What if after you shoot a picture of your dog, you can rotate it, change the focus or even change the depth of field? Well, welcome to the future of the snapshot photograpy.
Those words seems promising, but let me show you an example first.
Try dragging a circle with your mouse (or finger for mobile devices) on the picture below.
You will see the focus changes as you move your mouse.
It is a very common experience for us to shoot a blurred picture either via camera or even with a DSLR. The common reason for that is this 2 factors:
Autofocus and shutter lag
Point-and-shoot cameras as well as DSLR needs time to "focus" first before capturing the image in its sensor.
Shutter lag likewise is very common problem with point-and-shoot cameras specially during low-light situations, because when there is no sufficient amount of light, camera commonly opens the shutter a little longer in able to let the sensor capture the image.Although DSLR users can solve these problems by manually adjusting the shutter speed, aperture and ISO, this is very hard to master and even professional photographers takes time to master it.
A technology called "light-field" photography changes the whole game plan. This technology enables the casual users to shoot images instantly without the need to focus first.Thus, light-field photography is commonly dubbed as "shoot first, focus later" technique in photography.
By removing the Autofocus and shutter lag in the equation, what you have now is a basic camera that can capture images instantly without needing to think whether the subject is out of focus or not -- you can correct it later anyway.
So how is that possible?
With light-field photography, when you press the shutter-release button, the camera collects light from all directions. Then the camera's software compiles what's basically a 3D map of the captured image. Instead of relying on the standard sensor found in other digital imaging devices and cameras, a light-field camera has an array of micro-lenses that allow it to capture the color, intensity, and vector direction of rays of light.
How can I do light-field photography with my current camera or DSLR?
The answer is NO. Light-field photography needs a special camera for you to shoot these kind of pictures.
Guess what, its not a Nikon neither Canon camera. Its a Lytro camera.
Lytro camera is basically a weird-looking camera, it doesn't looks like other camera. This camera is instead like a bar of chocolate with screen on one end. With 4.4 inches long and 1.6 inches square dimensions, it perfectly fits in your hand.
This is a thing that our children or grandchildren will be having in the future, rendering the cameras we use today as part of the past.
More pictures of Lytro Camera:
(Credits: Some details are taken from Cnet.com, copyright of image belongs to its respective owners)
Typical use of Lytro camera
A Diagram of how a light-field camera works
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