UKH

Out of interest has anybody used one of these?

https://light.co/camera?utm_source=fbads&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaig...

I am not in the market for one but find it interesting.

Steve

At the opposite end of the scale I am playing about with a home made camera  made from a small wooden box and a salvaged Lumix lens using solar sensitive paper. Great fun, results not too impressive and you need a lot of patience.

It's a fantastic idea and definitely the future, however apparently the software and results don't live up to the price.

Mobiles like the P20 Pro now have three forward cameras, and integrating this into phones is probably the way forward as the development budgets will be so much higher. 

Let's face it fun is the way to go. Why buy high tech stuff if it isn't going to help you have more fun. There again there is an awful lot about the 21st century that eludes me.

I vaguely remember reading a review about this camera, or one that worked on the same principle and it was crap.

In few years we'll have cameras that produce 3D images (too a point) and they'll be fun.

I bet we will soon have an option to buy a phone where the camera is so good the phone will be chosen for photography and everything else is a plus!

So is the best photographer the one having he most fun even if their photos are shit?

I have no real problem with that Robert as long as they don't insist I print them off and frame them on my living room wall  

BUT I do stand by my original intent for any pursuit; Why upgrade? Why increase complexity? Why have more if it doesn't help you have more fun? Whatever fun is for you.

Ouch!

Imagine that!

I don't speak as a light Luddite. My latest bridge camera is up there with the best (I think). But I still own a completely manual Yashica SLR and it's good to remind myself how light works.

Unfortunately I cant afford to play with smaller apertures on my home made solar paper camera as there aren't enough hours of sunlight in a day.

Much as I like my digital toys I do love to buy a couple of rolls of better film(Porta if I am feeling flush)

and run a couple of rolls off trying to remember everything I think I have learned about framing shots. 

I think a Light camera would be just a little to much of a luxury just now but I am sure the price will come down.  

interesting indeed, having levels of focus all in one shot should be very useful in some photos, im thinking landscapes or a city or crowds of people. But a lot of the time its good to have OOF areas to highlight the main subjects - too much detail is quite detracting. I guess its whether youre looking for a hyper realistic image or a form of art

edit - Having looked at the photos in their gallery, it looks like you can still create OOF areas, and i guess having multiple light levels creates an automatic HDR which certainly has its benefits over taking a sequence of shots.

On the subject of film - I cant ever imagine going back to that, I suppose it still has a place for certain styles, but not knowing whether you got a shot right is just not worth it for me.

certainly will be interesting, but Im thinking there will be a limitation on their physical size as the lenses will have to be a certain distance apart in order to get enough depth of field to create a 3d image, so perhaps not a mobile phone size gadget, or even bridge size.

They don't use two cameras.

Have a Google for "time of flight" and "structured light".

It's not particularly new technology, focus stacking and similar image fusion technologies have been around in microscopy for decades.

Of perhaps more interest are cameras using micro-lens arrays and diffraction techniques to form 3D images. A light-field camera was developed by Lytro, a startup spun out of some research at Stanford a few years ago, but after some initial hype not much came of it.

youve lost me, two cameras?

..Or two lenses if that's what you were thinking of.

Funnily enough I can't get a very good link to show you the technology I'm talking about but here's a very quick summary of the two principles: https://seekingalpha.com/article/4091019-4-companies-stand-benefit-3d-sensi...

You'll see it first in phones. In fact the basic technology is already there in some phones that use facial recognition to unlock them. In a couple of years the resolution will be up at VGA, 1 Mpixel a year after, etc, etc The limitation with both technologies is range though. I'm not sure either will ever get past a couple of meters.

Thanks for your contributions everybody