New Camera in Development: I came across this article and thought members would be interested. This could have so many applications.

larrywilk Loc: Palm Harbor, FL

I came across this article and thought members would be interested. This could have so many applications.

https://phys.org/news/2022-04-prehistoric-creatures-record-setting-lenses.html?

Vaun's photography Loc: Bonney Lake, WA

larrywilk wrote:

I came across this article and thought members would be interested. This could have so many applications.

https://phys.org/news/2022-04-prehistoric-creatures-record-setting-lenses.html?

Thanks for sharing! This sounds like a fascinating design which could be incorporated into smartphones as well as other cameras.

Wakko12 Loc: New Hampshire

You will note that it only has two distances that are in focus. While a huge jump in evolution of the eye, not really useful for most photographers.

dennis2146 Loc: Eastern Idaho

Wakko12 wrote:

You will note that it only has two distances that are in focus. While a huge jump in evolution of the eye, not really useful for most photographers.

You have to start somewhere and this is a start.

Dennis

Wakko12 Loc: New Hampshire

dennis2146 wrote:

You have to start somewhere and this is a start.

Dennis

This isn’t a start, it can’t be adjusted if it’s a fixed lens. Really the shape of that eye is two fixed lenses, the front and the back, so it can only focus those two distances. This is not the start of a new type of lens. There’s a reason why evolution left this idea behind millions of years ago. It was a leap over the single focal point, but it couldn’t be improved on without making parts movable. That’s just the physics of lenses.

Robert1 Loc: Davie, FL

Wakko12 wrote:

This isn’t a start, it can’t be adjusted if it’s a fixed lens. Really the shape of that eye is two fixed lenses, the front and the back, so it can only focus those two distances. This is not the start of a new type of lens. There’s a reason why evolution left this idea behind millions of years ago. It was a leap over the single focal point, but it couldn’t be improved on without making parts movable. That’s just the physics of lenses.

I guess you guys missed the part where they explain how they fixed the in between out of focus part of the image. Per the article:

"Without further processing, however, that would leave objects at intermediate distances (several meters from the camera) unfocused. Agrawal and his colleagues used a neural network—a computer algorithm that mimics the human nervous system—to teach software to recognize and correct for defects such as blurriness and color aberration in the objects that resided midway between the near and far focus of the metalens. The team tested its camera by placing objects of various colors, shapes and sizes at different distances in a scene of interest and applying software correction to generate a final image that was focused and free of aberrations over the entire kilometer range of depth of field."

dennis2146 Loc: Eastern Idaho

Wakko12 wrote:

This isn’t a start, it can’t be adjusted if it’s a fixed lens. Really the shape of that eye is two fixed lenses, the front and the back, so it can only focus those two distances. This is not the start of a new type of lens. There’s a reason why evolution left this idea behind millions of years ago. It was a leap over the single focal point, but it couldn’t be improved on without making parts movable. That’s just the physics of lenses.

You make comments about fixed lens, shape of the eye, only focus two distances. Those are not hindrances but opportunities to make it work. Why would you even think otherwise? Rocketships were once nothing but an idea, eyeglasses were at one time just a gimmick, digital camera were once on the drawing board with many people thinking, this will never work. Are you not capable of thinking positively about something new?

Dennis

MDI Mainer

dennis2146 wrote:

. . . Are you not capable of thinking positively about something new?

Unfortunately a not uncommon problem on UHH!

This is exciting work, but likely a wait before there is a commercial application, and that's typical of new cutting-edge technology.

scubadoc Loc: Sarasota, FL

As an aside, the limulus, or horseshoe crab, has been extensively studied by neurophysiologists for the last decade or two for insights into how vision works in the human. Much of our understanding of human vision has resulted from this research. If the limulus can evolve into the human eye, it should be able to evolve into a simple camera.

RodeoMan Loc: St Joseph, Missouri

This was interesting. A few years ago, I read as fascinating book, Trilobytes, by Richard Fortney, paleontologist with the British Museum of Natural History. I was surprised to learn that their eyes were not soft tissue, but were constructed or comprised of a crystalline material. There may be all sorts of issues to deal with, but I agree with Dennis, "Its a start".

SteveFranz Loc: Durham, NC

Sounds like it would have amazing potential as this new technology develops.

scubadoc Loc: Sarasota, FL

For those interested, do a Google search on “limulus and human vision” and see how the eye of the simple horseshoe crab led to so many interesting discoveries about human vision.