Wavy Lenses Extend Depth of Field in Digital Imaging 359
genegeek writes "On Feb 25 CDM Optics was awarded a patent for a new digital imaging system utilizing "Wavefront Coding" that produces images with 10-fold the depth of field of conventional lenses. The image itself is blurred until processed. Image examples are here."
So (Score:4, Insightful)
Personally, I will stick to analog photography.
Re:So (Score:3, Interesting)
I mean this has it's advantages, perhaps not to the average joe. I like analog photography too, but digital will work much better in getting images from space probes, satellites, and other far off devices, hell, even spy-planes, to another location really quickly.
Re:So (Score:5, Interesting)
You stick to your film. I'll stack my Nikon D1X against your 30-year-old camera any day of the week, personally. And that's not even top of the line anymore -- Canon has a new 11MP camera that puts any 35mm camera to shame.
Just because $300 consumer digicams are crap doesn't mean that digital hasn't already surpassed film. It's just a matter of making it affordable now.
Re:So (Score:3, Informative)
Film and digital resolution comparisons (Score:5, Interesting)
http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/content_page.a
http://www.luminous-landscape.com/reviews/camer
This may just change someone's opinon on how digital compares to film. I know it made me rethink the "conventional wisdom" that many more pixels are needed to reproduce film detail.
Cheers,
Jeremy
Re:Film and digital resolution comparisons (Score:5, Informative)
and: http://www.luminous-landscape.com/reviews/cameras
It's just polite to make such links both active and accurate (extraneous spaces in both links -- probably inserted by slashdot because you tried to submit the URLs as plain text).
Re:So (Score:3, Informative)
It's been shown in side by side tests of large prints that 10-11Mp is far superior to 35mm film. Despite 35mm being technically able to hold more information than that, the grain of the film causes the images to come out looking worse.
Re:So (Score:5, Informative)
Don't get me wrong: I *love* my Canon PowerShot G2 (4MP). I've been extremely pleased with the results in a 4x6 format. I've blown up some as large as 8x10 (had them professionally printed and developed) and find that the quality is almost as good as prints made from 100 ISO 35mm film. Having "during the shot" color balancing also makes it much easier to get useable prints without serious headaches. And it's certainly more conveinent to me to have the images digitally available, too.
I also find that without my old-school mental block of "don't waste film" is gone, and that I now take many more shots than I used to. It leads to a bigger choice of shots to choose from, so I now get better final prints. Yes, I know I wasn't supposed to worry about "wasting film" before, but those old habits are very hard to break.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:So (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:So (Score:2)
Granted, as others pointed out earlier in this thread, digital is more convenient, Analog still has better quality, and is unsurpassed for artistic purpuses.
Re:So (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't think this is a big deal? I'm into amateur photography, and I have a camera that I only bought 9 months ago that I've taken 1500 shots with. Have I kept them all? No. Have I printed them all? No.
And that's the point, for me. I paid $1k for a camera, and now I can take as many pictures as I'd like, without having to pay for it every damn time. The pictures that I do want printed, I can get done for very reasonable prices at places like Shutterfly. And the ones that turn out bad, or I just don't feel like printing, cost me exactly $0.
Do some math. How much would I have spent on film and processing for a traditional 35mm camera in the last 9 months, had I gone that route instead of the digital? By my reckoning, it'd be at least $500, if not more, depending on the quality of the film I purchased. Within another year or so, the camera will have paid for itself, if only in reduced cost per image.
And as for artistic purposes
Re:So (Score:3, Insightful)
I mean, I still try to put a lot of thought into my shots. The difference with digital is, I'm not afraid to try weird things out, because I'm not spending $3/shot or more.
Case in point: I'm hoping to do some weird forced perspective shots in the near future, similar to some early films used for creating huge monsters, or tiny people. It's just something I've wanted to try out, and I'm sure it's going to take me a lot of tinkering. If I was paying for film, I don't know that
Re:So (Score:4, Insightful)
Or, lets take wide-angle pictures. With the cropping factor on your Nikon D1X, how can you be any wider than say 32mm (35mm equivalent).
Digital is great, but in some cases, 35mm cameras are still superior. Especially low-light and wide-angle photography.
Re:So (Score:4, Informative)
I've made 20"x30"s from this camera with no complaints. They weren't razor-sharp, but then again neither are 35mm prints at that size. Yours will be a bit sharper, but mine will have no grain and better color. Which one is better is a matter of opinion. And against Canon's 11MP, you wouldn't have a prayer.
Or, lets take wide-angle pictures. With the cropping factor on your Nikon D1X, how can you be any wider than say 32mm (35mm equivalent).
I have a 17mm lens (17-35mm F/2.8 AFS), which is 25mm equivalent on the D1X. If I went down to Nikon's rectlinear 14mm, I'd get 21mm equivalent. That's certainly wide enough for almost any application.
Digital has better colour? What??? (Score:2)
Digital will never match the colour of slide film. It can't, by definition. It may be more vivid, due to some post-processing tricks, but it will never be as real or as authentic. Slide film captures the colour exactly as it was, whereas digital rounds it to the nearest bit. Slide film colour is as faithful and rich as the real thing.
Re:Digital has better colour? What??? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Digital has better colour? What??? (Score:5, Insightful)
This is what we refer to as "argument by bizarre definition".
Slide film captures color via photochemicals that change in response to light. Digital cameras capture color via sensors that signal in response to light. Saying that one is better "by definition" is patently absurd.
If slide film is inherently perfect, why are there so many different slide films with different color responses? If slide film captures color "exactly as it was", why is Fuji Velvia widely known for producing great landscape shots but murdering skin-tones? Slide film has all the same color concerns that any other capture method has -- good red response but poor greens, or great blues but muddy purples, for instance. Nothing is perfect, especially when the only real way to judge them is using the also-imperfect human eye.
I'm not basing my "better color" assertion on a bizarre definition of the abstract ideal. It's just my opinion, but I hold that my professional digital SLR, with little or no post-processing, produces better color than anything the film world has to offer. "Good color" is a subjective thing, and while you may disagree with me about that (cite examples please!), I stand by my statement.
Re:Digital has better colour? What??? (Score:3, Insightful)
It may be more vivid, due to some post-processing tricks, but it will never be as real or as authentic. Slide film captures the colour exactly as it was, whereas digital rounds it to the nearest bit. Slide film colour is as faithful and rich as the real thing.
This sounds just like the whole 'Analog sound is warmer' argument I hear from some guy that just spent $15k on a stereo.
Noise floor and linearity (Score:5, Interesting)
One person mentioned that Fuji Velvia is great for landscapes but murders skin tones. This is because the sensitivity curve of a digital can be easily optimized, while it's very difficult to tweak the sensitivity and linearity of films based on chemical reactions.
As to rounding to the nearest bit - There's a lower limit in both electronic and film recording of the precision that a light level can be recorded which is distinguishable from noise. This is called the "noise floor" - Use enough bits, and then all the bit roundoffs will be well below the noise floor of even film media. (Which does indeed have a noise floor, just as digitals do. The nice thing about digitals is that with improved electronics and sensors, the noise floor of the sensor is dropping while film is staying the same. One of the things "pro" digitals are known for is having far less noise than lower-end digitals, and those improvements are constantly moving down to the consumer level.)
And for those that WANT the nonlinearities/quirks of film - All a camera manufacturer has to do is model the nonlinearities of major film types and then they can easily be emulated, just like guitar amps that use modeling techniques to emulate older units.
Gimme a break (Score:2)
Re:Gimme a break (Score:4, Informative)
I've blown 6MP images up to 20"x30". They look great. Good enough that people gush about how great they look when they buy them from us, at least. While I don't have access to an 11MP camera, I can't imagine that 30"x40" would be too much of a stretch.
Keep in mind that I'm talking about images from a $5000 camera, not a piece-o'-crap point-and-shoot.
Re:Gimme a break (Score:2)
Re:Gimme a break (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Gimme a break (Score:2)
So? Your computer monitor is probably only around 80DPI. Photos look pretty good on it, don't they?
The situation is actually better with a print, because the image is interpolated so that you can't see the pixels.
Re:Gimme a break (Score:2)
Re:Gimme a break (Score:2)
Re:Gimme a break (Score:2)
See how noticeable the difference is under typical viewing conditions (i.e. you don't generally scrutinize a 20"x30" photo from two inches away). My bet is "not at all". A trained eye might be able to spot a difference, although not a significant one, but I'd be surprised if the average Joe could even reliably distinguish which image was w
Analog 'tricks' are still better though. (Score:5, Insightful)
Photoshop is great software, but no matter how much I try, basic manipulation (on b&w images particularly), especially brightness/contrast adjustment and dodging/burning, always gives me much better results under an enlarger. Same for exposure effects; Photoshop's solarize filter is good, but there's just some intangible warmth and...analog-ness to a well-solarized paper print. Maybe it's just the random scatter and size of the grain of film against the gridded regularity of the digital images, or the slight variation in quality across the print (not imperfect, but not...digitally homogenous), but for purely aesthetic ends, I have to go with film and paper.
There's more to life than Photoshop (Score:3, Informative)
There are some interesting HDR (high dynamic range) projects, such as HDRShop [debevec.org], and these
HDRI vs RGB (Score:3, Informative)
High Dynamic Range Images use a higher bit depth (12 bits per chanel?). Many of the Nikon cameras can save out these 12 bit/channel images, which, with the proper manipulation software (HDRShop, others) can be used for much finer and subtler manipulation.
So, (math skills permiting), I make that out as 4096 levels per ch
Re:So (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:So (Score:3, Interesting)
Realize that the Canon 1Ds has pixels that are SMALLER than the airy disc size at almost all f/stops. You simply cannot achieve better resolution with the lenses available.
Believe what you want about your 135 film, but it takes APERTURE to shrink the airy disc and improve the true image resolution. As
Depends on the film (Score:3, Interesting)
Now, show me a digital camera that can do 4096x3192 / 10 bpc / 125 fps and I will be impress
Digital better than film? P-shaw! (Score:2)
You're right. There are several other, perfectly good reasons why digital has not yet surpassed film. Time-lapse, low-light, and infra-red exposures come to mind.
Re:Digital better than film? P-shaw! (Score:3, Informative)
Low-light: CCDs have been used heavily by astronomers for quite a while due to their exceptional low-light performance. (Esp. when actively cooled.)
IR: For near-IR, current image sensors are excellent. In fact, digital camera manufacturers must use an IR-blocking filter in order to prevent IR sensitivity from being a major problem. Remove this filter and you have an excellent IR camera. Sony image sensors are more IR-sensitive th
Re:So (Score:4, Insightful)
I can shoot in in extreme cold and extreme heat. What's the temp rating on your batteries?
I can choose the light sensitivity I need for my shooting conditions, bound only by the speed of the film available to me. How fast, in ISO numbers, is your CCD? I can get 3200, 6400 or higher. And for special effects I can go infrared.
My permanent storage is both cheaper and more permanent than yours over the long term.
Finally, a lot of Pulitzer shots are extra shots that were initially unpublished. Digital storage invites a photographer to erase that which the editor rejects. Film doesn't.
Re:So (Score:3, Insightful)
IMHO the Canon is a great camera but for the price i
Re:35mm (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:So (Score:2)
Some of them are these days (wow! talk about low yield wafers!)
Laws of physics and economics being what they are, some day not too far away we'll have a digital camera with about 30 megapixels on a 25 x 36 mm die and it will capture the same information level that good 35mm film is capable of and it will cost less than an arm and a leg.
Low-yeld (Score:3, Informative)
I doubt its that bad, since a camera can deal with a sparkling of 'dead' sensors, while pretty much any defect will kill a CPU.
Re:So (Score:5, Informative)
The advantage of this system over your Canon is that you can get high depth of field and large apertures at the same time. In order to increase the depth of field of your camera, you have to stop down the lens, which means less light. Less light means longer exposures (can't stop the action) or more sensitive film/sensors (more noise).
Instead of stopping down the lens and blocking light, this only affects the phase of the wavefront which means all the light energy still goes through.
Extremely clever.
Re:This is backwards (Score:3, Insightful)
There are techniques for achieving this, but they involve non-moving subjects, and multiple exposures over successive focal planes.
Re:So (Score:3, Informative)
Last time I checked, it was a hell of a lot easier to do photo processing tricks with photoshop than in a darkroom, and with experience and skill the two types of work can be hard to distinguish from each other. The only exception I can think of being "push" type processing which takes advantage of being able to stretch or alter the dynamic range of your medium (film or photopaper) beyond its ratings. Since the site appears
Not everyone has a darkroom. (Score:5, Insightful)
I loved shooting pictures for the college newspaper, because that meant that whatever leftover film I had from the shoot, I could take those extra shots and develop those slides.
Now, with digital, I never have to worry about developing film, or buying new film, so the cost of me getting a camera went down a significant amount. On top of that, I never had to worry that the shots I take didn't quite come out right. I have an instant look at the shot I had.
Once the SLR bodies on the digitals go down in price a bit more, I'll be able to shoot pretty much whatever I was able to shoot with an analog camera. (With the exception of slide film.)
Also, the digital camera is much more environmentally friendly. All those chemicals you use during processing gotta go SOMEWHERE.
Re:Not everyone has a darkroom. (Score:2)
That IS part of the hobby of photography. I don't know how much you paid for even a cheap digital, but you can get a used enlarger for about $75-100 and a canister/spool for $20. Then you need $20 worth of chemicals and $20 worth of tupperware and some cheap paper. Any 35mm will do, especially the one you get fr
Re:Not everyone has a darkroom. (Score:2)
And the developer.
And the fixer.
Re:Not everyone has a darkroom. (Score:2)
With the digital camera, you have a 1-time pollutant, assuming you use the same set of rechargable batteries.
Analong camera, you've got the fixer, stop bath, etc. These are diluted with water, but they aren't totally non-toxic, as evidenced by the developer room damage I have on my clothes. Then on top
Re:Not everyone has a darkroom. (Score:2)
Re:So (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:So (Score:2, Interesting)
First off, you've missed out an important p
Re:So (Score:2)
Did you shoot any theater? (Score:2)
One of these cameras would have been fabulous - I could have actually put the rest of the cast in the yearbook - as it was only the leads were
Re:So (Score:2)
I think the point of the invention is that it can do in digital exactly what your old Cannon cannot do.
I don't know why anyone modded your pretty lame troll up...
Re:So (Score:2)
Thundercats (Score:4, Funny)
I'd settle for X-ray glasses.
Re:Thundercats (Score:2)
The implications are astounding (Score:2, Funny)
Down already, hrmm... (Score:5, Funny)
Digital photography needs LESS DoF, not MORE. (Score:5, Insightful)
I guess an extremely deep DoF is preferable in some cases, but in a lot of photography, it is desirable to use a shallow DoF in order to throw everything other than the subject out of focus (making for a nice, pleasing, soft background and drawing attention to the subject). This is very difficult to do with small-sensor digital cameras.
So I wonder if these "wavy lenses" can be used "in reverse" to narrow the depth of field for the purposes of enhancing creative DoF control?
Cheers,
Jeremy
Re:Digital photography needs LESS DoF, not MORE. (Score:4, Insightful)
In the end, I would rather have to throw away extra data rather than never have the data in the first place.
Re:Digital photography needs LESS DoF, not MORE. (Score:2)
The CDM-optics site seems to be slashdotted already. But a google search for cdm-optics and wavefront turned up this link [colorado.edu] and these pictures. [colorado.edu]
Re:Digital photography needs LESS DoF, not MORE. (Score:2)
Although it's a perfectly good technique, there are many other ways of getting the same results through composition that are more pleasing to the eye.
Re:Digital photography needs LESS DoF, not MORE. (Score:5, Informative)
I've never met a consumer-grade digital camera with decent aperature range or depth of field. IMHO the new "wavy lens" technology can only be of benefit. (Assuming it actually works.)
Re:Digital photography needs LESS DoF, not MORE. (Score:3, Interesting)
What we want is control of depth-of-field. Lenses produce different effect in the out-of-focus parts of the image. There are great debates about the quality of this part of the image. Some of the best lenses for great "bokeh" are made by Leica.
Space Tech Spinoff Again! (Score:3, Informative)
I couldn't help but think back to the problem with the Hubble Space Telescope [nevada.edu], wherein after the launch they discovered that the mirror had not been properly ground to specification.
Re:Space Tech Spinoff Again! (Score:2)
I think that's just Murphy's law.
- "Everything ready to go?"
- "Check, and double-check, sir!"
- "Great, we'll launch in 10 minutes!"
[15 minutes later...]
- "You mean the checklist page is double-sided?!"
Re:Space Tech Spinoff Again! (Score:2)
very cool (Score:5, Informative)
Here's a bit of background: in photography or laser scanning (point-by-point photography, basically), you always have a trade-off between depth-of-field and aperture size (as any photographer knows). Bigger aperture means shallow depth-of-field. However, a smaller aperture means lots of wasted light (imagine closing the aperture in your camera), and this means longer exposure times, and more importantly more NOISE in your images. This is true for digital, film, or photodetector.
So the "holy grail" is to keep the aperture open but still have high depth-of-field. This system depends on changing the phase of the light, instead of the amplitude (which is what you do when you stop down a lens to a smaller aperture). That way, no light energy is blocked and wasted.
Since the phase is changed, the resulting image on the CCD or film is fuzzy and has to be "decoded". You can think of it as "encoding" the wavefront in a special way that preserves the depth of field, capturing the image, and then "decoding" it into a sharp picture. It is really amazing. I hope it shows up in consumer cameras someday, it could completely change consumer photography since most "snapshot photographers" don't care about depth of field or all that stuff. It will also be great for medical and industrial imaging.
My system was sort of a hybrid between shading the aperture (instead of a sudden stopping of light, it gradually goes to black at the edge) and phase changes. Lots of people have been working on this problem over the years, but these guys really stripped the problem down to the essence and came up with a highly optimized solution.
Re:very cool (Score:4, Funny)
I did my master's research in extended depth-of-field optics
Was he a cruel master, or a tough but fair one? :) </lame>
Glitter and pepper (Score:2)
When I first saw the article it sounded like the post-processing that is done to improve the focus of images that were originally taken out-of-focus. You can extract a lot of features by convolving an image with the inverse of the defocussing
Re:Glitter and pepper (Score:3, Informative)
So is my film scanner obsolete? (Score:2, Interesting)
And I'm always leary of adopting a new technology that is monopolized by a single provider.
What?! (Score:5, Funny)
What about the deep focus movies of the 50's? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:What about the deep focus movies of the 50's? (Score:4, Interesting)
1) Throw a shitload of light on the scene (This is what they did for the effects work on "Darby O'Gill and the Little People..Peter Jackson eat your heart out)
2) Use a diopter, a lense that changes focal length split down the middle, so that half the image is at 20mm, and the other half is at 120mm (for instance). This was a trick pioneered by Orson Wells, I beleive.
Re:What about the deep focus movies of the 50's? (Score:3, Interesting)
Take a look at shots from "The Best Years of Our Lives" (1946)
BTW, Toland died in 1948, so I should have said movies of the 40's, not 50's.
Wow, a good patent (Score:4, Funny)
NASA docking camera? (Score:3, Interesting)
I'd go and find it but NS archives are subscription only. I really ought to get round to subscribing, I buy it often enough...
-Baz
what is more interesting to me as a photographer.. (Score:5, Interesting)
is this: Can this technology be used to control (not just increase, but also decrease) depth of field at image processing time? More specifically, can I get selective focus *after* creating the image? In criticizing my own work, I ususally wish I had openned up for *less* depth of field. I realize that sports photographers don't have this problem
University site with original papers (Score:4, Informative)
Re:University site with original papers (Score:3, Interesting)
downside, namely it introduces its own artefacts,
similar to ghosting. Look at http://www.colorado.edu/isl/intimages/focusinv.ht
and this will become clear. I wonder if this is
inherent in their technique or just the imperfections
of "1.0 release" of their tech.
Re:MOD PARENT UP! (Score:3, Informative)
From skimming the website of the Imaging Systems Laboratory at the University of Colorado at Boulder (directed by W.T. Cathey, who wrote one of the standard texts on opt
More info from Boulderdaily Camera (Score:2, Informative)
Boulderdailycamera [boulderdailycamera.com]
Boulder startup gets deal with major optics player
By Anthony Lane
For the Camera
A Boulder-based startup, which makes technology that greatly improves the clarity of images through a lens, is poised to grow after signing a deal with one of the world's premier lens and microelectronics makers.
CDM Optics is a private company with sales last year of about $1 million, according to R.C. "Merc" Mercure, CDM's chairman and chief executive.
Next year, sales are expected to do
more images online here (Score:2, Informative)
more images of increased depth [colorado.edu]
More information (Score:2, Informative)
Here is a news paper article.
http://www.boulderdailycamera.com/busin
and another.
http://www.alteich.com/tidbits/t012802.
and some images.
http://www.colorado.edu/isl/intimages/3c
"Economist" article (Score:4, Informative)
http://www.economist.com/science/tq/displayStory.c fm?story_id=1476751 [economist.com]
So? (Score:3, Informative)
Only amateurs want "everything from here to infinity" to be in-focus.
The advantages of selective depth-of-field cannot be understated. The ability to have the background be completely soft and have the subject be the only thing in sharp focus (thereby drawing the viewer's attention to it) is a huge advantage of film over digital.
For example, on Attack of the Clones, the guys at ILM actually had to process the images to give them less depth-of-field, because the cameras couldn't get as little depth-of-field as the cinematographer wanted.
Re:first and still /. ed? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:first and still /. ed? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:first and still /. ed? (Score:2)
It's a php page serving images (Score:3, Informative)
I hope the heatsinks work!
Re:first and still /. ed? (Score:3, Funny)
Yeah, but the text is real sharp, isn't it?
Re:Offline (Score:5, Funny)
Could this mean that, I shudder to say,
Re:Offline (Score:2)
Re:Offline (Score:2)
I just wanted to see the nice pictures.
I already did! (Score:2, Interesting)
but now, all pictures are cataloggued online, so any family member can just browse it on the internet, choose what they want, and prin whatever they choose!
I suddenly appear printer all over my families living rooms!
Savings? When I had an old camera, each picture HAD to be a special moment because
Re:I already did! (Score:2)
Re:I can't believe it!! (Score:2)
Quick Depth of Field tutorial (Score:4, Informative)
This technology doesn't take a fundamentally blurred image and sharpen it; instead it looks like it uses very precisely waved lenses to create interference in the light coming through the lens, which is then digitally deconstructed to provide a sharp image with a VERY deep DoF. I can't get to their site to read up on this, but I'd guess there's probably some sort of differential-focus setup (2 lenses, focused at either end of your DoF, generating interference) and a lot of Fourier transforms. But that's just an educated guess based on what I know about optics and waveforms - YMMV, my $0.02, caveat emptor, IANAL, and I haven't had PhysChem in a year. Feel free to add any other disclaimers I left out.