Find us on Facebook
Correct Focus After Taking A Shot
Lytro, Inc. (http://www.lytro.com) unveiled the first Lytro consumer light field camera, introducing a new way to take and experience pictures. Conventional cameras record light rays, but this camera uses a new concept of a light field. A light field completely defines how a scene appears. It is the amount of light traveling in every direction through every point in space.
This dramatically changes photography for the first time since the 1800s. Unlike conventional cameras, the Lytro light field camera captures all the rays of light in a scene, providing new capabilities never before possible, such as the ability to focus a picture after it’s taken.
This evolved from a Stanford University experiment in the 1990s that had 100 camera in a room. The Lytro camera fits in your pocket. It will be available in 2012 in several models and colors starting at $399
The photos are embeddable, in Flash for the web and HTML5 for your smartphone. Click here to see a gallery of examples
Amazing 360 Degree Video Camera Lens
Click the video and move your mouse left or right.
A company called EyeSee360 makes lenses that record in a complete circle. Actually more like a doughnut. The viewer uses their mouse to pan around and see everything around the camera. These products were originally designed for military and aviation use, but now they’re available for videographers and consumers.
There’s an $80 version of the lens made for iPhone. It’s called the GoPano Micro, but there’s a $700 version of the lens for more serious cameras. The rough video sample above is the result of vibrations severely affecting the video. A better mounting job would have produced much better results as Roy Furchgott acknowledges in his NY Times Blog. You can see more video examples at Go Pano.
The way it works is that the camera records video images on a 360-degree mirror attached to the lens. The images are distorted, but then the GoPano software un-wraps the image and turns it into a continuous 360-degree video.
Just an interesting gimmick? Or does it have serious applications. Could it be used in a dramatic video to show both participants in a conversation? If so would this re-write the rules of “shot-reverse shot” shooting for dialogue scenes? But the wide angles distortions would rule that out. Perhaps it’s more appropriate for sports POV shots like race cars and extreme sports.
Video Producers, I’d like to hear your ideas for using this lens.
