Meet Cambits. Cambits consist of colorful cube modules that stick together via powerful magnets, using near-frequency signals to automatically configure based on which module is being used. The result is everything from digital stereo images to HDR to soft-focus portraits; and the type of image changes, depending on how you configure the blocks. Welcome to the world of modular photography. Is this what the future of cameras will look like?
The building blocks of the camera include sensor blocks, “lenslett” blocks, flash blocks, optical attachments, a microscope, filters, an actuator (shutter release) and spacers and base blocks to give the camera a logical shape. The blocks attach to each other via powerful magnets and communicate wirelessly with each other.
The whole thing can be controlled via a host device such as a laptop or tablet. The design allows the host computer to automatically recognize the configuration without the need for any programming or adjusting any settings.
“Instead of one thing that takes one kind of images, now we have a kit that you can put together to create a new camera,” says inventor Shree K. Nayar of New York University (NYU). Makoto Odamaki, a camera engineer at Ricoh, was visiting NYU a few years ago and was also considering reconfigurable cameras that would go beyond the scope of the Ricoh RXG. A two-year project ensued. “We had to rethink the design of the camera as a whole.”
Here’s a partial list of the parts that have been constructed for this project so far:
- 12mm f/2 lens
- 8mm f/2 lens
- 43mm f/2 lens
- fisheye lens
- Teleidoscope
- 7-lenslett lens array
- warming filter
- soft-focus filter
- Polarizer
- 1.3MP sensor
- Actuator (shutter release)
- Single and double base
- LED Flash
- Microscope
While the 1.3MP sensor is unimpressive, it’s a placeholder; if and when such a system was to go to market, the resolution will be much higher.
Using computational photography technology, users will be able to capture:
- HDR
- Microscopic images
- Stitch-together collages
- Light field (refocusing) images
- Kaleidoscope
- Stereo Panorama
- Anaglyph (3d with special glasses)
- Dual-image stereo photos
…and regular photographs.
A collaboration between Columbia University’s Shree K. Nayar and Makoto Odamaki, a digital camera engineer for Ricoh, Cambits is a work in progress; it’s an open-source digital photography/imaging-based system that can be reconfigured to very specific needs. When will it come to market? Time will tell.
