Light field camera

Imagine you are playing with your toy car and you want to take a picture of it. You grab your camera and snap a picture, but it only captures the front of the car. You turn it around and take another picture, but now you can only see the back of the car.

A light field camera doesn't have this problem! It takes a picture of the whole car all at once. How does it do this?

Well, a regular camera captures light and turns it into a picture. But a light field camera captures not only the light, but also the direction it's coming from. It's like taking a picture of the light rays instead of just the image they create.

With this extra information, the light field camera can create a 3D image that you can move around and look at from different angles. It's like having a little toy car in your computer or phone that you can play with and look at from all sides.

So, in summary, a light field camera is a special kind of camera that captures not only light, but also the direction it's coming from. This allows it to create 3D images that you can look at from different angles, like a little toy that you can play with on your computer or phone.