We all like mirrorless cameras but I never thought we could go so far to also get rid of the glass of the lens to take images. Engineers at Duke University now created a metamaterial imaging sensor that doesn’t require a lens to generate a picture. Engadget reports: “The sensor is a flexible copper-plated sheet patterned with small squares that capture various light frequencies all at once, functioning like one big aperture. Add a few circuits with a pinch of software and the sensor-only camera can produce up to ten images per second, but the catch is Duke’s only works at microwave frequencies. Microwave imaging is used plenty, however, and due to its flexibility and lack of moving parts, the sensor could be used to build better integrated, cheaper airport scanners and vehicle collision avoidance technology — making you safer however you choose to travel. Unless you take the train. Then you’re on your own.“
This may be the future of digital Imaging…sometimes between 2170 and 2300. So keep your (real) mirrorless camera for now!
9 Responses
If I’m forced to chose between no-lens and the lens – I would chose the lens! Though, yeah, it doesn’t fit the pocket.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravitational_lens
🙂
So how would you get a wider or longer perspective from this so-called lensless camera, I wonder.
mhh sounds more like a sensor than a camera.. and i dont see how the lack of a lens makes it less mirrorless 😉 anyhow, the whole purpose of a pro camera to me is to give you creative freedom, this kinda sounds like it has infinite dof and i cant see that very attractive to photogs..
Yeah, who knew you could take pictures without a lens!
..Pinhole..cough..
Well… If you’ve heard of Ray Kurzweil predictions and the way they become reality and the mechanics of Evolution (biologic or electronic), this reality may be with us withing 10 years.
The economic model for photography will eventually collapes and big names in optics will surely feel the ghosts of Kodak and Polaroid on their back eventually, so a big resistance for change will push everything back another 10 years.
So 20 years max, not 2300…