DailyDirt: New-Fangled Cameras

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Mon, Jul 15th 2013 5:00pm — Joyce Hung

Advances in imaging technology abound these days, and there are some pretty interesting cameras out there. Not too long ago, Lytro introduced a new type of camera that lets users change the focus after the image is captured. It uses an array of microlenses on a digital image sensor to capture all the light fields within the area of the scene. Then, with special software, users can adjust the focal point of the image after it has already been taken. Here are a few more examples of some cool new imaging technologies.

Bell Labs researchers have developed lensless cameras that use only one or two pixels. The original design uses one pixel to create a normal image. The latest design uses two pixels to either take two different views of a scene, or to create a single high-resolution image in half the time. [url]
Researchers at Nanyang Technological University have developed an image sensor that will allow cameras to take clear and sharp photos in low lighting conditions. Made of graphene, the sensor is 1,000 times more sensitive to light than imaging sensors found in today's cameras, and it's believed to be the first that can detect broad spectrum light, from visible to mid-infrared. [url]
MIT researchers have developed a video technology called Eulerian Video Magnification that can detect information that can't be seen by the naked eye. By amplifying the motion in a standard video sequence, they were able to see blood flow pulsing through a person's face by detecting subtle differences in color, which could one day lead to smartphone cameras being able to measure a human pulse via the face or wrist. [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.

Filed Under: camera gear, cameras, eulerian video magnification, imaging, lensless, photos, pixels, sensors, video
Companies: bell labs, lytro

7 Comments

If you liked this post, you may also be interested in...

Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread

jhelgie (profile), 15 Jul 2013 @ 6:04pm

Important detail on the graphene sensor: (quoted from the link below) "But in the paper detailing their work, the researchers actually reported that the photo-responsivity (with high photoconductive gain) of the graphene sensor was three orders of magnitude greater than other graphene-based imaging sensors.]"

Emphasis on 'other graphene-based imaging sensors'.

http://spectrum.ieee.org/nanoclast/consumer-electronics/gadgets/graphene-image-sensor-a chieves-new-level-of-light-sensitivity
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Anonymous, 15 Jul 2013 @ 6:51pm

Great. More toys for the NSA and FBI.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
- Anonymous Coward, 16 Jul 2013 @ 12:13pm
  
  Re:
  Just what they need!
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
- Anonymous Coward, 16 Jul 2013 @ 12:14pm
  
  Re:
  Just what they need!
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
Anonymous Coward, 15 Jul 2013 @ 6:52pm

Bell Labs still exists?!
I thought AT&T killed it a long time ago....
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
OldMugwump (profile), 15 Jul 2013 @ 8:06pm

I call BS
"the sensor is 1,000 times more sensitive to light than imaging sensors found in today's cameras"

But typical CCD and CMOS sensors are have quantum efficiency in the range of 10% (cheap camera phone) to 95% (liquid-nitrogen-cooled back-thinned CCDs).

100% QE means you're detecting 100% of the photons that hit the sensor.

How exactly are they supposed to do 1000x better, then?

I call BS.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
- Anonymous Coward, 16 Jul 2013 @ 12:01pm
  
  Re: I call BS
  I agree.
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]