interesting idea and I can see how people would want to edit their depth of field post shot, but does it always guarantee that something will be in focus. There are many a day where some photos are just never in focus.
@nikkers The Internet. After all, if they said it, it must be true.
In all seriousness, if that was something that was reliable, I'd be interested. I can't tell you how many times I've almost had the perfect shot, only to have the one thing that I really wanted in focus, slightly out of focus. The key word here though, is reliable.
Hmmmm .... I understand about editing after the picture is taken. However, if we don't consider where the focus is for ourselves, isn't there a degrading of the pixels when editing later? There is now.
It's not a bad idea though and could be a useful tool. I just wouldn't want to have to fix every picture because I was not taking the effort to find the focus myself.
I do think that if this becomes all the rage, we will see a lot more people never actually learn the fine art of having a quality focus of the image. Look how it is almost impossible to find a point and shoot with an actual optical view finder now.
This is awesome in one way, in the sense that you can be unsure about which you preferred in a short focus composition and not worry that you missed an idea when you open the image...
Other hand can this just get everything in focus? If it can it would find favour in loads of places, also it'd make an unbelievable P&S for going out, which would be terrible, the saving grace of current P&S are that people focus on the wrong thing when they're drunk, lessening the embarrassment for all...
How the hell large are these files going to be, is what I'm interested in. Also, how many levels of parallax the thing actually stores, which is to say, how finely grained can you focus into the z-axis. All very interesting...
@shadesofgrey Ha ha...you beat me to posting this. I also saw this article, thought the concept was interesting and was curious what others thought. As a technoligist by trade, I love when technology and art collide. It seems to me that it would be interesting for the photographer to be able to edit the final shot, but to me, it could rob the photographer of the ability to get across their artistic vision. Sometimes, part of the vision of the shot is how it is focused. It will be interesting to see if the technology catches on.
@eyebrows They'd be gigantic unless it does something along the lines of "scanning" the entire thing in focus and the blur is software, though file sizes might be part of the reason for the resolution drop spoke of...
It did however help me out massively with a project just by making me think of focus shifts...
I have been watching this tech now for a few years.. looks great... for the purist SOOC people this is another blow the way having film sensitive to more than blue light was 150 years ago and moving from ISO 1 to ISO 25 was 100 years again and moving from field cameras to MF/35mm in the 40s/50s and P&S in the 80 and great P&S today...
photography should not be nearly as difficult as people like to make it!!! This lets more people take more great photos! All and all a win for the consumer...
Next up is changing perspective (something we still cannot do with our fancy DSLR that I can do with my most basic field camera from 1910)
and no they are not that big... consumers don't like big cameras... @killerjackalope
@eyebrows the tests I saw... 6mb 'standard' image was 400mb and gave you 1% changes in DOF... they thought they need to get it down to .5% and that was 2 years ago...
I read about this some time ago, and remember there was some small amount of panicking because it may have the potential to further erode the incomes of professional photographers (I do not hold to that opinion).
Resolution is a big issue (the linked article mentions this too), so the system already has limited use. For now, at least. And sensor technology is partly limited by physics - the sensor photo-sites can only become so small before they are too small to do their job (they are at that point already) and manufacturers are trying other things to improve resolution, a lot of it being software-based "fixes" for the physical limitations (allowing them to make smaller photo-sites, to a point). New "pixel-free" sensors are likely to be what overcomes those issues, again - to a degree.
So, for now we are stuck with pixels which, by their very nature, max out at certain numbers because they have to remain large enough to absorb the various frequencies of light. If the photo-site is smaller than the light's wavelength, it can't record it properly (already we have noise issues in cameras due to too many pixels). This new technology is even further limited in regards to resolution than a "normal" camera because the light entering is unfocussed. It relies on software to "focus" the light, and we know that even the best algorithms don't always get it right (image enhancement and upsizing software is a fine example). So you're not going to get the same quality from this system.
I think the technology is great. It will allow people to take better, more creative, snapshots. But, it will involve more steps between "shooting and posting on Facebook" and, since most people are lazy, most people won't make good use of it. Those who do make good use of it are likely the ones who will take the next step and get a better camera, which they will use to create images far superior to what this tech can currently provide.
Only time will tell whether or not the current physical limitations of the technology can be overcome, and if they can then we'll see it spread to the DSLR and medium format market, and it will become just another tool in the bag.
When the technology allows for post-shoot lighting and posing, that's when I'll be worried about my job.
Oh, I wouldn't worry about people losing jobs in the photography business because of this. Nope, not at all. All this does is helps to alter a photo but it doesn't take the photo. It doesn't think for itself. So I agree @jinximages this can be a usefull tool. Post editing does take time. I find that I really only work on the most basic editing unless I'm working on my 365 picture. If we learn to take decent pictures up front then the editing is minimal as it should be.
I think this is certainly cool and amazing and all that, but I feel that it takes away somewhat from the spontaneity of taking a photo - focusing it then-and-there, not after the fact. But that's just my philosophical take on it xD
It's kind of a cool idea... especially if you take photos of kids who won't sit still for even 2 seconds! I don't think this takes away from photography either because photography still takes creativity and POV and other things that make a photo pop!
@jinximages
>"pixel-free" sensors
Now that's got my curiosity piqued. I know it can't be a literal thing, not least due to your quoties :P, but still, interested to see what trick they're using this label for... time to hit Google!
@jinximages
Can't find anything about "pixel-free" sensors, nor even imagine how they'd work. Saw some people speculating at some form of vector-based image storage, but quite how you'd get those vectors without sampling discreetly I don't know, plus how large would those files be!?
@eyebrows A magazine had a write-up, about a year ago, about early-days research into a sensor without pixels. Essentially, it would be limited by the quality of the available light, and how well the glass in front of it could resolve that light. I actually typed a full response yesterday, with a link to what I thought the article had stemmed from, but now I'm not locating it. It was just an intro to a journal from 2004 anyway. It isn't to be confused with the "one pixel" camera, or the image orthicon tube (where the image is still quantisised by the scanning frequency, which would be equivalent of being quantisised with a pixel array or photosites), if you saw that.
I don't know if a working model has yet been developed, but the author in the original piece was saying that throughput could be an issue - a camera processor can't cope with that much data. The upside is that it could be artifically limited to whatever "effective pixel count" you like (you'd set a limit based on your lens and needs, I guess), and low light images would naturally be smaller in size. I believe it was all still at the theoretical stage, with actual development centering on materials use to gather the information without too much consideration of computational power needed to use it (Moore's Law should take care of that within a few years anyway).
Ah, here's where it may have started: http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/Xplore/login.jsp?url=http%3A%2F%2Fieeexplore.ieee.org%2Fiel5%2F55%2F28415%2F01269899.pdf%3Farnumber%3D1269899&authDecision=-203 Similar to the image orthicon tube, in certain respects.
"A pixelless imaging device based on optical wavelength conversion was designed and fabricated. The up-converter consisted of an integrated InGaAs/InP PIN photodetector and an InGaAsP/InP light-emitting diode (LED) epitaxially grown on a single InP substrate. Incoming 1.5 μm optical radiation was absorbed by the p-i-n detector and generated a photocurrent. The resultant photocurrent was used to bias the LED that emitted at 1 μm, which could be detected by conventional silicon charge coupled device. Pixelless imaging by the device has been demonstrated at room temperature."
To me it seems like this is a way to 'fake it 'til you make it'. Not that I would consider myself a professional at all, but I think the general public would gobble this new technology up because they don't get all hyped up about the technical aspects about photography as I assume most of us here on 365 do. They just want a nice picture of their new puppy to post on Facebook. And that's probably their target market.
I think this new technology is taking away from the essence of photography. Yes bottom-line is that you're capturing a moment in time, but part of the whole experience for me is to go through the whole process of getting the focus perfect. I've spent hours on that in the past and I'd say I have learned a great deal by struggling and as a result, I almost only shoot on manual now. I'm not saying people who would buy this are not passionate about photography - if the developers get the file size and resolution right I can see how this can be a great source of peace of mind for even pro-photographers working on big projects - but maybe I'm thinking too old school here, [this coming from a chick who hasn't shot with film yet - oh the irony]. I would definitely take a few pics out of curiosity but right now I like my DSLR and can’t really picture my life without it. :)
@jinximages hrm. I still don't get it. You have to be able to know where a photon has landed in order to relate it to a physical place, so how you can do that without any discreet addressable material (such as a grid of pixels, or some equivalent) I don't know.
@eyebrows If I'm reading it right, I think the position is calculated. If you think of it like a piece of string being struck by a rock and the resulting data being taken from the end of that string and another string perpendicular to the first, but instead of strings you have a grid of frequencies, with the wavelengths determining the resolution. As I read that back to myself it doesn't sound quite right.... Ah well, another one to the physicists.
@marinda Specifically to the part "I think this new technology is taking away from the essence of photography." - I agree, but also not. There have been so many jumps in technology about which the same thing could be said - 35mm colour film, auto-focus, digital - and many other advances that have changed photography and/or made it more accessible to the masses. Even just 35mm film generally, and the developemnt of that particular technology, had a massive impact. The latest one has been digital (arguably anyway), where suddenly someone can take a shot, have a look, tweak the settings, and take another shot, over and over and over without any financial repurcussions - we couldn't do that with film. We had to learn the right way, be careful about setting our shot, and then wait for the darkroom to see if we got it right. We'd make notes on paper about each frame, with the aperture and shutter speed, and maybe even notes about the light and environment, so that we could learn when we finally had the shot on paper. It's no wonder that professional photographers were seen as masters of some kind of "dark art", having to go through all that as well as understanding and being able to perform the darkroom aspects of the job. Now, everyone can see instantly what they're doing wrong (though it is true many can't work out exactly how to fix it), and one can sit at a computer and try different processing techniques without wasting a gallon of developer and a box of paper. So, while it erodes more of the needed skills of a photographer, I do think that the only photographers who will be negatively impacted (by this new technology) are the ones that aren't so great anyway - if their ability to know how to set aperture and place their plane of focus is what sets them apart from their clients, they really should be going back to photog school.
@jinximages You're absolutely right. I guess I'm just pissed that it's becoming too easy and that anyone with the ability to press a button can take a decent pic these days. And I'm sure most film users said the same when digital first hit the scene. Touchy subject because I'm one of those who aren't so great anyway, so I'll just have to see what's gonna happen.
@jinximages
First off...
>... only photographers who will be negatively impacted...
Do you see what you did there? :D
@marinda@jinximages
This, like the other advancements in automation jinx cited, is like automatic gearboxes in cars, or self cancelling indicators, or automatic headlights, or when they made grinding from 0-70 easier in WoW. Ok ignore that last one.
But, fundamentally, same thing. It makes it easier to do some things, and does provide easier access to the overall Thing to the masses, but ain't no Ayrton Sennas learned their craft on an auto box. Y'dig? Those that can, still can, those that can't, still can't but get to feel like they can, and those that can (again), get a little extra safety net if they chill their ego out and let themselves abandon their addiction to things being a pain in the ass.
Also just to add to that, to jump back into my analogy, I *do* actually hate it that people with no driving ability whatsoever fill up the roads due to (lowering the barriers for entry | increasing tolerance to mistakes) but... it's the nature of things, sadly.
So now that I've successfully countered my own argument, I'll go have breakfast.
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i dont know. I mean they said we would be teleporting ourselves by now..
In all seriousness, if that was something that was reliable, I'd be interested. I can't tell you how many times I've almost had the perfect shot, only to have the one thing that I really wanted in focus, slightly out of focus. The key word here though, is reliable.
It's not a bad idea though and could be a useful tool. I just wouldn't want to have to fix every picture because I was not taking the effort to find the focus myself.
Other hand can this just get everything in focus? If it can it would find favour in loads of places, also it'd make an unbelievable P&S for going out, which would be terrible, the saving grace of current P&S are that people focus on the wrong thing when they're drunk, lessening the embarrassment for all...
It did however help me out massively with a project just by making me think of focus shifts...
photography should not be nearly as difficult as people like to make it!!! This lets more people take more great photos! All and all a win for the consumer...
Next up is changing perspective (something we still cannot do with our fancy DSLR that I can do with my most basic field camera from 1910)
and no they are not that big... consumers don't like big cameras... @killerjackalope
Resolution is a big issue (the linked article mentions this too), so the system already has limited use. For now, at least. And sensor technology is partly limited by physics - the sensor photo-sites can only become so small before they are too small to do their job (they are at that point already) and manufacturers are trying other things to improve resolution, a lot of it being software-based "fixes" for the physical limitations (allowing them to make smaller photo-sites, to a point). New "pixel-free" sensors are likely to be what overcomes those issues, again - to a degree.
So, for now we are stuck with pixels which, by their very nature, max out at certain numbers because they have to remain large enough to absorb the various frequencies of light. If the photo-site is smaller than the light's wavelength, it can't record it properly (already we have noise issues in cameras due to too many pixels). This new technology is even further limited in regards to resolution than a "normal" camera because the light entering is unfocussed. It relies on software to "focus" the light, and we know that even the best algorithms don't always get it right (image enhancement and upsizing software is a fine example). So you're not going to get the same quality from this system.
I think the technology is great. It will allow people to take better, more creative, snapshots. But, it will involve more steps between "shooting and posting on Facebook" and, since most people are lazy, most people won't make good use of it. Those who do make good use of it are likely the ones who will take the next step and get a better camera, which they will use to create images far superior to what this tech can currently provide.
Only time will tell whether or not the current physical limitations of the technology can be overcome, and if they can then we'll see it spread to the DSLR and medium format market, and it will become just another tool in the bag.
When the technology allows for post-shoot lighting and posing, that's when I'll be worried about my job.
>"pixel-free" sensors
Now that's got my curiosity piqued. I know it can't be a literal thing, not least due to your quoties :P, but still, interested to see what trick they're using this label for... time to hit Google!
Can't find anything about "pixel-free" sensors, nor even imagine how they'd work. Saw some people speculating at some form of vector-based image storage, but quite how you'd get those vectors without sampling discreetly I don't know, plus how large would those files be!?
Got any links to info?
I don't know if a working model has yet been developed, but the author in the original piece was saying that throughput could be an issue - a camera processor can't cope with that much data. The upside is that it could be artifically limited to whatever "effective pixel count" you like (you'd set a limit based on your lens and needs, I guess), and low light images would naturally be smaller in size. I believe it was all still at the theoretical stage, with actual development centering on materials use to gather the information without too much consideration of computational power needed to use it (Moore's Law should take care of that within a few years anyway).
Ah, here's where it may have started: http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/Xplore/login.jsp?url=http%3A%2F%2Fieeexplore.ieee.org%2Fiel5%2F55%2F28415%2F01269899.pdf%3Farnumber%3D1269899&authDecision=-203 Similar to the image orthicon tube, in certain respects.
"A pixelless imaging device based on optical wavelength conversion was designed and fabricated. The up-converter consisted of an integrated InGaAs/InP PIN photodetector and an InGaAsP/InP light-emitting diode (LED) epitaxially grown on a single InP substrate. Incoming 1.5 μm optical radiation was absorbed by the p-i-n detector and generated a photocurrent. The resultant photocurrent was used to bias the LED that emitted at 1 μm, which could be detected by conventional silicon charge coupled device. Pixelless imaging by the device has been demonstrated at room temperature."
To me it seems like this is a way to 'fake it 'til you make it'. Not that I would consider myself a professional at all, but I think the general public would gobble this new technology up because they don't get all hyped up about the technical aspects about photography as I assume most of us here on 365 do. They just want a nice picture of their new puppy to post on Facebook. And that's probably their target market.
I think this new technology is taking away from the essence of photography. Yes bottom-line is that you're capturing a moment in time, but part of the whole experience for me is to go through the whole process of getting the focus perfect. I've spent hours on that in the past and I'd say I have learned a great deal by struggling and as a result, I almost only shoot on manual now. I'm not saying people who would buy this are not passionate about photography - if the developers get the file size and resolution right I can see how this can be a great source of peace of mind for even pro-photographers working on big projects - but maybe I'm thinking too old school here, [this coming from a chick who hasn't shot with film yet - oh the irony]. I would definitely take a few pics out of curiosity but right now I like my DSLR and can’t really picture my life without it. :)
Either way, thanks for locating that link :)
First off...
>... only photographers who will be negatively impacted...
Do you see what you did there? :D
@marinda @jinximages
This, like the other advancements in automation jinx cited, is like automatic gearboxes in cars, or self cancelling indicators, or automatic headlights, or when they made grinding from 0-70 easier in WoW. Ok ignore that last one.
But, fundamentally, same thing. It makes it easier to do some things, and does provide easier access to the overall Thing to the masses, but ain't no Ayrton Sennas learned their craft on an auto box. Y'dig? Those that can, still can, those that can't, still can't but get to feel like they can, and those that can (again), get a little extra safety net if they chill their ego out and let themselves abandon their addiction to things being a pain in the ass.
Maybe.
So now that I've successfully countered my own argument, I'll go have breakfast.