Due later this year, a new so called ‘light field’ camera named LYTRO - could be the biggest change to photography since the transition from film to digital. Among other things - it’ll allow user to take a shot and bring sharp focus to any desired spot, after the fact.
From WSJ:
Lytro’s camera works by positioning an array of tiny lenses between the main lens and the image sensor, with the microlenses measuring both the total amount of light coming in, as well as its direction.
Implications are both immediate and profound.
For a photographer, whether amateur or professional, the Lytro technology means that the headaches of focusing a shot go away. Richard Koci Hernandez, a photojournalist, said that when he tried out a prototype earlier this year, he immediately recognized the potential impact.
“You just concentrate on the image and composition, but there’s no need to worry about focus anymore,” Mr. Hernandez said. “That’s something you do later.”
“That was the aha! moment for me,” said Mr. Hernandez, an assistant professor of new media at the graduate school of journalism at the University of California, Berkeley. “This is game-changing.”
for my photographer friends. something to look forward to.
