it costed as much as “a good size house”. Why spend so much money? He explains:
The development and production of two backs (I wanted to have a spare) was equal to the cost of a good size house — before the housing crash. I know it sounds insane, but the financials on it are not so bad: I used to shoot on average 7.5 Polaroids per photo, and I shoot between 400 to 500 images a year. That’s at least 3000 Polaroids. At 15 bucks a pop. Or about 50K per year, minimum. Polaroid was at one point my highest single cost. I am depreciating the back, charging clients for its use, and I was eligible for the technology investment credit. I also took out a loan based on the projected income from the back, so I did not have a huge hit on my bank account.
It is certainly not a fantastic rate of return, but the back is designed to last a very long time, so it should generate a strong profit over the long term (And that is not including the all-important photo-related issue that my clients love receiving 8×10 film).
It makes sense to me. If you are wondering how big this thing really is, compare it to the largest digital camera back in the market today, which is only 1.77 x 2.36 inches. The difference is absolutely ridiculous. Feinberg says that now he has the quality of film with the immediacy of digital film — at these sizes, the immediacy of digital film is 30 seconds to take a photo! [A Photo Editor via Petapixel via Techcrunch]