A photography startup is building a camera that shoves the picture-taking power of a big DSLR camera and several detachable lenses into a gadget roughly the size of a paperback.
Light, based in Palo Alto, California, plans to start taking preorders for its L16 camera on Wednesday for $1,699, though some would-be customers may pause when they learn it won’t ship to them until late next summer.
The rectangular black camera can capture images of up to 52 megapixels. Unlike most cameras, which use just one lens and image sensor, the L16 will squeeze in 16 camera modules with three different focal lengths—five 35-millimeter ones, five 70-millimeter ones, and six 150-millimeter ones. Each of the camera modules will have a 13-megapixel image sensor. The cameras will simultaneously snap their own shots from different perspectives when you take a picture, and software will combine them automatically into one image that mimics what you’d get from a DSLR camera with a large lens attached to it.
“We don’t think that on day one everybody drops their DSLR and buys one of these, but we think there’s a great population of people that will appreciate the size, cost, and weight reduction,” says Light cofounder and CEO Dave Grannan. A high-end DSLR camera and equipment can cost thousands of dollars.
The L16 will include a display (but no viewfinder) and a battery meant to last for about 400 shots. Grannan says the camera will use a modified version of Android as its operating system, and it will be able to connect to Wi-Fi networks for sharing photos. Some less-intense image editing will be possible on the camera itself—users may be able to correct color, for instance—and after taking photos users will be able to manipulate them on a computer to do things like change the depth of field.
