Thinking outside the (DSLR) box.

The last time a seriously funky camera concept came around I wrote excitedly about it, promptly doing a 180 a few months later describing the device as a solution looking for a problem. I was right second time and the Lytro company making this ‘after the event focus’ camera has been through multiple management changes and recapitalizations since, as it heads for bankruptcy. Its technically appealing technology had little popular appeal.

Now something perhaps even funkier has come along, the Light L16 which by using 16 lenses seeks to emulate FF DSLR quality with a 52mp image in a breast pocket-sized package. It will retail for some $1700, if it is ever made, that is. The makers claim that, like the Lytro, after the event depth of field adjustment is permitted (Lytro, to be exact, permits retrospective focus point selection, but the results are conceptually similar).

The Light L16.

My attention to the L16 was drawn by A friend of the blog who read my revisit to Ed Hebert in the preceding column here, where I mentioned that Ed had just earned his Masters in Information Technology, with a concentration in Digital Media Arts and Web Technologies. He writes:

” Of personal interest to me was the fact that Harvard now offers a degree of “Masters in Information Technology, with a concentration in Digital Media Arts and Web Technologies”. When I went there the first time, I was laughed at for suggesting a course in photography. When I returned 20 years later on a fellowship, there was a single course in photography that limited admission to 18 students (over 300 applied).”

The MIT Technology Review has an interesting piece on the Light L16 here.