Is this even Possible ??

All right you techie guys. I got somethin for ya

I had a very interesting conversation with a couple of software guys on my flight back to washington this weekend.
As luck would have it, I was sitting next a chinese guy and an Indian guy that both looked like they were graduates from MIT. They were talking software and photography came up in their conversation so naturally i introduced myself and struck up a conversation with them.

After I told them what I did, they started asking me some questions. Probably to see if i was BSing them. They said, have you seen the software that lets you move the focal points around and other software that i have read about. When i replied yes the conversation really took off. BTW, super cool guys that were waaaaaaaay smarter than your truly.
I mentioned to them about the new 5Ds and how you can choose 1.0, 1.3. & 1.6 format in the camera software. The chinese guy says - "Yes we helped with that development ". My Jaw just about hit the floor. So I really listened to what he was saying.

He asked me how many lens I currently have. When i told him, he said something that blew me away.

They are working on cameras and software that have one single lens on the body, and, you can go into the camera menus and select the FOV you want and lens application you are looking for. So in other words, in your software, you can select 85L or say 24-70 and its going to give you those looks with one single lens and body.
This blew me away. The guy was dead serious. He indicates everything that is being developed for photography is in the software ,lens development and now this new body he was talking about

So Now Im wondering if this is even remotely a possibility.

These guys were super cool and I have no reason to not believe them.

what do you think ? That would put the DSLR out of existence if it actually came to be. Is this even remotely possible ?
Still kind of blown away by the conversations i had with these 2 guys about photography software and development of future products with photography.

I'm sure it is possible. The description sounds similar to a Lytro.
Personally, I don't see this making DSLRs or mirrorless cameras obsolete/extinct. I see this as the camera in a cell phone somewhere down the road.

Would it be very different from having a whole lot of zoom?

I would think that if you had a lens that was 14-200mm f/1.2 then the camera could "simulate" anything between those two ranges with an aperature smaller than f/1.2. Of course, that particular lens would be ridiculous.

So I'm really dumb in this area, but as far as the crop factor goes (1.0, 1.3, 1.6) isn't that simply so you would have more diverse lenses to use? I mean, all it's doing is cropping into the frame and blowing up the result a bit. It's giving you the illusion of more reach but it's not really there. In essence kind of like digital zoom on a p&s? This is cool to be able to do this in camera, but if what I'm thinking is correct, it wouldn't necessarily be considered "cutting edge". It's the same thing we've been doing in post since the digital age. In my mind the equivalent of in camera monochrome and B&W. Please educate me if I'm wrong, because I want to become more knowledgeable on the technical side of cameras.

I think you have it right.

The advantage of an actual "crop sensor" camera is more pixels on target vs a full frame of equal MP. However, for the 5Ds this amounts to and in camera, pre exposure crop.

Got it. Thanks for the reply.

umphotography wrote in post #17489753
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They are working on cameras and software that have one single lens on the body, and, you can go into the camera menus and select the FOV you want and lens application you are looking for. So in other words, in your software, you can select 85L or say 24-70 and its going to give you those looks with one single lens and body.
This blew me away. The guy was dead serious. He indicates everything that is being developed for photography is in the software ,lens development and now this new body he was talking about

This has always been available. This is called a super-zoom P/S or compact. One camera, one lens, and a great number of focal lengths with the corresponding field of views. Couple that technology with the Lytro sustem and you also have the ability to re-focus in post processing as well.
...

umphotography wrote in post #17489753
what do you think ? That would put the DSLR out of existence if it actually came to be. Is this even remotely possible ?...

No, software is slick and can mimic many different things, but nothing will beat actual optical properties. You might simulate different lens field of views by simply cropping an image, just as today's crop bodies simulate a lens being longer than it's actual focal length, it doesn't change the lenses actual optical properties. A 400mm lens on a crop camera looks like a 600mm but it's not going to beat a FF camera with an actual 600mm lens. It's still a 400mm lens with the edges cropped out of the picture simulating a longer lens.

As has been pointed out, it sounds like digital zoom coupled with Lytro style image capture. Beyond that, you still can't mimic a shift lens with software.

Scatterbrained wrote in post #17490212
As has been pointed out, it sounds like digital zoom coupled with Lytro style image capture. Beyond that, you still can't mimic a shift lens with software.

Well, you can.. sort of.. if you're looking to go blurry and maybe Lytro could do the same using a tilted focal plane. But still, it's not going to replace an optical solution. It might simulate it and do it decently but it will never be as good.

gjl711 wrote in post #17490218
But still, it's not going to replace an optical solution.

plenoptic cameras are an optical solution. It is not simply taking a couple of pictures and then choosing which to use for focus, it uses MANY micro lenses that give hundreds, or many hundreds, of individual images. The software then interprets the relationship between each image so that it understands the spacial differences between objects in the scene. Once it understands what is going on in the image you could put the plane of focus anywhere you want. And I'm fairly certain it doesn't have to be parallel to the sensor.

It can't change perspective, but assuming you put a wide angle lens in front of the micro lenses, and you shoot with a super high res camera, you can adjust many perspective issues in post.

this stuff is mind blowing.

gjl711 wrote in post #17490218
Well, you can.. sort of.. if you're looking to go blurry and maybe Lytro could do the same using a tilted focal plane. But still, it's not going to replace an optical solution. It might simulate it and do it decently but it will never be as good.

Well, there's more to a tilt/shift than that "miniature", effect. For example, you can place the camera in front of a mirror and shift the lens, allowing you to get a clean shot of the mirror without the camera showing up in the frame. Here's an example from the 24 tse manual:

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Scatterbrained wrote in post #17490241
Well, there's more to a tilt/shift than that "miniature", effect. For example, you can place the camera in front of a mirror and shift the lens, allowing you to get a clean shot of the mirror without the camera showing up in the frame. Here's an example from the 24 tse manual:

I think that was my point.

gjl711 wrote in post #17490186
A 400mm lens on a crop camera looks like a 600mm but it's not going to beat a FF camera with an actual 600mm lens. It's still a 400mm lens with the edges cropped out of the picture simulating a longer lens.

I hate to even bring this up because this is very often true BUT......there is so much to factor in here, and so much misunderstanding of the basic physics involved, that I'll suggest that one be careful that the generalization is not ALWAYS correct. As in life, there are always some exceptions.

A good, high-density, small-sensor camera with a great quality shorter 400mm or 500mm lens can outperform many FF cameras even with a 600mm lens, for CERTAIN types of shots - basically, for any super telephoto work where one wants or needs to crop the image, thus making the wide FOV advantage of the FF to be meaningless.

In these cases, the higher density of the small-sensor camera acts EXACTLY like a longer lens on the lower density camera (FF camera), assuming that we are not diffraction limited and that the denser sensor camera has sufficient signal-noise performance.

This is because the "true" resolution of the desired object in the image is dependent on BOTH the focal length AND the sensor density. NEITHER of these has any greater importance on the RESOLUTION of that object (euphemistically called "pixels on target").

For example, a NEX-7 camera with its 0.00388 mm pixel pitch sensor, when combined with a 500mm lens and 2x TC offers up 0.800 arc-seconds/pixel of plate scale resolution, with very acceptable signal/noise performance.

Compare a Canon 5Diii FF camera with its 0.00622 mm pixel pitch sensor, when combined with a 600mm lens + 2x TC, offers up 1.07 arc-seconds/pixel of plate scale resolution.

The higher density NEX-7 camera thus provides 32% more resolution than the FF camera in this example.

All of the FF camera's FOV advantage is thrown away in the crop.

While the FF camera likely will provide better signal/noise performance at the pixel level, it is not enough to compensate for the added resolution of the higher density smaller sensor camera, and, furthermore, optical diffraction is not a significant issue with either of these optical configurations.

So, in summary, I'd agree with the generalization (a FF camera with a longer lens is GENERALLY a better bet), but not ALWAYS!

For very long telephoto work like moon shots, bird and wildlife shots, the smaller, higher density cameras offer some very REAL advantages, especially when combined with equivalent length lenses, but as in this case, sometimes even with shorter length lenses.

Having said all of that, it's absolutely true that the FF cameras offer SIGNIFICANT other advantages over smaller sensor cameras, and these are well recognized. I just wanted to point out the difficulty with the generalizations for long telephoto work....