A Camera That Lets You Refocus Photos Later
Out of focus images may soon be a thing of the past.
It sucks when crummy focusing ruins an otherwise great photo. However, that problem could soon be but a distant memory with a new camera from Lytro that allows you to shoot first and focus later. The company is planning a 'light field' camera that will allow you to switch around the focusing on an image to get it just the way you want. If there's something in the background you want to see more clearly, you can do so with just one click. Immediately the background comes into sharp focus while the foreground blurs out of focus. Check it out:
To achieve this feat, the camera uses a light field sensor to capture all the light that is moving in all directions in the view of the camera. All Things D's Ina Fried explains that the camera does this by "positioning an array of tiny lenses between the main lens and the image sensor, with the microlenses measuring both the total amount of light coming in as well as its direction." The end result is an image that can be refocused once it's made the move from camera to phone.
While the ability to refocus and change the focus of photographs after they've been taken will be hugely beneficial, that's not all the light field sensor can do. It also makes it possible to take low-light photos with no flash and capture 3D images with a singe camera.
Lytro says it will be putting out a point-and-shoot that incorporates light field technology before the year is out. CEO Ren Ng told All Things D that the device will be competitively priced, but did not elaborate any more than that.
For more on Lytro and the science behind it, head on over to the company's blog. You can also play with the focusing and refocusing technology here.
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I saw this same sort of tech being shown off last year by Adobe: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lcwm4yaom4w&t=90
i can do the same thing on photoshop....what's so new about his?
nebun are you serious? if you're sure what are you talking about let's do this...
take photo with lens at f2.8 , portrait, focused on the head from 3-5feet. and then in PS change focus from head to bacground. I want to see that
good luck
i can do the same thing on photoshop....what's so new about his?
NO you cannot. Do not underestimate the power of the dark side.
...
my dear country-mate, you know something but you're out of this subject
seems to be a cool feature
Firstly, why the non-related comments (spams) are allowed?
I'm excited about shot-now-and-focus-later camera since not many of us are good in handling image editors.
Sometimes you need to capture an image fast with very little time to focus.
If the out-of-focus information was not captured, it cannot be recreated. Sounds like some marketing trick ... and what does the demo show anyway? Nothing that I can see.
Basically the design trades off resoulution for additional information regarding light direction. With that information you do all sorts of interesting things - and since for mobile devices resolution isn't a big concern I can see this being pretty successful once the price gets down.
Most photogrophers won't like it though... because the image resolution will be very limited.
It uses the same principles as light fields in computer graphics. It's quite easy to implement in fact. I know because I've done it myself
nebu is nebun as in nutz
. He dont know what photography is ...
http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-0 [...] mera.html" title=" http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-0 [...] html">Here is another, more detailed, article on the camera
zoom!!
enhance!!!
This is incredible – if the range is truly as much as is shown in the above photos (and if they can achieve this result at low aperture i.e. f1.8), you would basically eliminate the need to focus at all. I would still like to know if this capability is on a fixed (prime) lens or if it would work in conjunction on a zoom lens though.
if you can refocus after the picture is taken, why not have no focal point at all, and make the whole image crisp?
Let me know when they license the tech to Nikon to incorporate into their SLRs.
if you can refocus after the picture is taken, why not have no focal point at all, and make the whole image crisp?
bricks have been shat
Firstly, why the non-related comments (spams) are allowed?
I understand what you're saying by this, but ask yourself:
What if another "great photoshoper" will belive the first one?
Now, this explanations is offtopic/spam...
if you can refocus after the picture is taken, why not have no focal point at all, and make the whole image crisp?
There's those people who shoot with an f/1.4 wide open and grab crisp focus on a tiny focal point and have the rest a dreamy haze for a reason!
take photo with lens at f2.8 , portrait, focused on the head from 3-5feet. and then in PS change focus from head to bacground. I want to see that good luck
They're making a point & shoot camera. Due to their tiny sensors these cameras have so much depth of field anyway that refocussing is pretty superfluous.
A point & shoot at f2.8 has the background in pretty good focus.
I'd be lying if I said I wasn't excited.
sounds cool!