4D Plenoptic Cameras Revolutionizing Photography

Photo from Geek.com

Ever take a photo only to later discover something went wrong with the focus and/or exposure?  Ever hate the difficulty of taking pictures in dark or extremely bright scenes?  What about images with too many things to focus on and not enough time to capture the multiple focus levels?

This can all be solved with a plenoptic camera. A revolutionary new camera technology that essentially captures a full range of lighting and focus levels (or a 4D light field) for adjustment later.  Not only do these devices save the trouble of getting the right focus and exposure on the spot but they will reduce the time needed for setting up equipment and leave more time for actual shooting.

So which cameras use plenoptic technology? This Lytro Light Field Camera is the latest buzz of the news right now.  It captures 4D light information with an array of micro-lenses that capture 11 million rays (or 11 megarays) of light at once. In terms of the image quality, these 11 megarays produce professional 22 megapixel images in addition to the 4D light field capturing. You can view a large gallery of the plenoptic captures (or "living pictures") to see just an example of this camera's raw photography power.  I'm betting we'll also have plenoptic video cameras soon enough to revolutionize the film industry as well - reducing the number of retakes needed due to focus and/or lighting.