This Doesn't Suck » cameras

Light Field Photography – Lytro is going to change cameras forever

Matt Weier — Wed, 22 Jun 2011 22:02:14 +0000

While the above technical demo video of this new technology may seem less inspiring, It’s mindblowing once it sinks in how radically “traditional digital photography” will be left behind once the tech hits the market.

The interactive demo hosted at Lytro is much more breathtaking at its ability to help visualize what it feels like to have a photo that is freed from the constraints of a defined focus.

Fast Company has further ramblings on some of the many possible impacts this could have on the market.

A Camera that learns what it’s watching

Matt Weier — Wed, 06 Apr 2011 17:49:30 +0000

Check out this amazing detail recognition and tracking camera technology, code-named “Predator”. Not only can you show it something to watch, it will learn how that reference looks even as it moves, rotates and reappears in other forms (like a photo). To learn more about the inventor, check out Zdenek Kalals’ page on it.

No doubt this guy already has a cushy job working for his local spy network.

3D Facial Animation Techniques Continue to Evolve

Matt Weier — Tue, 21 Dec 2010 21:13:19 +0000

Hand-tweened facial mapping and 3D animation has always been one of the hardest things to make convincing. There’s just something… human… that can’t be easily recreated in a virtual character. Especially not in the lower-polygon meshes used by 3D gaming.

However, thanks to some of the latest facial actor capture technology in play at Rockstar Games, all of that is changing like never before as seen here in the upcoming L.A. Noire game.

via Devour

Amazing Cardboard Cameras by Kiel Johnson

Matt Weier — Tue, 07 Dec 2010 19:14:29 +0000

Artists are constantly reinventing things. Claes Oldenburg was a huge proponent of seeing products and every day objects in a new way through his series of soft sculpture as well as his enormous enlargements.

In a recent series of cardboard sculpture by Kiel Johnson, it’s cameras. By removing their functionality and shifting them into simpler materials like cardboard, you can really get some insight into form vs. function.