INVESTIGATED: PLENOPTIC CAMERAS

because surel y this is pure sorcery?

Plenoptic? What?

Alright, that’s the technical term, but you’ll probably know plenoptic cameras by the slightly more consumer-friendly term ‘light-field’, as exemplified by the rather unique Lytro. Take a plenoptic pic and you’ll be able to shift the focus and even look around in three dimensions (to a certain extent) after the fact.

How is that possible?

A plenoptic sensor, or at least that of the Lytro, differs from a traditional CCD in that it collects information about both the intensity of light reaching the camera and its direction. Plenoptic images are measured not in megapixels but in megarays; ten megarays are roughly equivalent to 1.2 megapixels on a 2D plane.

Is it just a gimmick?

Well, it is a gimmick. But just? Don’t be so sure. The nature of their sensors means plenoptic cameras can offer certain advantages over their traditional siblings. There’s no need to pull sharp focus before taking a pic, for example, since it can be done afterwards, which leads to much faster shooting. The necessarily bigger aperture means low-light photography is no problem. And if you’re creative with the results, you can shift your perspective and create VR-suitable stereoscopic images from a single shot.

What’s next, then?

The second-generation, 40-megaray Lytro ILLUM is out now at around £1,000, and Lytro is also developing a commercial system, Immerge, that’s aimed at professional VR production. It’s not alone in the market, though: Adobe, Pelican and Mitsubishi all have fingers in the light-field pie.