(Full disclosure: like most people, I’ve had a lenticular fascination since I was a kid. I just didn’t know what to call it…)

Now, of the technology, the immediate, demonstrated applications are variable focus (in post); or the ability to move the camera and change perspective within about a 10° arc. While this is something readily achievable in a layered composite, the implications of it being readily available and nicely packaged with a bow are quite interesting (see: focus stacking, helicon focus). And, if (if!) it can be applied to moving images, then there would depth information that you could use to extract layers. That is, you wouldn’t have to pull a key; you could go without green-screen; rotoscoping would be easy… oh, the possibilities… Okay, I’m getting way ahead of the technology.

But then, beyond the “3D” hype, there have been a lot of recent, significant developments in sensor technology, such as the Panasonic high dynamic range sensor… and even the CIA is hocking its image technology. Yes, the Central Intelligence Agency. Insert your conspiracy theories here. How about the Gigapan $300 (?) photo-robot…

While we may wait for a new digital camera in the coming months, we should probably bear in mind that Moore’s Law can be applied to digital photography and cinematography…

More reading: Refocus Imaging; Max Hodges comments; Stephen Shankland article; Photography 2.0/R&D…

Kubrick — via Bagelturf — shooting in candlelight using a modified Zeiss f/0.7 lens originally intended for spy satellites. I don’t think I saw the f/0.7, but I am pretty sure the f/1 Zeiss he had modified to mount onto a Mitchell camera was at the Kubrick exhibition in the ACMI (Melbourne) last year. There is an extract from American Cinematographer about it at Visual Memory (they also have a trove of additional Stanley Kubrick archives).

Current fast lenses include the Leica Noctilux-M 50mm f/1, VFX Supervisor Tommy Oshima has one… as do quite a few others… current version is $6k USD new. There is also the discontinued Canon EF 50mm f/1.0.

The advantage in Japan, of course, are the huge number of recently “retired” used-cameras, at very reasonable prices; an abundance of shops that will actually sell a selection of decent film stock; the ability to process black-and-white almost anywhere (!); and a huge, photo-mad, gadget-saturated population…

So does this predilection towards film indicate craft, stubbornness, or nostalgia? Probably all three. But shops such as Map Camera — stocked to the rafters with beautiful, mint-condition, second hand cameras — are a seductive sight. It isn’t hard in Japan to arm yourself with a pretty decent camera and a pocket full of film. There is even choice: from obscure Soviet cameras to large format ones as big as your head, which can be found inside and out of the normal camera shop radar.

I’ll bet that a lot of the people chewing through film have come from shooting a lot of digital. In going back to film, they get to prove their photographic chops without chimping.

The result of all this is that there are film-loaded cameras in Japan exposing away in almost pointed contrition for discarded analogue ways. Of course this happens in other countries, but perhaps without the same readily accessible fervour.

Firing off exposures as loosely as people do with digital cameras may just create more visual noise – but there will always be beauty that emerges from the rough.