5 ms·

Proprietary toolchain for the dynamic images – you could embed the full dynamic information in a JPEG extension and use the JPEG thumbnail as a thumbnail and th

by jws 15y ago

Proprietary toolchain for the dynamic images – you could embed the full dynamic information in a JPEG extension and use the JPEG thumbnail as a thumbnail and the JPEG image as your selected representation. Then you could use your nonstandard code to regenerate the JPEG image data from your full data when you wished. You can just produce a composite image that's sharp all over… – but what fun is that? I'm having a grand time with SynthCam on my iPhone to act like a large lens camera to regain distance dependent focus even though I have a tiny lens. It's going to be really thrillingly expensive. – It doesn't need to be. Tiny micro lenses on the image sensor might be much cheaper than large chunks of precision glass. Think "inkjet-like print head squirting one of the resins used for plastic eyeglasses into etched depressions relying on surface tension to form the lens". Just guessing there. Maybe placing precision sized beads in each depression and then heating to reflow into a surface tension defined lens would work better.

sbierwagen 15y ago
It's a piece of first-generation consumer electronics, made in small production runs by a new company that's already spent $30 million in R&D. While each camera will not cost much, they will be priced high.
- eridius 15y ago
  Not necessarily. If the company is looking to recoup its investment soon, sure. But if the company is looking to get mass-market appeal then they'll price it more aggressively. The latter may be a good idea given the declining interest in dedicated cameras - make it cheap enough, while it's still novel, and people will actually buy the thing.
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
  - newman314 15y ago
    Well, if you watch the Techcrunch video, the CEO was only willing to say it was between free and $10k. That's a big range
bad_user 15y ago
You can just produce a composite image that's sharp all over… – but what fun is that? With DSLRs that have huge lenses with large aperture sizes, the depth of field varies a lot and those lenses also have a sweetspot in focal-length / aperture for which images produced are the sharpest. Lowering the aperture size increases the depth of field, but then you've got another problem as the shutter speed also has to be adjusted and you end up using a tripod. Getting a picture that has everything in focus and is tack sharp can be seriously challenging. To tell you the truth, while these photos with adjustable focus seem cool, focus is not my pain - what I want is to be able to take great photos (the kind that 35mm cameras can do) for reasonable prices, preferably with something that fits in my pocket. And to expand on the point above - focus is not painful when the camera has enough focus points. I played with a Nikon D3s that has a whooping 51 auto-focus points; let me tell that it's freaking awesome, as it can track your subject as it moves. The problem is that consumer-level DX DSLRs only have like 11 focus points, which is still cool, but point&shoots suck badly in this area, most of them focusing only in the center of the image. Another problem with this project that I can see - people don't like playing with their images on the computer. When you take 500 photos in a single day, and another 600 photos the next day (like when going on a trip), it's really painful to carefully adjust each image, not to mention that the RAW formats are huge and seriously cuts in the number of photos you can take ... yeah, making adjustments is great, but I prefer making more photos, that's why I shoot in JPG and don't regret it.
- hristov 15y ago
  Focusing with point and shoots should not be a problem. They all have a huge depth of field due to their small sensors, so you have to try really hard to put something out of focus. Smudged pictures on point and shoots are usually not a result of lack of focus, but something else (e.g. shaky camera). Even with DSLRs you usually only need one focus point. You can focus at the center and re-frame. It is very simple to do, and is much simpler than choosing a focus point (and much safer than trusting the camera to automatically choose a focus point for you). Multiple focus points can be very useful in certain rare circumstances: when shooting something really fast off of center without being able to pre-focus or when your camera is bolted down on a stand. Even then I cannot possibly imagine one anyone would need 51 points. This is obvious feature creep. But yeah, I am really not sure who the intended market for this camera is. Focusing is just not a pain point, in my opinion. This camera could be used by artists and professional photographers to play around with the depth of field to get a great artistic shot, without making their subjects wait. But with the micro-lens design, will it have enough image quality for professionals? I guess we will see.

by jws 15y ago

sbierwagen 15y ago

It's a piece of first-generation consumer electronics, made in small production runs by a new company that's already spent $30 million in R&D. While each camera will not cost much, they will be priced high.

eridius 15y ago
Not necessarily. If the company is looking to recoup its investment soon, sure. But if the company is looking to get mass-market appeal then they'll price it more aggressively. The latter may be a good idea given the declining interest in dedicated cameras - make it cheap enough, while it's still novel, and people will actually buy the thing.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
- newman314 15y ago
  Well, if you watch the Techcrunch video, the CEO was only willing to say it was between free and $10k. That's a big range

bad_user 15y ago

You can just produce a composite image that's sharp all over… – but what fun is that? With DSLRs that have huge lenses with large aperture sizes, the depth of field varies a lot and those lenses also have a sweetspot in focal-length / aperture for which images produced are the sharpest. Lowering the aperture size increases the depth of field, but then you've got another problem as the shutter speed also has to be adjusted and you end up using a tripod. Getting a picture that has everything in focus and is tack sharp can be seriously challenging. To tell you the truth, while these photos with adjustable focus seem cool, focus is not my pain - what I want is to be able to take great photos (the kind that 35mm cameras can do) for reasonable prices, preferably with something that fits in my pocket. And to expand on the point above - focus is not painful when the camera has enough focus points. I played with a Nikon D3s that has a whooping 51 auto-focus points; let me tell that it's freaking awesome, as it can track your subject as it moves. The problem is that consumer-level DX DSLRs only have like 11 focus points, which is still cool, but point&shoots suck badly in this area, most of them focusing only in the center of the image. Another problem with this project that I can see - people don't like playing with their images on the computer. When you take 500 photos in a single day, and another 600 photos the next day (like when going on a trip), it's really painful to carefully adjust each image, not to mention that the RAW formats are huge and seriously cuts in the number of photos you can take ... yeah, making adjustments is great, but I prefer making more photos, that's why I shoot in JPG and don't regret it.

hristov 15y ago
Focusing with point and shoots should not be a problem. They all have a huge depth of field due to their small sensors, so you have to try really hard to put something out of focus. Smudged pictures on point and shoots are usually not a result of lack of focus, but something else (e.g. shaky camera). Even with DSLRs you usually only need one focus point. You can focus at the center and re-frame. It is very simple to do, and is much simpler than choosing a focus point (and much safer than trusting the camera to automatically choose a focus point for you). Multiple focus points can be very useful in certain rare circumstances: when shooting something really fast off of center without being able to pre-focus or when your camera is bolted down on a stand. Even then I cannot possibly imagine one anyone would need 51 points. This is obvious feature creep. But yeah, I am really not sure who the intended market for this camera is. Focusing is just not a pain point, in my opinion. This camera could be used by artists and professional photographers to play around with the depth of field to get a great artistic shot, without making their subjects wait. But with the micro-lens design, will it have enough image quality for professionals? I guess we will see.