A camera which allows you to change the focus after shooting

[RCollins]

A story about the camera which allows to change the focus after shooting:

 

[penfolderoldo]

From reading that it seems the 'revolutionary' camera just produces an image with a huge depth of field, which some computer software can then 'unsharpen' selected bits - and the point of that is what exactly...? If you want to play around with dof then its easy enough to do it at the time of shooting. I suspect there'll still be plenty people who'll end up splashing their hard-earned on the latest 'gimmick'.

Me? i'd rather spend the cash on upgrading to a 1D mark IV...

 

[den9]

my camera does that too, just take 2 pictures, focus as needed.

 

[Garbz]

The principles of a plenoptic camera have existed for a long time. A camera that records not only the intensity at the film plane but also the direction of the rays allowing it to reverse engineer the scene not by blurring but by actually simulating what the resulting rays would look like when they hit the sensor. Good to see this has finally made it to the startup stage. I've seen posts discussing this for years.

From reading that it seems the 'revolutionary' camera just produces an image with a huge depth of field, which some computer software can then 'unsharpen' selected bits - and the point of that is what exactly...?

Then keep reading and you'll see it is actually a very different process to what you believe. The camera in question can produce an image with huge depth of field but it doesn't do it by a pinhole aperture. It does so by recording the direction of the incoming light ray. The point is this system won't require a 2 second shutter speed, and if you've ever tried to fake a shallow depth of field in post you'd realise it's no where near as trivial as you make it sound.

my camera does that too, just take 2 pictures, focus as needed.

For a stationary subject sure, but the last example I have seen from a plenoptic camera was someone doing focus shifting on an actionshot of something diving into a pool. No your camera can NOT do that.

 

[penfolderoldo]

From reading that it seems the 'revolutionary' camera just produces an image with a huge depth of field, which some computer software can then 'unsharpen' selected bits - and the point of that is what exactly...?

Then keep reading and you'll see it is actually a very different process to what you believe. The camera in question can produce an image with huge depth of field but it doesn't do it by a pinhole aperture. It does so by recording the direction of the incoming light ray. The point is this system won't require a 2 second shutter speed, and if you've ever tried to fake a shallow depth of field in post you'd realise it's no where near as trivial as you make it sound.

I'll ask the question again - what is the point of this? I've no doubt its difficult - I never said it was trivial or simple! Fact is a picture is a picture - its a fixed 2 dimensional image. The ONLY way to alter a picture is to produce a DIFFERENT picture. If you alter the focus, you alter the picture - period. I can't see how this is going to benefit us or 'revolutionise' photography. That's all i'm saying.`

 

[Garbz]

The revolutionary bit is that it gives you direct control on a compositional element in post as well as solving forever the problem a backfocusing lens. Currently the only way to do that is via focus stacking which doesn't work on moving subjects.

It's a bit like all technologies. I have for many years though "what is the point" about a lot of things I've eventually bought and incorporated into my daily life. I thought the same thing about a geotagger for my camera, software like Lightroom when I was already using Capture NX, even my smartphone.

One of the best ways to think of this would be like the whitebalance adjustment available in a RAW file. What's the point? You can set it at the time of the shoot, and you can fine tune it in post as it is right? But with RAW you can actually set (not just fine tune) the white balance after to create a completely different looking image. Same here. You take a photo with narrow depth of field only to find that the background actually suits the subject, well now you can play with it. Or your autofocus just misses the eye of your subject, easily fixed.

 

[Mike_E]

So, do you get your choice of Boke too?

 

[imagemaker46]

I saw a few clips on the news about this camera, so basically it's just more computer software designed by a computer software nerd. The camera it self is suppose to be avaliable later this year, there was no price mentioned, It will sell, it will be a very expensive point and shoot. I'd rather know how to really shoot than just point and let a computer do the work.

 

[Garbz]

So, do you get your choice of Boke too?

Bokeh quality is a function of the lens. One thing though is that as you stop down slightly the bokeh won't be a function of the aperture blades I guess.

I saw a few clips on the news about this camera, so basically it's just more computer software designed by a computer software nerd. The camera it self is suppose to be avaliable later this year, there was no price mentioned, It will sell, it will be a very expensive point and shoot. I'd rather know how to really shoot than just point and let a computer do the work.

Or there could be a dedicated microlensing piece of hardware involved, as described in the article.

I know how to shoot really well. But then every so often there's a building burning down and you have like half a second to take a photo of a firefighter and the camera focuses on the fire rather than the firefighter. They've turned on their water monitors so it's pissing down with water, no chance to re-shoot, no idea that the picture was fouled up till you get home.

As someone who knows how to shoot I would still love to have some software or even a timemachine that allows me to go back and make changes when needed. Either that or maybe I just need to be absolutely perfect like you