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gromit · Joined: 12 Mar 2012 Posts: 56

I do not claim to be any sort of expert, but I saw this the other day.

There's a new camera out that allows you to change focus (and see how DOF is affected) after the picture's been taken. Their website has a bunch of pictures from the camera, and you can change the focal point on the site.

Some of the pictures are somewhat noisy, and they seem to have an odd texture as you zoom in, but it gives you a good opportunity to play with DOF.

www.lytro.com

kayseepics · Joined: 30 Apr 2009 Posts: 487 Location: Here!

Thanks for the link. Very interesting concept. I like the idea of being able to refocus a pic after the fact...but...the optics in these things appear to leave something to be desired. It's really the chip that does all the work and it will be interesting to see the results when it's paired up with some higher quality glass (and handles noise better). Fun stuff though.

rinder99 · Posted: Sat May 12, 2012 1:51 am

Very old news I ordered one a year ago to chk it out. No Thanks. Interesting concept though.

colinbrothwood · Joined: 05 Aug 2009 Posts: 11

Yes interesting concept can’t see it catching on. Now where have I heard that before?)

Mike Price · Joined: 06 Jun 2008 Posts: 2919 Location: South Wales

From what people who have bought this say all it does is use a lens with a very high f number so that all the image is taken in focus, then the software algorithm selectively blurs areas as you "move" the focus. Image quality is apparently not great.

Mike

gromit · Joined: 12 Mar 2012 Posts: 56

According to this article (http://www.technologyreview.com/article/40240/), this camera wasn't released until March of 2012.

Also, each pixel on the sensor measures the angle of the incoming light; there's no cheap f-stop and blur trick.

That's not to say the optics are of sufficient quality for stock. Just kind of a cool toy.

rinder99 · Posted: Sat May 12, 2012 11:36 am

Yes, agree a cool toy. The tests and such were posted a long time ago and looked very intriguing and The application seems very cool especially for video. I think we will see many improvements.

triceratops · Joined: 15 Nov 2006 Posts: 7862 Location: The other Nevada

Right now, from what I've read, the image quality is not up to microstock levels. Fine for most casual applications, but not stock. Will that change over time ... who knows? But not really worth going into right now for stock work. For other applications ... possibly. It's strictly usage dependent.

pharm · Joined: 09 Jul 2006 Posts: 9406 Location: Never quite sure