A camera that will focus AFTER the photo is taken

voodoocat · Nov 22, 2005

Someone at stanford designed a prototype camera where a single exposure can be refocused. To get to full effect, take a look at the gallery

This paper presents a camera that samples the 4D light field on its sensor in a single photographic exposure. This is achieved by inserting a microlens array between the sensor and main lens, creating a plenoptic camera. Each microlens measures not just the total amount of light deposited at that location, but how much light arrives along each ray. By re-sorting the measured rays of light to where they would have terminated in slightly different, synthetic cameras, we can compute sharp photographs focused at different depths. We show that a linear increase in the resolution of images under each microlens results in a linear increase in the sharpness of the refocused photographs. This property allows us to extend the depth of field of the camera without reducing the aperture, enabling shorter exposures and lower image noise. Especially in the macrophotography regime, we demonstrate that we can also compute synthetic photographs from a range of different viewpoints. These capabilities argue for a different strategy in designing photographic imaging systems.

df3photo · Nov 22, 2005

I just got finished reading about that... its crazy...
heres a link to the site i read
http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,69594,00.html?tw=rss.TOP

it would be good for amatures or security type cameras but im not sure i like the idea for professionals to use it... although alot use auto focus... I wonder if its cheating for pro photographers to use cameras with this technology...

craig · Nov 24, 2005

Sounds like "takin' it to the next level". It will be interesting to see how this technology progresses. Personally I would have to get my hands on it before I decided anything. Generally I just love the latest tech. Too bad my gear does not reflect that.