More in the digital revolution

[Jim Graves]

As digital increases it's resolution, expands it's use of computer enhancements and LF type adjustments ... this latest development has me a little flummoxed .... I shoot a lot of soft focus and narrow depth of field .... check out this website (be sure to click on various areas of the photos): Link ... waddyathink?

[Peter J. De Smidt]

According to the CEO's dissertation, the trade off with a plenoptic camera versus a regular digital camera is that plenoptic camera requires more sensor sites than the regular digital camera to achieve the same image resolution. (There is also a micro lens array in front of the sensor which'll degrade the the scene information.) The added information is what allows the software algorithms to vary the focus of the image file.

If that's right, there are a number of downsides to the technology.
1) With the same sensor you could've had a regular digital camera with significantly higher resolution.
2) The increase in required photo sites probably means that a given photo site will be smaller than a site in a regular digital camera that gives the same output file resolution. Smaller photo sites tend to be less sensitive and noisier than larger ones.
3) there's going to be a lot of computation going on in the camera, which'll require more processing power with the concomitant power requirements and more memory.

Despite that, it is a neat idea. If the technology can be realized effectively in a fairly low cost and compact device, it could be quite popular with advanced snap shooters. (Regular snap shooters won't want to have to adjust every file.) More 'serious' photographers will probably not value the added versatility enough to put up with the lower resolution, lower dynamic range, and higher noise. (This is similar to the problem that many enthusiasts have with Foveon equipped cameras.)

It sure would be a great teaching tool though.

[Peter J. De Smidt]

Here's another possibility. In a plenoptic camera, the imaging plane is not the photo sensors but the array of micro lenses with lie between the sensor and the camera lens. Each micro lens can send information to a number of photo sites. This is what allows the capture of direction information about the light rays. Well, instead of more direction info, the micro lens could focus the light on three light sensors, one sensitive to red, one to green and one to blue. In effect this would allow point sampling of each color, although the number of points would be 1/3 the number of photo sites on the sensor.

It's true that increased processing and other techniques might minimize the noise, sensitively and dynamic range problems of smaller photo sites, but then it's likely that those same techniques could be applied to imaging sensors with larger photo sites. Thus, it'll always be a focus flexibility or color accuracy versus resolution, noise, and dynamic range trade-off.

[Brian C. Miller]

International Business Timers: Lytro: Photography May Be Seeing Its Future

From the dissertation:

To record the light field inside the camera, digital light field photography uses a microlens array in front of the photosensor. Each microlens covers a small array of photosensor pixels. The microlens separates the light that strikes it into a tiny image on this array, forming a miniature picture of the incident lighting. This samples the light field inside the camera in a single photographic exposure. A microlens should be thought of as an output image pixel, and a photosensor pixel value should be thought of as one of the many light rays that
contribute to that output image pixel.

To process final photographs fromthe recorded light field, digital light field photography
uses ray-tracing techniques. The idea is to imagine a camera configured as desired, and trace the recorded light rays through its optics to its imaging plane. Summing the light rays in this imaginary image produces the desired photograph. This ray-tracing framework provides a general mechanism for handling the undesired non-convergence of rays that is central to the focus problem. What is required is imagining a camera in which the rays converge as desired in order to drive the final image computation.

It seems that the microlens array captures multiple focus points on the digital sensor, and then the software reconstructs the desired focus point for the photograph.

I was browsing B&H looking at the P&S cameras after a conversation with a coworker. There are 16Mp cameras starting at $125. What to do with all of that excess resolution? Well, Lytro has the answer. Capture multiple focus points, and then synthesize the picture.

[Stephen Berg]

It seems to me that this technology would also allow "virtual" (after capture) camera movements.

[Dakotah Jackson]

Are the prints or projected images better than any other method of producing a finished product? If not, why waste your time?

[Steve Smith]

A solution to a problem which doesn't exist.


Steve.

[paulr]

More likely a solution to problems that have yet to be imagined. I'm guessing it won't be that interesting to snap shooters (their cameras take care of focus for them already, with adequate reliability, and they don't like mucking around with post processing). But it will open up possibilities for people who like to experiment with the rendering of space, and god knows what else.

[Mike Anderson]

Well they look cool and different:

http://news.cnet.com/8301-30685_3-20...camera-design/

...Mike

[Jay DeFehr]

There's an old saying that inventors don't know what the invention is. Inventors provide capabilities and users define the applications. To make creative use of these new capabilities might require more mental flexibility than some enjoy, but that's ok; we only need a few users to exploit the technology in creative ways that will in retrospect, seem obvious.