Hasta La Gadget!

Ex-Stanford student Ren Ng is just about to launch a new kind of camera that will blow you away. Don’t believe me? Try clicking around on this photo of a Scuba diver standing in front of distant mountains.

This is a single exposure, taken with one camera. See how you can move the point of focus anywhere, even after you have taken the photograph? I told you it was cool.

Ng’s company Lytro is planning on launching the camera this year. Regular Gadget Lab readers will recognize the technology as a a light-field, or plenoptic camera. These camera put an array of micro-lenses over the sensor. This lenticular array sits on the focal plane of the camera (where the light is focused by the lens — also known as the film plane), and the sensor sits slightly behind.

Thus the camera not only records the color and intensity of the light, but also the direction. Using some heavy processing, this information can then be used to do the magic you see above. It also replaces much of a camera’s precision mechanics with software.

While this after-the-fact focus choice is the clear wow factor, there are other neat tricks the camera can do with this information. First is that the camera can shoot in much lower light. Second is that, as the sensor is recording direction information, you can peek “behind” the edges of the foreground objects.

Lytro’s trick is to get this tech into a camera that is small and affordable enough for consumers, and in an interview with All Things D’s Ina Fried, he promised a “competitively priced consumer product that fits in your pocket” later this year.

At first, Lytro will make and market its own camera. I really can’t wait. Imagine being able to pick and choose just what is in focus when you get back home, just like we can do now with white balance and — to a certain extent — exposure. If it works as well as it seems from these sample photos, this could be huge.

Lytro Picture Gallery [Lytro via All Things D]

See Also:

• Array Camera Tech Turns Cellphones into Futuristic Image …
• Augmented Reality: plenoptics
• New Camera Chip Takes 3D Pictures
• Adobe Shows off 3D Lens: Never Trust Photos Again

Yes, it’s absurd, but you’re still intrigued, right?

What happens when you stack up 50 UV filters and screw them all onto the front of your lens? That depends on the quality of the filters you use.

The folks at Lens Rentals have a lot of filters lying around. One day, an employee named Kenny drew the sort straw and had to clean them all, stacking them as he went. And then he wondered, what if I shoot through these?

The results are not startling, but they sure are interesting. A shot through 50 filters looks like somebody smeared Vaseline on the lens. Things get even more interesting when you compare the best and worst filters (apparently not all Lens Rentals customers return the same good filters they receive).

Guess which is which? Photos: Lens Rentals

A photograph taken through five top-of-the-line UV filters shows surprisingly little degradation, despite ten air-to-glass interfaces. A picture through the cheap filters, though, isn’t much different to the one shot through 50. The results are blurred and lacking in contrast.

As Lens Rentals’ Roger Cicala writes in his post, this is a situation unlikely to ever occur in real life, but it sure shows the difference in quality between the cheapest and the best. The takeaway? If you insist on putting a UV filter on your $1,000 lens, then don’t opt for the $20 model.

Good Times With Bad Filters [Lens Rentals via DP Review]

See Also:

• How do color filters work?

Leica’s 50mm-equivalent ƒ1.4 standard lens brings an ultrafast ‘nifty fifty’ to the Micro Four Thirds line

Oh hello! In addition to the less-than-inspiring GF3 announced today, Panasonic has redeemed itself with the new Leica DG Summilux 25mm ƒ1.4 ASPH lens. This fixed lens, which works as a 50mm equivalent “standard” on the Micro Four Thirds bodies, is likely to be one sweet chunk of glass.

First, the numbers. The lens has a seven-blade aperture for the nice, circular out-of-focus highlights (bokeh) characteristic of Leica lenses. It also comes with aspherical elements, a “nano coating” (for less reflection from the lens’ surfaces) and one “ultra-high refractive index” elements to bend the light equally to all parts of the image.

And because it opens to ƒ1.4, you’ll not only be able to take photos of anything you like in the dark, you’ll also be able to focus on somebody’s pupil and have the corner of their eye be blurred. Finally, a metal mount should mean it outlasts several cameras.

The lens, available in August, has yet to be priced. Being a Leica, it won’t be cheap. In fact, Amazon’s pre-order page — according to Photography Bay — was briefly listing it for $1,100.

Leica Summilux 25mm ƒ1.4 product page [Panasonic]

See Also:

• Panasonic Micro Four Thirds 'Rangefinder' with Leica Lenses …
• Adapter Puts Leica Lenses on Micro Four Thirds Cameras
• Voigtländer Adapter Puts Leica Lenses on Micro Four Thirds Cameras …

We’ve been (impatiently) waiting for Sony to update its NEX line of digital cameras since the NEX-3 was discontinued earlier this year, and it looks like a worthy successor has finally been named. Announced today, the NEX-C3 appears identical to the model leaked in April, and uses the same format APS-C image sensor as its predecessor, bumping resolution to 16.2 megapixels in a camera body smaller than the NEX-5. Sony says the new entry-level cam is designed to fill the gap between point-and-shoot and DSLR cameras, and is the smallest body to pack an APS-C sensor, offering DSLR-level image quality — the same 16.2 MP chip is also included in its new full-size Alpha A35, which replaces the A33. Both cameras can shoot at up to 5.5 fps (the A35 adds a 7 fps mode at 8.4 megapixels), and include 3-inch LCDs, with the NEX keeping its hallmark tilt display, and the A35 adding Sony’s Translucent Mirror live-view mode, and an electronic viewfinder. We have plenty more to share, including a new lens and flash, along with pricing and availability for all, so jump past the break for the juicy details.

Continue reading Sony announces NEX-C3 and Alpha A35 cameras, new macro lens

Sony announces NEX-C3 and Alpha A35 cameras, new macro lens originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 08 Jun 2011 00:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Discontinued products typically dip in value, but such is not the case with Leica lenses — unless they’re sawed in half. Leica students had an opportunity to “make” cutaways of two Leica lenses as part of a graduation project. A discontinued Tri-Elmar-M 28-35-50mm (valued at about $4,500 when fully functional) and a 50mm f/1.4 Summilux (about $3,700) were split, exposing various layers of glass and metal. Now forever unable to capture images of their own, all four halves were photographed, and the tri-focal lens was sold for $995 on eBay, complete with original box — which, unlike its contents, appears to be in like-new condition. We were probably at home playing Frogger when Kermit went under the knife in biology, but we would have definitely had a perfect attendance record in any class that involved brushing camera equipment across a circular saw.

$4,000 Leica lens split in two, sold on eBay as $1,000 piece of art originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 16 May 2011 16:29:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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