This has been the hardest story I’ve ever written simply because of the way the camera looks. If you have Trypophobia, you’ve been warned!
The problem with getting started on a DSLR is that you have to fork out a tonne of cash to be able to afford a decent body plus a lens. Sure some of you might say that you’re OK with the kit lens, but let’s face it, we all want a red band around our lens. Unless you’re not using a Canon device.
A startup called Light is trying to change that with their L16 camera — a camera that has 16 lenses packed into a body small enough to fit in your pocket.
Well, sort of. By Mashable’s estimate, the camera is about the size of three iPhone 6 Pluses stacked together. It probably won’t fit in your skinny jeans then. Nevertheless, it is still an impressive feat that they managed to cram that much tech and that many lenses into a body so small. Oh, did we mention it’s powered by a Snapdragon 820 SoC?
On the hardware side of things, this camera has 16 (5x35mm, 5x70mm, 6x150mm) different prime lenses that work together to take an image. The camera sets it up in a way that — depending on your zoom and framing — 10 lenses will fire at the same time, taking different quadrants of an image. Note that Mashable says the device has 120mm lenses instead of 150mm lenses, but from the company’s video and several other sites, they say that it uses 150mm lenses.
The camera then stitches the 10 images together to form a high 52-megapixel image that is should eliminate quality loss normally experienced at the fringes of a lens. These lenses don’t use any kind of fancy glass, instead, they all use f/2.4 P5 plastic lenses coupled with smartphone camera sensors. Plus, since it uses so many lenses at so many different focal lengths, Light claims that the camera has a near infinite depth of field — something you can adjust in post processing.
Sporting a 5″ touchscreen paired with a Snapdragon 820 SoC and an interface based off of Android M, this device looks to bring camera and smartphone imaging technology closer together. Don’t be fooled, this doesn’t have a cellular modem so you can’t make phone calls.
A best of both worlds then? We certainly hope so.
News of this little guy has been floating around for quite awhile now but recently Mashable got to take a look at one of the prototypes for the device. According to them, the photo stitching on the prototype took a little while to process (it ultimately froze), with the company stating that they’re trying to get the image stitching and processing down to below 1 minute. A pretty ridiculous waiting time for a photo if you ask me.
The silver lining is that the processing time is only for the 52-megapixel image, so if you want to post a quick snap on social media, the camera will generate a lower quality image for you. My nose is wrinkling in annoyance.
According to Mashable, when Light compared the images between an iPhone, Canon 5D Mark III and the Light L16, they were impressed with how detailed the L16 images were but noted that there was a lot of image noise. Battery life on the other hand, Mashable says that the company ballparks it at about 400 shots.
While this is a noble attempt at killing our tried and tested DSLR cameras, it seems like it is still a long way off from actually dealing the final blow. Even if the software is perfected and the device works wonderfully, we (like Mashable) believe that the DSLR will continue to live on and be the primary tool for professional photographers.
For events and on-the-go photography though, we can see how this device can be very useful for the professionals thanks to it’s portability and, hopefully, stellar image quality. We will have to see how it stacks up against other compact monsters like the Sony RX100 series before jumping to a conclusion though.
That said, if this device works out, it could be a great (and much cheaper, coming in at USD1,699 which is around RM7452) alternative to the DSLR for hobbyists and prosumers. Exciting stuff then!
