Startup camera maker Lytro has developed a new digital ‘light field’ technology that allows you to change the focus of a picture after you’ve taken it. What?
In layman’s terms it works something like this. When you take a picture, light is reflecting off various surfaces in various directions. A standard camera takes a ’shapshot’ of what it sees, recording the light that’s reflecting, but nothing about the direction. That gives you a standard photo. Light field pictures, however, also record information about the direction of the light, resulting in a picture that is more similar to a digital replica of the scene than a traditional ‘picture’ is. That is what lets you refocus.
For now, it’s just a tech demo with no release date, but rumours in the Geekniverse suggest that it’s only a matter of time before Apple snaps up the company.
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