The Light L16 Camera

                         The Light L16 Camera

The camera startup Light began shipping out the first L16 cameras to pre-order customers last year. If you want to see what the 16-camera camera can do, the company has also released a set of full-resolution photos for you to pixel peel.

In case you haven’t been following this camera’s journey, here’s the gist: a startup called Light has created a camera called the L16 that contains 16 separate camera modules on its front surface.

 The images captured by these modules are combined into single photos, giving the camera some groundbreaking features. These include 52-megapixel+ photos, 5x optical zoom, ultra-low light performance, depth of field control, and more, all in a relatively small compact camera.

A revolutionary optics architecture

The L16 replaces the bulk and weight of a traditional single-lens camera with many small lenses and sensors that lie at 45-degree angles across a flat plane. When the L16 is fired, light enters 10 or more apertures. Using folded optics, the L16 bounces this light off periscopic mirrors, through horizontal lens barrels and onto individual optical sensors. The result is one exquisite 52MP photo, formed from 10+ slightly different perspectives.

 

Ten quality images fused together

When the L16 takes a picture, 10 or more cameras fire simultaneously, capturing slightly different perspectives of the same scene. The L16 intelligently chooses a combination of its 28mm, 70mm, and 150mm modules to use in each shot, depending on the level of zoom. These individual shots are then computationally fused together to create an incredibly high-resolution 52MP photograph

5x Continuous Optical Zoom

The L16’s robust optical engine allows you to zoom continuously from 28mm to 150mm with outstanding detail at every focal length. As you zoom in or out, the L16 intelligently chooses the best combination of 28mm, 70mm, and 150mm camera modules for your scene, adjusting its mirrors to support various fields of view. When a scene is captured, sophisticated algorithms overlay exposures from higher focal lengths (i.e. 70mm) on top of those from lower focal lengths (i.e. 28mm), producing a photo with exceptional quality and detail throughout.

 

 Light just released three full-resolution photos showing what the L16 can do. The first is the largest of the three. It’s a massive 81-megapixel picture of a man in a field holding a machete (you can download the full-res version click here)

 One thing we see is that there’s a relatively shallow depth of field given that the Light L16 has the form factor of a large compact camera.


                                    Here’s what a 100% crop on the man’s face looks like:

The second sample photo is a 65.89-megapixel landscape photo of Horseshoe Bend in Arizona (click here):

Here’s a 100% crop showing the details of the blue boats and people at the very bottom of the frame

 Finally, the third full-res sample photo is a 53-megapixel shot of the Point Reyes shipwreck (the full-res can be downloaded here)

                        Here’s a 100% crop showing the details of where the boat meets the grass:

 There’s a large gallery of low-resolution L16 sample photos as well on the Light website.

Light says the L16 is currently completely sold out. If you’re interested in getting your hands on the $1,699 camera, you can sign up for the mailing list to be notified when the company begins taking orders again later this year.

 thanks for reading.