The idea of cameras and lenses that let you refocus your photos after shooting has been around for a while. But after Lytro, another one seems to have failed. K|Lens One, a light field lens that captures depth information, has canceled its Kickstarter campaign and it won’t be launched after all.
K|Lens One, the world’s first light field imaging lens, is finally being released next week
The whole “light field” thing caused a bit of a buzz a few years back when Lytro started announcing light field cameras. They looked like the kind of futuristic photography tech we’d see in Blade Runner or Minority Report, allowing us to shift focus after the fact and look at a true 3D scene. After shifting their focus from photography to video, killing off their sharing platforms, and ultimately selling out to Google, not much has been said about the tech since.
Now, though, the K|Llens One lens, teased earlier this year by German company K|Lens, is finally about to release on Kickstarter. They say that this is the world’s first light field lens that can be used with regular DSLR and mirrorless cameras – and it works for both stills and video. Designed for full-frame cameras, the lens is a “ground-breaking mix of state-of-the-art lens and software technology” which K|Lens says will open up new worlds of creativity to users.
The K|Lens One turns any camera into a light field camera to capture both image and depth information
Although the idea’s been around for a while, it wasn’t until Lytro came along with their whole “this camera lets you refocus in post” talk that the whole Light Field Photography thing really hit the popular consciousness. Now, it’s been around for a little bit, and while Lytro switched from photography to Hollywood, ditched their previous customers and sold out to Google, they weren’t the only player in the game.
The new K|Lens One, which appears to be launching via Kickstarter soon, makes similar claims to those of the Lytro cameras of old, capturing both image and depth information simultaneously in a single image. Except, this isn’t a whole camera system. It’s just a lens and it goes straight onto the camera you already own.
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