Digital cameras have come a long way in the past ten years. The quality of the pictures continue to improve. The number of megapixels continues to rise. But I read about a digital camera today that is truly mind-blowing. It shoots at 240 megapixels.

This camera was specifically developed to photograph “Old Master” paintings. You can read about how it was used to restore one of Leonardo da Vinci’s paintings. The detail was so good that you can actually distinguish da Vinci’s fingerprint in the paint!

What is truly cool about this is that the technology allows the painting to be virtually restored to how it originally looked. Colors that have been hidden for years will suddenly emerge. Dirt creating a haze can be removed and none of this poses any danger to the original painting.

You can read even more if you go to Lumiere Technology’s Web site. For example, there is a press release describing the virtual cleaning of the Mona Lisa. If you go to the home page of the site, there is a twelve minute movie showing how the Mona Lisa was photographed and how the technology works. All in all, it is just fascinating. My only wish is that there was a way to download some of the restored, high resolution images. I’m sure that will be possible some day. Then we can all have some of the finest paintings ever created on our own walls.