Lytro is another interesting camera technology. It is a focusless camera. To explain this, we’ll share an explanation from their website:
“Unlike a conventional camera that captures a single plane of light, the Lytro camera captures the entire light field, which is all the light traveling in every direction in every point in space.”
There are two advantages to this. First, it allows you to focus in on individual objects in the frame after the fact. Additionally, since there is no focus, images are captured instantly, without any delay for an auto-focus feature to adjust the lens.
This photo gives you a good idea of the size of the camera.
This type of camera could prove most useful as a vacuum-style collection system. Turn it on and let it run in a wide area surveillance mode, shooting photo after photo after photo. Later, the imagery could be analyzed in a forensic mode to spot individual phenomenon. The fact that such technologies are becoming more widely available at the consumer level makes them great candidates for disruptive technologies.
