PJWphoto

This sort of leads on from the last post, thinking about multi image cameras I was reminded of this project i came across a while back :
Stanford Multi-Camera Array

This is a very cool research project, its a massive array of 128 ccd video cameras that work together to capture a scene in 3D to be process by a computer.

Just the ticket for “matrix” style panning effects, high-res and high speed capture (with a bit of wobble) but my favorite bit is “synthetic aperture photography”.

as the site puts it:

the cameras are arranged 2 inches apart and aimed so that their fields of view overlap completely about 10 feet from the array. This arrangement simulates a single camera with an aperture 3 feet wide, allowing us to see through partly occluding environments like foliage and crowds.

There is a link to a 5 minute video near the bottom of the page that shows what the array is capable of. You can see the different 3D effects as well as how they can view “through” obstacles!
Also the Flash-based light field viewer is well worth a play too.

While Im mentioning a Stanford site, its worth noting that http://pinhole.stanford.edu/ is an interesting general resource for pinhole stuff, including dimensions for building a Foamcore 5×4 camera.