As usual, the NYTimes is out prospecting for some of the nifty stuff in photography and appears to have uncovered the Next Neato Innovation – the Lytro multi-focus camera and pictures. The Lytro uses an array of micro-lenses to record not one but many images all at the same time but with differing depth of field focus. The following is a before and after screen capture of the Lytro one-picture multiple focus images; but this is a gif animation:
Below is the actual Lytro gallery website in action:
[iframe_loader src=’http://lytro.com/gallery/’]
The best way to see what I mean is to go to the Lytro Gallery on their website and see the technology in action [but don’t try this on an iPad because it requires Flash to see it ]. And that is the nub of what is going on – Lytro is taking several pictures at once at different focal settings [it appears in JPG format] and then uses some sophisticated Flash processing to display them. jQuery is used in the background to do the savvy slider used on Lytro’s website.
Theoretically one could use any SLR camera, say a Canon D60 or Nikon D5100. Put the camera on a tripod to do the same thing in two ways:
1)take a picture, change the F-stop, take another, and so on. This takes longer but produces a group of shots with greater Mpixels, less image noise, sharper focus and better color control among other things. Also, ye Editor thinks there is a high end Canon or Nikon SLR that can be programmed to do this automatically.
or
2)again on a tripod take an HD movie and slowly adjust the depth of field settings.
This may be wrong headedness, but I suspect the highly competitive SLR camera market will have produced a camera capable of such special effects using automated programmed features in less than a years time if the Lytro idea proves attractive to consumers. Then the market will be for a Lytro-like widget on the Web and app on tablets to do the the required display processing- Flash and Gif-animations are prime candidates.