Interesting reference to photography:  In Tom Clancy's "The Hunt for Red
October," he tells about a spy photo of a new Russian submarine.  The 
photo was taken something like this:

The Photo was with a cheap Kodak disk camera, concealed in a tobacco pouch.
The Disk camera, is a flat camera with negatives on a thin disk, much like
a viewmaster picture card.

The spy sends the negatives and the camera back to the source of his 
aliegance.  

They analyze the cheap lens by shooting a laser through it and mapping where
each point of light goes.  (ie:  they map it's faults).  

Once the faults for that paticular lens are known, they correct, via 
computer, and produce a perfect picture of the subject.

Neat, eh?

6 responses total.

A typical Tom Clancy idea - sounds fantastic, but makes no sense!  The 
problem is that it isn't just that the cheapness means that some of the
image is shifted...there will also be overlap, and how do you figure that
out?
Ah well.  I was a good plot device, anyway.

Real spys buy Tessina Cameras, made is Switzerland, or they buy Robots, Minox
or some other nice camera. Kodak would be uncool.

I thought the Minox D was the tool of the trade.  Agree Kodak would (is) 
uncool.

The tool of the trade is a Minox 3s, it was the smallest. The B was the
most used in spy movies, especially with that fine copy stand.

Completely plausable, about the only limitations in correction are resolution,
and exposure. You cannot add detail beyond that which is captured and you
cannot add information that is never recorded (or over recorded beyond
recovery). I have personally produced images using 110 format film in an
unnamable agency owned special enlarger. Here's what becomes the ultimate
limiting factor... silver halide crystals. Even T grain ends up being the size
of golfballs at any kind of enlarement.
The laser techniqie is analogous to radio interferomity in astronomy.

The use of a common, seemingly cheap and useless camera would draw far less
attention than a roll of minox film, or esp. the camera itself.

I'm not convinced it's plausible.  Is there guaranteed to be a 1:1 
mapping of the defects in a cheap lens?  I kind of doubt it.  A lot of 
them are blurring and spreading effects.

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