Flexible Depth of Field Photography

The range of scene depths that appear focused in an image is known as the depth of field (DOF). Conventional cameras are limited by a fundamental trade-off between depth of field and signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). For a dark scene, the aperture of the lens must be opened up to maintain SNR, which causes the DOF to reduce. Also, today's cameras have DOFs that correspond to a single slab that is perpendicular to the optical axis. In this paper, we present an imaging system that enables one to control the DOF in new and powerful ways. Our approach is to vary the position and/or orientation of the image detector, during the integration time of a single photograph. Even when the detector motion is very small (tens of microns), a large range of scene depths (several meters) is captured both in and out of focus. Our prototype camera uses a micro-actuator to translate the detector along the optical axis during image integration. Using this device, we demonstrate three applications of flexib...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2008
• Where: ECCV
• Authors: Hajime Nagahara, Sujit Kuthirummal, Changyin Zhou, Shree K. Nayar
• Keywords: Computer Vision, ECCV 2008, Extended Dof, Field The Depth, Flexible Dof Imaging, Image Detector, Scene Depths