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The Light L16 – a multi-aperture computational camera
- kisstheblade 11y agoWell at least this looks like something new! But notify me again when I can read the review on dpreview.com, the site was kind of light (pun!) on the details.
- desireco42 11y agoI agree, all this is nothing without thorough review. Looking forward to that, this really looks interesting though.
- _Adam 11y agoI don't know if it was intentional, or necessitated by the internal mechanics, but I find the layout of lenses to be visually unpleasant. It looks like someone took a camera and gave it chicken pox... Aside from that, this is a really cool idea! But I don't know how it's being positioned. Is it a point and shoot replacement? Or a mirrorless camera replacement? Or maybe it's just a technology demonstrator - this sort of system, suitably minimized, would make an excellent smartphone camera.
- p1esk 11y agoAt the asking price ($1,700) it's better be a DSLR replacement. Perhaps it can find its way into a smartphone one day, who knows.
- sdrothrock 11y agoAt 53 MP and three sets of useful primes, it seems like a dSLR replacement to me. I'm pretty excited, but I don't want to pay even the preorder price for first-generation technology like this without a long breaking-in period. The Verge's review does say that it compares well with the 5DIII in detail. It also says that the Light's photos "weren't as punchy" -- not sure what that means. Saturation or contrast? I'll wait on a good comparison review.
- cynix 11y ago> I don't want to pay even the preorder price for first-generation technology like this without a long breaking-in period. It's not even a pre-order price. It's a crowdfunding contribution, for which the company is not obliged to give you anything in return.
- sdrothrock 11y agoHmm. I was going from the re/code article (http://recode.net/2015/10/07/photography-startup-light-takes-on-dslr-with-the-point-and-shoot-l16-camera/ http://recode.net/2015/10/07/photography-startup-light-takes...). > The company will take preorders, with a limited number of units available for $1,299, until Nov. 6. The reservation form on the actual site is the same way. Why do you call it crowdfunding?
- cynix 11y agoBecause they're collecting the funds using Tilt.com, a crowdfunding service. You can also read their terms and conditions when you click on the Reserve button, where you'll find that you're "contributing" funds to an "organiser".
- p1esk 11y agoFrom Tilt's Terms: "If you’re a Contributor, you make payments to an Organizer at your own risk. Unforeseen or other events may prevent an Organizer from providing goods, services or rewards exactly as promised. If things go awry, please be understanding and consider cutting the Organizer some slack. At the end of the day, though, it’s the Organizer’s responsibility, not Tilt’s."
- foota 11y agosee: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10351199 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10351199 for definition of punchy
- rasz_pl 11y ago
- XaspR8d 11y agoI'm curious if the asymmetry has anything to do with the "computational" component, e.g. in solving a system of equations (like estimating distance across multiple sensors), it's best to have an independent basis. If the sensors were arranged in a perfect grid pattern, then comparing some sets of sensors (i.e. colinear ones) wouldn't give you as much data as others? ...or perhaps I'm letting my understanding of computer vision/geometry/linear algebra run away from me...
- userbinator 11y agoI agree with the unpleasantness, as the multiple irregular holes does stimulate my trypophobia slightly. (Note: do not Google "trypophobia" if things with multiple irregular holes makes you feel uneasy, as you will become very disturbed.)
- earlz 11y agoI wasn't aware I have some trypophobia, but now I do heh.
- has2k1 11y agoThe only people without trypophobia are those who do not know about it.
- mattlutze 11y agoThe search results seems to be about skin disorders/infestations/infections or tattoos that simulate them... I wonder if that's more a healthy response to avoiding things that make your body fall apart? In any case, yeah don't google it.
- damcedami 11y agoFor people with trypophobia like me surely will terrified by it.
- riffraff 11y agoI thought it was meant to give it a "natural" feeling, i.e. it feels like raindrops to me.
- vessenes 11y agoSome raw (is there an equivalent here?) or high res samples would be greatly appreciated in exchange for my deposit. I had an interesting reaction reading this: I'm totally sold on the idea and science behind this. We have large scale radio telescopes, why not cameras? But, I'm super turned off by the proposed plan: modified android OS combined with the promo photos makes me think viewfinder lag is going to be a bitch. v1 seems likely to feel like a janky short-run phone from a new manufacturer. Which is too bad, because the concept and possibilities are amazing. Light; the articles mentioned a partnership with FoxConn; why not work with them or Samsung to put one out that you just license tech for? And, it would be cool to see some high res samples.
- rawnlq 11y agoProbably will work similar to Lytro: https://pictures.lytro.com/ https://pictures.lytro.com/
- jobigoud 11y agoLytro is a light field camera, I'm pretty sure the Light will NOT work similar to a Lytro. Light is fusing (at capture time I think) a few normal-sized sensors each using different exposure duration, focal length, etc. On the other hand Lytro collects a lot of tiny images each at the same exposure duration and focal length, but very close to each other. It's like having very big pixels but for each pixel you retain the color response from a large number of directions, instead of just the average color for that particular pixel, as in a regular camera. Continuous refocusing can be performed after the fact in a Lytro, not possible (or very limited) with the Light. But the Light should be able to do native HDR in one take (and real time HDR video maybe), not possible with a Lytro.
- moultano 11y agoIf you break it out of the gallery, you can get a little better look. http://light.co/content/2-gallery/gallery_modal_13.jpg http://light.co/content/2-gallery/gallery_modal_13.jpg http://light.co/content/2-gallery/gallery_modal_14.jpg http://light.co/content/2-gallery/gallery_modal_14.jpg Pretty impressive.
- billconan 11y agowhy do they arrange the lens irregularly, what's the reason behind this arrangement?
- anigbrowl 11y agoUnique geometrical offsets for each lens means more reliable deconvolution.
- mey 11y agoMy guess is to create better sub pixel information when stitching the image together. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sub-pixel_resolution https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sub-pixel_resolution If all the sensor pixel data was aligned it could create bias between the edge of the pixel and the center. Edit: another thought is triangulation for determining depth
- onion2k 11y agoThey're not irregularly arranged. If you look at the image of the front of the camera at the bottom of the http://light.co/camera http://light.co/camera page, they're arranged in concentric circles around a point that's just off to the right hand side of the case. As there are 15 lens and a laser rangefinder, presumably they're directed at various points in space from that center along a straight line in front of the camera. Which 10 lens used for a picture, and consequently how far along that line your subject is, will depend on the rangefinder for an optimal image.
- YZF 11y agoEach camera has a different lens folded under the hood so they just tried to make them all fit as best they could. That's my bet. I don't think the exact location matters that much.
- amyth 11y agoI think, rather than arranging it in specific pattern they tried to fit 16 camera modules as close as possible so as to reduce overall size. As the modules are of different sizes, resulting placement looks irregular. Please refer video 'The Story of light' on page https://light.co/camera https://light.co/camera @1:25 , wireframe of all modules is displayed.
- themagician 11y agoThis is interesting, but silly. It's hard to imagine a practical use for this other than perhaps wanting to flip between two versions of a photo with one wide open and one sharp across the frame. But you'll have different shutters anyway to keep the same exposure. Seems like this was spawned from a moment of inquiry where someone was so preoccupied with whether they could that no one stopped to think about whether they should.
- apendleton 11y agoI don't think the point is to let you switch between different versions of an image (though the after-the-fact adjustments of depth of field are really slick). I think it's more that with a bunch of sensors and lenses you can simulate a much larger sensor and lens, so you get the low noise and choice of lens profiles of a DSLR without having to actually lug one around, or a bag of lenses to go with it. Some of those pictures in their gallery are pretty awesome, particularly in terms of noise. I'd never have guessed that they were taken with something so portable.
- rawnlq 11y agoI posted this link in the other duplicate thread: https://pictures.lytro.com/ https://pictures.lytro.com/. Not worrying about focus until post processing is pretty awesome.
- sdrothrock 11y agoIt doesn't just let you change focus on the fly; it also gives you a honking giant image -- 52 MP according to the Verge. The lenses themselves range from 35 to 150 mm, which gives you a fair amount of play in terms of zoom, too. So, good low-light capability in a box about the size of a smartphone plus high-quality high-resolution images.
- alkonaut 11y agoI think it's interesting as a concept, not as a product. If the iPhone 8 comes with four lenses on its back, each with a small sensor, and that means it can use all four to take high-iso pics in near darkness, or fire an individual sensor+lens to take tele or closeups in good lighting etc., then that would certainly be interesting as a product.
- flashman 11y agoThe most exciting thing about this (and things like Lytro) is that people are still discovering fundamentally different ways to do 'camera'. Perhaps one day our phones will use a dozen cameras, some optimised for low light, others for high dynamic range, and others still for action, with software figuring out the best combination to use for the each shot.
- nothis 11y agoIt's fascinating how difficult a task it seems to be for cameras to shoot at even moderately "non-ideal" conditions. Over- and underexposure, motion blur, focus, chromatic aberration... red eyes... It seems like a straight-forward problem to solve. I doubt putting 16 different cameras next to each other is something we'll see in smartphones anytime soon but looking at the results (especially low-light shots) is impressive. Shame about the price, though. Honestly, I'd rather get a great Nikon for half. I guess we're a few years away from this having a chance in the mainstream.
- starky 11y agoDespite all the interesting cameras that have been made recently, they all rely on one piece of technology that is pretty archaic, the lens. Today's lenses are definitely limiting the image quality available on small sensors, and they seems to improve at a snails pace. I'm cautiously optimistic that this camera may be able to correct for many of the issues with the lenses by using the multiple lenses to create the single image.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- desireco42 11y agoIt is about time someone makes this.I know it looks gimmicky and it kind of is, but this trend should allow more interesting photography. I personally am looking forward to it, whether this one will be good or someone else, I am not invested much, I am just looking forward to the trend. Also, better processors should allow more sampling from sensors and aggregating that info for better photos.
- 07d046 11y agoThe multi-aperture thing isn't what makes this interesting. What is interesting is that it takes a bunch of little sensors and combines them into a single better image with software. Because a lot of work has been done into making very good sensors and optics for phones, this approach does make some sense. It also lets you have more sensor surface area without the bulky optics. I'm pretty sure that there are telescope arrays that work in a similar way. I'm not about to replace my cameras with these, but it's got potential. There's more information in http://www.theverge.com/2015/10/7/9473793/light-l16-16-lens-camera-specs-price http://www.theverge.com/2015/10/7/9473793/light-l16-16-lens-... and http://www.technologyreview.com/news/542121/a-high-end-camera-in-a-small-package/ http://www.technologyreview.com/news/542121/a-high-end-camer... .
- steckerbrett 11y agoThe multi aperture thing doesn't make much sense, it appears to have multiple lenses which will have debilitating parallax error due to the positioning. I don't see how that's possible. I'm also struggling to see why they laid out the sensors in such a non geometric pattern too.
- tlrobinson 11y agoParallax could be corrected by software as long as the subject isn't too close. You might lose a little detail around the edges but with enough redundancy it's probably not a big deal
- steckerbrett 11y agoIn their examples there's a macro photo of a chess board.
- tlrobinson 11y agoYeah, it does look a little funky around the edges of the pieces in the background, but surprisingly not the foreground: https://www.dropbox.com/s/o4rx62fjo63nvk4/Screenshot%202015-10-07%2022.28.55.png?dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/s/o4rx62fjo63nvk4/Screenshot%202015-...
- YZF 11y agoThis is quite interesting/cool but the two primary reasons I prefer DSLRs to any point and shoot are: 1. The viewfinder. Screens just don't cut it in sunlight or at night (too much or too little light). 2. Time between getting the camera out and getting that shot is very very quick with a DSLR. It's hard to imagine this replacing my DSLR. If the cost is low enough it could replace my point and shoot though... I'm still more likely to have my phone on me than a camera...
- thrownaway2424 11y agoI have an interest in photography and little to no interest in cameras like Lytro, and probably this one although there's not enough information yet to tell. As you point out handling and speed are important. Nobody cares about a "light field" camera if it's impossible to hold and takes three seconds to turn on. $1300 is a huge chunk of money for unknown performance.
- beyondcompute 11y agoCan it make calls?
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- watersb 11y agoThis multi-aperture camera was delivered rather before the Light L16: https://public.nrao.edu/telescopes/vla https://public.nrao.edu/telescopes/vla It's about time someone did this for consumer products.
- DannoHung 11y agoThis is a straight up weird product at the price point they're targeting. And given that they're asking for money up front and not providing sample raw images and/or full resolution jpegs makes me very hesitant.
- DannoHung 11y agoThis is a straight up weird product at the price point they're targeting. And given that they're asking for money up front and not providing sample raw images and/or full resolution jpegs makes me very hesitant.
- leni536 11y agoAccording to the FAQ they support raw DNG. Does that mean that you can get the raw sensor data for each individual sensor and you can hack around your own algorithm for merging them?
- aaronbrethorst 11y agoMan oh man, do I want to believe. But given what a huge disappointment Lytro turned out to be, I'll wait for v2 or v3.
- iamleppert 11y agoThis camera, like many that have come before it are likely to be subject to the uncanny valley of market. Consumers won't want to stomach the price tag and professionals are already accustomed to their DSLR's, and in most cases have significant investment in specific brand and/or lens type with a lot of expensive glass. Professionals don't care about the bulkiness of their cameras, they care about the performance and flexibility. DSLRs have 20+ years of development in terms of speed, durability, flexibility and the raw image processing power that the giants have spent decades perfecting (lots of work on DSPs). How many pictures can it take in burst mode? How long does the battery last? Can I use my suite of existing lenses with this? Sorry to say this camera, while unique and technical marvel, has an uphill battle from the business perspective. It's interesting from a niche perspective but I don't see it becoming a huge success financially for them, which is unfortunate because many talented people probably worked on this.
- themagician 11y agoMoreover, camera concepts like this and Lytro are really good for people who are terrible with a camera, because it lets you "find the shot" in post. If you are good at using a camera and can frame the shot, you have much less of a need for these things.
- rprospero 11y agoI agree with everything that you say. However, it's also eerily reminiscent of the explanations I was given 25 years ago about why digital cameras would never catch on. Digitals were far more expensive than a simple Canon or Polaroid, so it would never catch on with consumers. As for professionals, they had far to much experience with developing negatives to throw it all away for some flash in the pan gimmick. Heck, the digitals had terrible lenses compared to what you'd get on Service Merchandise point and shoot, not to mention anything professional grade. Besides, even if CCDs kept improving, they'd be competing with a moving target. Even if digitals were better ten years down the line, it's not like Kodak wasn't going to be improving their processes, too.
- thrownaway2424 11y ago
- unicornporn 11y agoMy first thoughts as a working professional for 11 years (retouch, photographer and later videographer). Forget a raw file format (that you will be able to use in LR/PS) and the flexibility and editing headroom it gives you. Perhaps there will be some specialist proprietary software like for the Lytro (that will be unsupported in 10 years, leaving you with unusable files). Considering this I really hope, as The Verge article says, "the output isn't as punchy" (which normally means contrasty and saturated). The lack of a raw file format will also mean that I can forget DCP camera profiles to normalize the output with my other cameras. What we know nothing about: what will AF be like? What will the dynamic range be like (considering they're stitching, not stacking, smartphone sensors)? Noise will probably be OK as you can downsample. But Sony is and Canon has 42/49 MP FF cameras out that doesn't need downsampling to look good. A year from now (when Light comes out) more cameras will have followed. Focal length range is a bit strange. 35mm equiv is a bit on the long side to be an all-round solution. 24-70 would have been OK for me, but I realize that's personal. Perhaps we shouldn't expect the death of the MILC/DSLR because of this camera just yet. Many hobbyist though, has left both the compact and the MILC/DSLR for a more enjoyable smartphone experience. Perhaps it could lure them back to buying a camera (without a phone in it)
- jerich 11y agoIf you take a look through the FAQ, they do say that they are designing it to work within common photography workflows, giving example formats of JPEG, TIFF, and raw DNG (though I'm assuming the DNG is after their proprietary postprocessing, not a set of the true raw sensor outputs). They're asking for input going forward, so take a few minutes to express your concerns about workflow and maybe it will be a better product for it. I believe they are doing quite a bit of stacking, as they say they are processing up to 130 megapixels from 10 sensors to get the final image. There should definitely be a dynamic range improvement. I hope they can somehow apply their processing to video streams and provide a wide dynamic range (maybe even HDR) video, but I'd be surprised if they can do more than provide a cellphone-like 4K stream from a single sensor. Focus speed shouldn't be an issue. I'm guessing it's using tiny cellphone-sized camera sensors, so even at the f/2.4 printed around the lens, they'll have massive depth of field. It looks like they even have the DOF printed on each lens: 10cm-infinity for the 35mm lenses, 40cm-inf for the 70mm, and 100cm-inf for the 150mm. Any focusing will be done computationally at post-processing time. I'm interested in the concept; I just hope they're a little more developer-friendly then Lytro turned out to be. I know there's a lot of proprietary secret sauce going on with the computational post-processing, but if they can open up their system just a bit to let the crowd in to poke around, there's probably a lot of unique creative opportunities.
- nkoren 11y agoI try not to engage in classic HN-style middlebrow dismissal, but can I take a moment to complain about their "Watch the Film" promotional video? It tells me nothing more than "this is a device you can take photographs with". Absolutely useless .
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- SandB0x 11y agoEveryone in the video seems to be holding the camera in an awkward way to avoid getting their fingers in front of any of the lenses.
- grondilu 11y agoI was hoping this was an application of the single-pixel camera concept I've read about few years ago[1]. Apparently not. 1. http://web.stanford.edu/~jbarral/PSY221/SinglePixelImaging.htm http://web.stanford.edu/~jbarral/PSY221/SinglePixelImaging.h...
- tmd83 11y agoDon't really know much about optics to really know the viability of this specially after Litro. But here is what I like 1. Its a different take on the problem, stitching multiple lens and sensor data to make a whole that's better than the parts. Even if this don't work I think that idea would probably live to see another day. 2. There are comments about DSLR being fast, viewfinder easier to work on all situations and I agree to all of that. But I think the biggest point is what one of the founder said in the video, it doesn't matter if you have the best camera @home. This is something you can carry just like your smartphone. 3. Yet even this is a separate device, what I would like eventually is for this idea to be improved and implemented for smartphones. Maybe a 3 lens system that's not as good but much better than current cameras? 4. And I really loved the way the lenses were placed horizontally. That looks to be a simple yet effective innovation (not that I know if it has bad optical consequence).
- dspillett 11y ago> Its a different take on the problem, stitching multiple lens and sensor data to make a whole that's better than the parts. I've seen the idea discussed a few times in the past, essentially doing for cameras what is done with multiple radio telescopes to create something that would be impractical to achieve with a single unit. This is the first time I've heard about someone having implemented the idea outside of a proof-of-concept. I'd be interested to see how well it works in practice. I'm not that much much of a photo taker myself, but a few of my friends are camera bugs so I'll be passing the link on for them to dissect.
- tmd83 11y agoI tend to use the HN crowd like that :). You can expect to find from an optics professor to professional photographer and everything in between to comment on this.
- tigeba 11y agoThe reason you have your camera at home and your smartphone with you is because it is a smartphone. I'm not totally sure it has anything to do with the form factor.
- analytically 11y agoYou video is pretty useless. People taking pictures. Tell us why it's different, what's new.
- chaostheory 11y agoConstructive feedback about the video and website (if the founders are reading)... I'm probably not the target demographic since I don't know much about cameras, but the video did not quickly explain to me why this camera was so special aside from me seeing multiple lenses; I would have just turned it off after the 15 second mark (even if I saw this on Product Hunt) if this wasn't posted on HN. It felt like the video didn't really convey anything and I couldn't help but feel that it was a waste of my time watching it to the end. Of course it could just be me. If only this was front and center on their webpage (it took me a really long time to find this): "With 16 individual cameras, 10 of them firing simultaneously, the L16 captures the detail of your shot at multiple fixed focal lengths. Then the images are computationally fused to create an incredible high-quality final image with up to 52 megapixel resolution." So you can fit a camera with the power of a DSLR in your pocket now, while having the same ease of use as a smart phone? As a quick fix: drop the video and fix your site so that you can explain why your camera is so special at the top of the page. Use the image gallery as quick proof right after the explanation.
- an_ko 11y agoThe other video, at the bottom of /camera is much better: https://vimeo.com/141273968 https://vimeo.com/141273968
- estefan 11y agoOr to be blunt: It's about 1:30 long, with 1:29 of that people taking photos. There's about a second of a guy tweaking parameters on a computer to change the aperture, etc, in post processing.
- tdj 11y agoThere was a pretty good interview with their CTO a few months ago on Imaging Resource. Much more technical than what you see on the site, also gives a glimpse on what they were thinking when they were developing this. http://www.imaging-resource.com/news/2015/04/27/light-interview-no-more-full-frame-dslrs-by-2025 http://www.imaging-resource.com/news/2015/04/27/light-interv... Personally I think the money shot is the synthetic DoF simulation on the skater: https://light.co/content/2-gallery/gallery_modal_11.jpg https://light.co/content/2-gallery/gallery_modal_11.jpg https://light.co/content/2-gallery/gallery_modal_06.jpg https://light.co/content/2-gallery/gallery_modal_06.jpg The subject isolation properties is a pretty big reason why people still bother with large-sensor cameras. As an amaterur, I don't have big demands for image quality, so I only bring my D60 or F4 when I want subject isolation. Otherwise I'm pretty happy with my smartphone as a camera (Lumia 930).
- bonaldi 11y agoI too am interested in this for shallow dof, and was excited at the idea that these lenses are effectively f1.2. But there's no way that skater shot is f1.2-equivalent. In fact, there are no sample shots anywhere I can see that back up that claim.
- monk_e_boy 11y agoIn some of the photos the bokeh looks right weird. But for a version 1 of a product I think this is really cool.
- alanh 11y agoCare to point out specific examples? Curious what you see, exactly
- monk_e_boy 11y agohttps://light.co/content/2-gallery/gallery_image_2.jpg https://light.co/content/2-gallery/gallery_image_2.jpg checkout the white outline around the knight, it has a halo. Then the fuzzy bokeh looks stepped somehow.