We know Light 16 camera from a while. The light L16 camera was made with 16 independent camera module in a compact body to create DSLR like out of focus performance. Literally it was being called a true DSLR killer.
However the camera received a mixed response from the market and pixel peeper group wasn’t so happy with the file merging capability of the camera. Of-course it will become better with time and firmware updates.
Now, According to latest news the light L16 company is developing a smartphone that could have 9 camera module on the rear side.
That’s really interesting because the L16 compact camera have a 16 set of camera modules and the smartphone that is expected to arrive at the end of 2018 is said to have nine independent camera module inside which is of course look far advance than today’s 3 camera module based smartphones.
But, at the same time the camera isn’t so cheap and we are also expecting the smartphone will going to be very expensive and out of reach for general smartphone consumers.
But that’s all really nice moves to upscale the computational photography to a next level, and once light launches smartphone in market. Then many other smartphone makers will going to create similar solution and affordable price tags to beat it. As we have generally seen in the smartphone market when a particular company address a new feature inside smartphone, other manufacturers also copy they accept by lowering down the price to compete against each other.
Well that’s important news to me because the smartphone camera market is now getting more serious day by day. And if light enters into smartphones section then yes I will even interested in buying one [if my pocket allows].
Being said that I also expect that in near future with the improvement in computational photography Technology will going to attract professional shooters to compact solutions.
Presumably they are going to develop some sort of virtual reality headset/eyeset to reproduce what is seen on the screen of the phone as is seen in the viewfinder of a (DSLR)camera so that more detailed control over the image can be obtained. ATM that is what is lacking when using a mobile phone camera.
I really admire new tech. But I don’t like to be a customer of GAS…
All you guys are doing is improving smartphone camera… nothing else.. and you should do.
DSLRs and Mirrorless have different space… people like casy. peter use 1DX Mk II for vlogging despite of having all the mighty gadgets they have…
So, fact of the matter is … you should create tech that people actually need.
At last. They were talking figures in an interview. Sensor and lens $5 or less (maybe it was $3). I imagine the 9 sensors will not be more than 9x this in cost, but it is a way to do something with one sensor and 9 lens. The L16 had major development costs behind it, and limited sales to pay for it, but lots of investment I believe. Now, that cost is past, the deal with the phone might fit in the current luxury phone segment. But realistically, depending on how much you are trying to do, it could fit in a $699 or $500 one. If you did a 9 lens on a 4k sensor for 720p, you could do a $300 phone. The company has its own asic designs, but depending on what you were doing existing processing can handle various things. The problem is people don’t do much optimising these days. So people think that the clunky android phone acting like a commode 64 with a bug, represents the limits of what phones can do. But it is about optimised design and optimised implementation, from the concept to the routines to the hardware. 5nm node technology hopefully will be enough.
Anyway. I doubt it will be as capable as a Red Hydrogen with multi point module, but be what should have been, but maybe limited.
Didn’t Nikon, Fuji, or someone, show a patent on a multipoint consumer camera, with a diagram similar to their existing cameras a few years ago?