[Kayaker-J]

The day is coming, as they have already accomplished this in research on a small scale...I've seen it. There is a paper describing it with examples posted around here somewhere. What it was...was they used extremely simple optics -- one or two element lenses that produced crappy blurry images but then applied the knowledge of the way the light was spreading etc (point spread functions and things I don't understand) to "fix it" in the computer and end up with images that look they were shot with much higher-end lenses. I don't see any reason why such ideas could not be applied to diffraction. I've actually been dabbling with something similar myself, but with a totally different approach (since I don't understand point spread functions, etc). I've seen similar "fixing" of motion-blurred images by use of motion sensors at capture time to record the vibrations. The idea (put simply) in either case is that the light is supposed to be here, but it is somewhere else instead (but still captured), and so if you can model or have a profile of the way it went wrong, you can undo it and put the light back where it is supposed to be. Seems like making a diffraction profile of a particular lens at a particular aperture would actually be one of the easier and most obvious applications of such tech, and so it starts...

You are correct. The editorial release summarizing that research appeared in a 'Science Daily' news aggregation, which I see in my inbox every day I have some time to keep up. As with most of these reports on leading edge research, practical commercial applications are projected to be years away. However, it isn't as if sophisticated processing of blurry, pre-processed output from Bayer type sensors isn't occurring today with every shot. Anyone who realizes that a RAW file is processed and has seen an example of truly pre-processed sensor output knows what I am saying.

[Digitalis]

The problem is more on the opposite.... Where are the f/1 lenses? and f/0.7 lenses to get shallow deph of field?

If you are trying to get shallow DOF on the Pentax Q you might be using the wrong camera.

I wonder if they might be limited by processing power on board of a camera.

Power is the most limiting factor in cameras, i'm sure if they could get a 3.2Ghz dual core processor with 8gb of DDR4 ram modules to run on 50mW of power they would have put that kind of power in cameras today. One of the principal reasons why mirrorless cameras have shorter battery life than DLSR cameras because of the continuous processing of sensor data. Most processors in cameras these days are single core and run at about 300-600Mhz. Though dual core cameras like the Nikon D4s and the canon 1 series do exist.

[Nicolas06]

A remark: the most used camera now are SmartPhones. The top now has 4 core, >2GHz, 2GB memory, dedicated graphic card and up to 64/128 GB storage space. The available space for batery is even smaller.

To not put as powerfull dedicated chip inside a pro camera is just a matter of opportunity and willingness. In particular for high end model selling for $1000 or more.

[lytrytyr]

Where are the f/1 lenses? and f/0.7 lenses to get shallow deph of field?

Voigtlaender - MFT Lenses

[rawr]

To not put as powerfull dedicated chip inside a pro camera is just a matter of opportunity and willingness. In particular for high end model selling for $1000 or more.

Ricoh have indeed done this. Integrating such a chip may even have been one of the factors in the slightly delayed release of the K-3. This has been discussed a bit further in another thread

Pic related: The new Fujitsi Milbeaut MB86S22AA image processor chip in the K-3 (and 645Z):

[Nicolas06]

Ricoh have indeed done this. Integrating such a chip may even have been one of the factors in the slightly delayed release of the K-3. This has been discussed a bit further in another thread

Pic related: The new Fujitsi Milbeaut MB86S22AA image processor chip in the K-3 (and 645Z):

So we see it is indeed possible!

[rawr]

So we see it is indeed possible!

Absolutely. I think the advent of smart phones with powerful CPU's, great screens, awesome cameras and all sorts of amazing communications capabilities (4G/3G/2G, WiFi, GPS/GLONASS, NFC, IR, BlueTooth) compressed into impressively small form factors have had a big impact on people's expectations about consumer technology. Camera makers beware.

Not only consumer technology either - I read a while ago that the average high-end smartphone of today has more CPU horsepower than the computers aboard the F-22 Raptor stealth jet introduced in 1995, less than 20 years ago.