This is the first time I can remember clicking on an ad and being pleasantly surprised by what was on the other side - this goofy-lookin' thing:
http://light.co/camera
My understanding is it's 16 small lenses and image sensors stuffed into one pocketable device. Up to 10 of those...sub-cameras?...take a picture when you hit the shutter. After the fact, you use software to choose from and/or combine the images - sort of like sequential HDR, but simultaneous and across multiple parameters like exposure, focal length, aperture etc. That's really neat!
You can read all the good stuff about it at light.co. Me, I have a few reservations:
1. Price is $1,699 (minus a $400 discount for preorders). That's full-frame DSLR territory. I try not to spend that much on things I could easily put through the wash.
2. Sport shooting. They haven't unveiled how many frames per second this camera will take or how fast the shutter (shutters?) will be.
3. Low-light performance. Getting a large number of small sensors with different lenses to capture light in a seamless manner, like a large sensor can, sounds like a big technical hurdle to me, and the result might look really weird.
4. Resolution/file size/storage. On their website they say the camera might capture up to 130 megapixels at one time, but they don't give the resolution of the individual sensors. RAW images are typically around 1MB per megapixel, I believe. Their current spec says they're packing 128GB of built-in storage to the camera, which is a lot, but doesn't appear to be expandable. If my math is right, this means you should be able to store at least ~1,000 images on the camera, which isn't too bad for day-to-day use but won't cut it on a longer vacation with no computer.
5. No interchangeable lenses, so if you don't like the 16 you have on there...well, too bad. How are you going to keep scratches off all them little spider-eyes?
In short, this is an amazing concept - whether it's any good or not will depend entirely on execution.
I'm watchin'.