'plenoptic' camera

[Fat Tone]

https://graphics.stanford.edu/papers/lfcamera/ - check out the gallery.

Basically, you take your photos with the camera, which has a wide apperture and a microlense array, and post-process the images to focus at whatever distance you wish! Amazing stuff.

[VJ]

Weird, I thought I posted this before... (must be in another forum... )

It is very cool, and does open perspectives for future cameras. The gallery is indeed very impressive.

I wonder if it could be optimized further, I mean, to use a 4000x4000 sensor to obtain a final image size of 292x292 seems a bit wasteful...


Jörg

[Fat Tone]

Sorry VJ, but searching for plenoptic only shows this thread

Microlense arrays have been around for quite a while, and with the tumbling prices of pixels there should be potential for development, even consumer products someday perhaps.

[VJ]

Microlense arrays have been around for quite a while, and with the tumbling prices of pixels there should be potential for development, even consumer products someday perhaps.

Actually, the current imaging sensors already have microlenses in front of them (ok, they don't do this kind of stuff, but still).

However, if a 4000x4000 sensor yields a 292x292 image, in order to get a 3000x2000 image (6 MP, 3:2 photo), you would need a 45000x27000 sensor (it is a factor 13.6 in both width and height)...
So while I really hope this technology will make it to the consumer market, I think we still have some time to go before something like this would become mainstream...

Also, suppose a manufacturer comes up with a camera that yields such a plenotpic picture of 4MP, how many people would in fact be willing to step down from their gazillion megapixels? (the discussions at the time when Nikon released the D2h - which is a 4MP camera - were mostly about people not understanding the target group of this camera, and commenting about the low pixel count) Many people can be/are baffeled by pixelcount...

Still, I wonder how someone came up with the idea... "Let's design a camera where you can focus AFTER taking the picture". That is some serious out-of-the-box thinking!


Jörg