Coolest camera tech EVER!

kuntasensei

Anyone interested in digital photography, check this out:
http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/science-scope/groundbreaking-camera-lets-you-shoot-now-focus-later/8810?tag=mantle_skin%3Bcontent

Click on the pictures to change the focus point. Seriously groundbreaking if they can get that tech into a consumer-priced camera. It's rare that something like this impresses me, but... I had to pick my jaw up off the floor when I was able to re-focus on a reflection in a window. :eek:

bigaudiofanatic

Awesome!

JustinHEMI

That is impressive. I love truly innovative ideas completely change the things we take for granted.

DMara

I got to say this is one of the best innovations

Joe08867

That is some cool stuff right there.

engtaz

Should be very interesting when it hits retail.

mudwrx

Very, very impressive.

newrival

Stuff this tech into a micro four-thirds and you'd have one impressive setup.

This is awesome tech. Thanks for sharing!

danger boy

being a long time photographer... this is way cool. i want one now.. :biggrin:

kuntasensei

danger boy wrote: »

being a long time photographer... this is way cool. i want one now.. :biggrin:

I know... When I saw it, the voice in my head screamed, "SOLD!" :biggrin:

vlam

Here some good reading
.
http://graphics.stanford.edu/papers/lfcamera/

http://graphics.stanford.edu/papers/lfcamera/lfcamera-150dpi.pdf

amulford

Shuweet..

Fireman32

Very cool!

maggiefan

There's a news article about this on DP Review. It's the first item on their home page.

http://www.dpreview.com/

mrbigbluelight

Makes the term, "Point and Shoot", a reality. Sweeeeet !

On3s&Z3r0s

I'm gonna play devil's advocate and say I'll be surprised if this turns out to live up to the hype. I played with the online demo a little and wasn't super impressed with the quality of the photography. I'm having a hard time imagining that this will be capable of coming close to what a competent photographer with a DSLR camera and a decent lens could do. Interesting tech, for sure, but it seems gimmicky and likely to fall into the no-man's land of too expensive for the average point-and-shoot user and too point-and-shoot for someone who's good with a camera.

shack

Right now this is merely changing the main focus point when using what is known as a shallow depth of field (only the main subject is in sharp with the rest of the image "blurry" or our of focus). It will do nothing to correct motion blurr or poor exposure...which causes more bad photos than focus blur. It is just taking a lot of low resolution information and running it through a very powerful processing program. Innovative for sure...but it can't take a bad image and turn it into a great one or even fix a bad one. That may be possible down the road...but will probably have more to do with using the stills from super high speed video. Imagine taking a couple of seconds of video...then being able to produce a sitll from one of several hundred images...

newrival

shack wrote: »

Right now this is merely changing the main focus point when using what is known as a shallow depth of field (only the main subject is in sharp with the rest of the image "blurry" or our of focus). It will do nothing to correct motion blurr or poor exposure...which causes more bad photos than focus blur. It is just taking a lot of low resolution information and running it through a very powerful processing program. Innovative for sure...but it can't take a bad image and turn it into a great one or even fix a bad one. That may be possible down the road...but will probably have more to do with using the stills from super high speed video. Imagine taking a couple of seconds of video...then being able to produce a sitll from one of several hundred images...

For sure. And imagine this in conjunction with RED technology.
You're right, this isn't going to help the uninitiated amateur, but if you can apply depth of field and focus point post processing, thats just sick. the possibilities seem endless.

shack

newrival wrote:

You're right, this isn't going to help the uninitiated amateur, but if you can apply depth of field and focus point post processing, thats just sick. the possibilities seem endless.

IMO it is exactly the opposite...I think (at least for now) the technology is fairly limited in scope.

On3s&Z3r0s

I can't remember where I saw it but a while ago someone came out with a camera/post-processing platform that would put as much of the image in focus as possible. Instead of adjusting the image to show what it would have looked like with focus depth set variously with a standard camera, it would composite the image to create something that a standard SLR could never produce. I think the example they used was an extreme macro photo of an insect where a standard SLR could either show the head or the body in focus but not both at the same time. The software merged the images so that everything appeared in focus in a single image. I'd guess this software could do the same... seems like the more interesting use case.

shack

On3s&Z3r0s wrote: »

I can't remember where I saw it but a while ago someone came out with a camera/post-processing platform that would put as much of the image in focus as possible. Instead of adjusting the image to show what it would have looked like with focus depth set variously with a standard camera, it would composite the image to create something that a standard SLR could never produce. I think the example they used was an extreme macro photo of an insect where a standard SLR could either show the head or the body in focus but not both at the same time. The software merged the images so that everything appeared in focus in a single image. I'd guess this software could do the same... seems like the more interesting use case.

This is called focus stacking and has been around for a while. Much like a HDR photo (multiple images taken then combined to deal with difficult exposure issues) focus stacking will take a series of images (all the same) with each one having a different focal point...then merge them together to form one image with a great depth of field that simply could not be accomplished with a single shot. Helicon Focus is a really good program to use - http://www.heliconsoft.com/heliconfocus.html. There are a couple of good videos/examples to better demonstrate what it does.