One of the big problems associated with taking pictures, whether with a high powered expensive model or the cheap one built into your cell phone, is proper focusing. If you don’t do it right, you wind up with blurry pictures or ones that just don’t look good, and once the deed is done, there’s little to be done about it. That’s all about to change now though thanks to a new kind of camera by a company called Lytro. With their cameras, people can simply point the camera, frame the image, and press the button. If the picture is out of focus, no problem, it can be fixed afterwards. PC Magazine says the new camera represents a virtual revolution in picture taking and the AFP Newswire is reporting that the new technology being introduced by this camera line will change photography forever. HotHardware says the new camera which will be available for sale as early as next month, will recharge the entire camera industry.
So, how does it do it? According to the Newswire, the new technology does its magic by grabbing more of the available light when the picture is being taken. All that light is stored along with the picture and thus can be used by someone running special software. And since focus is actually all about capturing just the right amount of light when taking a picture, this new kind of camera makes it possible to actually focus long after the picture has been taken.
There are some drawbacks of course, the first of which is the odd shape of the camera, which is sort of like a flashdrive. It’s long and thin and the lens and eyepiece are on the ends which mean you hold the camera sort of like you would a telescope. Or as PC Magazine says, you don’t hold it so much, as peep through it. The reason it has this shape is because it has several layers of technology that capture all that extra light, and to do that, you need a tunnel, which is what is inside the camera.
Another downside is that they are rather expensive and the software is currently only available on Apple computers. But these are all momentary glitches of course, as more people buy the cameras, the prices will drop and more investment will be made which should help shrink them down to say, Smarthphone size? Lytro execs aren’t ready to delve into such questions just yet, but the odds are good that over the next few years, this new kind of technology will be in everybody’s camera and then we won’t have to worry about focusing anymore.