How many photos have you taken that are out of focus? The answer will be something between “all of them” and “some”.
If you have a small child rushing around, or are trying to focus in on individual people moving down the street; then your failure rate will be very high.
If only there was a camera where you could just snap away and then fix the focus later.
Take the shot below. It’s focused on the girl in the foreground. I wonder what the girl in the red dress looks like? Click on her. Now you know. Click anywhere and that point will come in focus (unless you are using a tablet or IE6).
It’s pretty extraordinary and it’s not a trick. It uses light field technology and if I knew how that worked I wouldn’t be sat in Pattaya writing a blog. But those that do know have developed a camera that uses it which will be on the market soon. I can imagine massive consumer interest, if it is cheap enough, with Facebook and the like being awash with snaps you can play “let’s focus here” with.
Have a play with more photos here, and be amazed.
Comments 🔗
2011-06-28| biggrtiggr saysAgree it’s all very clever…………. but why not just show all the frame in focus, as if depth of field was greater? Or am I missing some artistic principle?
2011-06-29| Spike saysApparently you will be able to have everything in focus; or a selected depth of field; and 3D.
2011-06-29| Ray saysIn the early ’90s when Photoshop was launched this “trick” was rife. Shoot full DOF of 4 girls. Apply diffuse mask layer to each. Click on any girl (layer) to remove the mask and presto we have a sharp area. Surely not!
2011-06-29| FUMF saysIt isn’t working - and I’m using Firefox 5. What am I doing wrong?
2011-06-29| Wally saysFUMF - Have yiou clicked on the arrow in the bottom R H corner and then clicked on ‘click to refocus’ ?
2011-06-29| FUMF saysDuhhhh. Thanks Wally. Yeah - I’m a right one :)
2011-06-29| FUMF saysIn case my last comment was too cryptic - yes I hadn’t clicked on the arrow in the bottom R H corner.
2011-06-29| Spike saysSurely not indeed. You don’t attract $50 million in venture capital based on a Photoshop trick. It’s light field technology, which has been around for years, shrunk into a consumer size camera.
2011-06-30| Camberley saysFocus bracketing?
2011-06-30| Spike saysThere is no focusing. Read this: http://www.lytro.com/science_inside On the last page there is a link to download the thesis written by the CEO which explains how it works in more detail. This is not some trick using existing camera physics; it’s something new.
And if you have some 3D glasses, you can see that you can also generate 3D images from the data.