Refocusing camera module could soon come to smartphones
A company called DigitalOptics has revealed a Lytro-like technology that lets photographers refocus images after they have been taken, coming soon to a smartphone near you.
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A company called DigitalOptics has revealed a Lytro-like technology that lets photographers refocus images after they have been taken.
Unlike the Lytro camera, which relies on light-field technology to acquire its images, the MemsCam takes several photos with different depths of field. Software then takes care of the computational crunch required to create the final shot, which can then be focused by clicking on the desired part of the image.
The MemsCam unit is small enough to fit neatly inside a smartphone, taking images ranging from 8 megapixels to 13 megapixels in resolution. Apart from this refocusing capability, the module also boasts incredibly fast focusing times, as well as facial recognition.
The MemsCam uses just 1 per cent of energy compared to a traditional phone sensor. According to Digital Trends, the technology is ready to go, and we should see a phone with this module in it from the middle of the year. Both Oppo and CT Telecom from China have expressed interest in the module for smartphones.
Toshiba has also been working on a refocusing technology that uses hundreds of thousands of tiny lenses in front of a sensor to take many different photos. This module is 1 centimetre thick and is reportedly scheduled for a late 2013 release.