Use of commercial off-the-shelf digital cameras for scientific data acquisition and scene-specific color calibration

Commercial off-the-shelf digital cameras are inexpensive and easy-to-use instruments that can be used for quantitative scientific data acquisition if images are captured in rawformat and processed so that they maintain a linear relationship with scene radiance. Here we describe the image-processing steps required for consistent data acquisition with color cameras. In addition, we present a method for scene-specific color calibration that increases the accuracy of color capture when a scene contains colors that are not well represented in the gamut of a standard color-calibration target. We demonstrate applications of the proposed methodology in the fields of biomedical engineering, artwork photography, perception science, marine biology, and underwater imaging.