L16 52-Megapixel Camera Features 16 Lenses And Fits In Your Pocket

Megalith

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If these new camera concepts work out, I’m going to miss the days of exotic equipment and the fact that you needed some level of artistic or technical expertise to take a good photo.

Shooting with multiple camera modules also enables you to adjust depth of field even after the picture has been taken. And because the final image is extremely high-resolution, the photo you took of your child on stage from the back of the auditorium is going going to be crisp and clear, even after aggressive cropping.
 
So this is a finished product I take it? Not a "we're smarter than the big camera makers out there, now fund our kickstarter!" venture.

It says it uses cheap cameras/lenses then uses "sophisticated software" to stitch everything and make it look good. I'm curious how good it can really be, or if upon zooming in you see where all the software glitched out due to slight imperfections in lighting, etc.
 
i just watched 1/4 of that video before clicking through it, wondering if at at any point, they actually showed an example.

but no. if you didnt know what that video was about, it would work for ANY cell phone.

"here's our logo. now here's 3 minutes of people taking pictures with a phone. here's our logo again."

uhm, thanks?
 
Decided I'd come to the rescue here and post some of their demo shots without formatting so all the armchair experts can dissect them

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Interesting concept for sure. It seems they are taking lytro's idea, using micro cameras instead of micro lenses and making it more marketable for smartphone use.
Can't help but feel that this company is purely in existence to be purchased by some smartphone vendor, who takes their idea, realizes it cant fit in today's current smartphone package size, and slowly kills the concept all together.
HP? I think this one's for you....
 
Decided I'd come to the rescue here and post some of their demo shots without formatting so all the armchair experts can dissect them

https://light.co/content/2-gallery/gallery_image_1.jpg
Damn son you could have simply posted links.

Ok so getting comfortable in my armchair I'm going to dissect the first image, which very well may be the worst but I didn't really look at the others other than a glance.

First is the resolution, not 52 megapixels, hell it's less than 3 megapixels, and I realize there's a lot going on, dark, close foreground, far away background, clouds back illuminated, but the entire edge of the photo looks very odd, and I can't really place it but the bottom right corner the wood coming out of the water looks almost like a painting with very broad strokes and very little actual detail. Now it could just be the way algae is growing on them or something but it does not look crisp and sharp at all. It is nice that the foreground is illuminated and the background of bridge is still in focus, but overall color me not impressed at all.

Use low priced optics/imagine sensors, all the post processing in the world (automatic) isn't going to fix that, GIGO.
 
This! Please edit and at least resize them... oh, wait... :(

Sorry guys! I just wanted a safe place too see them all without having to deal with the terrible website auto-sizing them to fit the browser.
 
Use low priced optics/imagine sensors, all the post processing in the world (automatic) isn't going to fix that, GIGO.

Same feeling.

I didn't read the article initially, just looked at the images then read it. My initial impressions were it's not bad but it looks like a cell phone camera. Lo and behold.. it is. Just many of them. They use a similar setup for that mega 1984 camera system on a drone, except they all go through one large lens.

Meanwhile with this concept, you still can't get the same image, that you can with a big lens system. It's simply down to physics. It's like these tiny cube woofers, all the marketing speak in the world, plus electronic tone processing trickery, can't make it sound anything like a proper large format sub woofer or similar..

And the placement of the sensors means no macro photography and slight image distortions if it's stitching stuff at a close range. No thanks. Doesn't seem like much a jump over current smartphone cameras to be honest.
 
It's good that they're trying to innovate, but $1700(!) seems awfully high. You can get a lot of nice cameras for $1700.
 
At first I was going to say "WTF, why would you quote that?!", but I now see it may have been a joke :D
 
I was tempted to troll quote, but I'm genuinely interested in actual conversation around this new piece of tech:

My opinion: For 52 Mp downsamples, it sure seems grainy and over-sharpened. I'm pretty sure if you had a 50+Mp DSLR and downsampled the images to 1080P they would look like pure sex.

Not to mention, How does one measure the MP of this device? is the marketting team pulling the same crap that TV and monitor manufacturers pull with contrast ratios and response times? Because if they are talking about a 52-megapixel raw final image: then this is pretty impressive. But I have the feeling that they are saying '52 magapixel' like, all cameras combined make up a total of 52 megapixels... take 3x 8Mp phone cameras and suddenly you have a '24Mp device'
 
Unless the guy deviates from the norm, the number of pixels mean the number of individual pixels the sensor has, so it is theoretically capable of taking images and saving them in the original 'raw' format if you will.

However, at higher pixel counts, not only you have higher degree of noise from the sensor, the optics becomes more demanding and downsampling has become the 'norm' for higher resolution sensors. In general, the 'sweet-spot' for taking photographs is around 5~8Megapixels, beyond this you start relying on downsampling. Higher pixel count starts to become PR marketing after this.
 
I think some of those image look quite good.
Cameras should become more and more advanced than the one in smartphones, which is why I don't see the point of integrating this if it can make an excellent stand alone product, or made even better by being stand -alone.
That being said, I am sure it will be very hard to integrate 16 lenses to a smartphone or any reasonable size.
 
Maybe two of those images look "OK", but my standard. The skateboarder and the portrait lady... Rest of them are pure garbage, with lots of noise, and signs of the software trying (any failing miserably) to play catch-up to shitty optics... This is iPhone level crap.. Nothing exciting to see here..
 
If these new camera concepts work out, I’m going to miss the days of exotic equipment and the fact that you needed some level of artistic or technical expertise to take a good photo.

Shooting with multiple camera modules also enables you to adjust depth of field even after the picture has been taken. And because the final image is extremely high-resolution, the photo you took of your child on stage from the back of the auditorium is going going to be crisp and clear, even after aggressive cropping.

I guess I'll be the first to point out that taking a good image has nothing to do with the device. You can get as high resolution, sharpened, high contrast and dynamic range picture of a pile of dirt as you want, but in the end it's still just a pile of dirt. An interesting photo doesn't have to be any of those to still be a great photo.
 
$1700 is way too much … it’s a crazy price to swallow.
U can have as much tech crammed in there processing as much as you want but without a real sensor and high quality or decent lens you’re just getting a low end point and shoot pocket camera that’s over processing everything / adding lots of lip stick to the pig .

One is better off pick up a used pro camera .... almost anyone can shoot decent photos with almost any camera that has a good sensor ,decent built in light meter and lens kit… Hell a used Nikon F5 or F6 in near mint condition, a Pentax 67 6x7, New Pentax S3II kit for sells for way less than this hardware.
 
I guess I'll be the first to point out that taking a good image has nothing to do with the device. You can get as high resolution, sharpened, high contrast and dynamic range picture of a pile of dirt as you want, but in the end it's still just a pile of dirt. An interesting photo doesn't have to be any of those to still be a great photo.
Amen to that ... look at some of the photo taken back in the 1800's and before auto focus and a lot of tech that helps most pro or non pros make incredible shots.
Perfect example, Ansel Adams ... a man who could take a simple shot of cow dung and make the subject a master piece photo.
 
Is there a limit to how small you can make a lens before you get diminishing returns?
 
Is there a limit to how small you can make a lens before you get diminishing returns?

There is, actually: the math is beyond me, but basically a larger lens can capture more photons, smaller ones capture less. You eventually get to a point where the lens is so small the lightwaves just pass right by it, but long before then you get to a point where a certain size of lens cant image a certain resolution.

This is why we cant just aim a telescope at the moon and see the Apollo landing sites, because the ability for a practical sized lens (read: a lens smaller than a city). cant resolve such tiny details at that distance: no matter how perfect the glass or accurate the focus is: its a limitation of physics.
 
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