3 ms·

I'm a subscriber to things being eventually optimized to their limit. Screen are still getting slightly bigger, but there's plenty of theoretical space for came

I'm a subscriber to things being eventually optimized to their limit. Screen are still getting slightly bigger, but there's plenty of theoretical space for cameras to grow. As long as bigger cameras perform better (and there's a demand for better performance) they will keep growing until they take up the entire back of the phone. My bet is on micro lenses so small that the camera becomes a flat rectangle taking up most of one side of the phone, along with some crazy insane software processing.

nradov 9y ago
I think you're basically describing the new Light camera. Expect to see the that technology integrated into smartphones in a few years. https://light.co/camera https://light.co/camera
- MegaButts 9y ago
  I've been following Light closely, and I'm curious to see how it plays out. Their early released images really aren't comparable to a DSLR (especially considering a $1700 retail price), but it seems obvious the long play is to figure out the technology and license it to smartphone manufacturers. The problem I see with that though is 1) it's still too big 2) it's still too expensive and 3) I bet it adds an enormous amount of complexity to manufacturing Lytro had really awesome technology something like 10 years ago for a camera that could focus on anything in the image (it didn't take pictures exactly, which was one of the problems, how do you manage the files which also happen to be gigantic). Awesome idea, but it just didn't work in the consumer market. I would LOVE to see Light succeed and have a substantially better camera integrated into smartphones, and would even pay a few hundred dollars premium for it, but if that happens at all it's going to take years and I doubt many people will be happy to pay that much more when they just want to use Instagram.
  - nradov 9y ago
    Lytro had another more serious problem: the images were soft. Sure you could change focus in post processing but everything was still slightly fuzzier than with a regular camera.
    - MegaButts 9y ago
      The early images released by Light aren't that great, and those are curated. You're paying 10x the cost for a modest improvement which is probably undetectable after going through an Instagram filter. I hope the technology is awesome, but based on what I've seen (and heard from employees) it's not going to live up to the hype.
    - acallahan 9y ago
      AFAIK Lytro's new play is into the cinematic VR space. They're working on a light field camera and stack that they advertise will allow the viewer to don a VR headset and view a live-action scene with 6 DOF, so long as the viewer doesn't move their head terribly far. https://www.lytro.com/immerge https://www.lytro.com/immerge
  - seltzered_ 9y ago
    I sold my old dslr and have been on the preorder list for light. Wish them the best but am on the fence for these reasons: - the demo photos, like you mentioned have either a softness like you mentioned or colors that seem a bit too vibrant. Would like to see more examples of action photos, up close macros, and night shots. - no stabilization - in their talk they mentioned this isn't practical and they'll sell a stick gimbal, though it seems odd when a smartphone has this. - the delays, it took about a year longer than I initially expected (preorders are shipping this July) - My own needs - I'm realizing I'm not that nuts of a photography enthusiast lately for the price of the camera. There's also some hesitance when reading the founders mit technology review article where he hints that the end user will do more things in post with their first product until they leverage an fpga/asic for processing (I think they're currently using a snapdragon 820 with an fpga for triggering) Still rooting for them though since I hated carrying even a micro 4:3 camera
Xcelerate 9y ago
> My bet is on micro lenses so small that the camera becomes a flat rectangle taking up most of one side of the phone, along with some crazy insane software processing. As someone who does research on inverse signal recovery, what can be recovered nowadays is absolutely mindblowing. I work on the group synchronization problem, which aims to extract an underlying ground truth signal from noisy, shifted copies of that signal. In my case, I am extracting atomic environments from noisy rotated and permuted copies of an "archetypal" atomic environment, but I imagine the same technique applied to photography would produce stunning results. You would be surprised with the amount of noise for which you can still recover the true signal. See https://arxiv.org/abs/1607.03464 https://arxiv.org/abs/1607.03464 for an idea of what's become possible recently.
- shouldbworking 9y ago
  I have been peeking at the code behind SETI's detection of repeating signals, you might find it interesting.

nradov 9y ago

I think you're basically describing the new Light camera. Expect to see the that technology integrated into smartphones in a few years. https://light.co/camera https://light.co/camera

MegaButts 9y ago
I've been following Light closely, and I'm curious to see how it plays out. Their early released images really aren't comparable to a DSLR (especially considering a $1700 retail price), but it seems obvious the long play is to figure out the technology and license it to smartphone manufacturers. The problem I see with that though is 1) it's still too big 2) it's still too expensive and 3) I bet it adds an enormous amount of complexity to manufacturing Lytro had really awesome technology something like 10 years ago for a camera that could focus on anything in the image (it didn't take pictures exactly, which was one of the problems, how do you manage the files which also happen to be gigantic). Awesome idea, but it just didn't work in the consumer market. I would LOVE to see Light succeed and have a substantially better camera integrated into smartphones, and would even pay a few hundred dollars premium for it, but if that happens at all it's going to take years and I doubt many people will be happy to pay that much more when they just want to use Instagram.
- nradov 9y ago
  Lytro had another more serious problem: the images were soft. Sure you could change focus in post processing but everything was still slightly fuzzier than with a regular camera.
  - MegaButts 9y ago
    The early images released by Light aren't that great, and those are curated. You're paying 10x the cost for a modest improvement which is probably undetectable after going through an Instagram filter. I hope the technology is awesome, but based on what I've seen (and heard from employees) it's not going to live up to the hype.
  - acallahan 9y ago
    AFAIK Lytro's new play is into the cinematic VR space. They're working on a light field camera and stack that they advertise will allow the viewer to don a VR headset and view a live-action scene with 6 DOF, so long as the viewer doesn't move their head terribly far. https://www.lytro.com/immerge https://www.lytro.com/immerge
- seltzered_ 9y ago
  I sold my old dslr and have been on the preorder list for light. Wish them the best but am on the fence for these reasons: - the demo photos, like you mentioned have either a softness like you mentioned or colors that seem a bit too vibrant. Would like to see more examples of action photos, up close macros, and night shots. - no stabilization - in their talk they mentioned this isn't practical and they'll sell a stick gimbal, though it seems odd when a smartphone has this. - the delays, it took about a year longer than I initially expected (preorders are shipping this July) - My own needs - I'm realizing I'm not that nuts of a photography enthusiast lately for the price of the camera. There's also some hesitance when reading the founders mit technology review article where he hints that the end user will do more things in post with their first product until they leverage an fpga/asic for processing (I think they're currently using a snapdragon 820 with an fpga for triggering) Still rooting for them though since I hated carrying even a micro 4:3 camera

Xcelerate 9y ago

> My bet is on micro lenses so small that the camera becomes a flat rectangle taking up most of one side of the phone, along with some crazy insane software processing. As someone who does research on inverse signal recovery, what can be recovered nowadays is absolutely mindblowing. I work on the group synchronization problem, which aims to extract an underlying ground truth signal from noisy, shifted copies of that signal. In my case, I am extracting atomic environments from noisy rotated and permuted copies of an "archetypal" atomic environment, but I imagine the same technique applied to photography would produce stunning results. You would be surprised with the amount of noise for which you can still recover the true signal. See https://arxiv.org/abs/1607.03464 https://arxiv.org/abs/1607.03464 for an idea of what's become possible recently.

shouldbworking 9y ago
I have been peeking at the code behind SETI's detection of repeating signals, you might find it interesting.