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Hardware Technology

New Digital Camera Lens Made of Liquid 267

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the can-you-see-me-now dept.
Clarinase writes "101reviews is running an article about a new type of camera lens called Fluidlens. This patented lens made of liquid is no bigger than a contact lens, but can still achieve up to 10 times optical zoom by changing its shape similar to the human eye."
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New Digital Camera Lens Made of Liquid More

New Digital Camera Lens Made of Liquid

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  • f1r5t p05t3d Dec. 2, 2004 (Score:5, Informative)

    by ackthpt ( 218170 ) * on Wednesday August 17, 2005 @10:57AM (#13339751) Homepage Journal
    Posted by CmdrTaco on Thursday December 02, @01:09PM in The Mysterious past [slashdot.org]!

    BTW, I checked, all the links in the original article still work.

    • Re:f1r5t p05t3d Dec. 2, 2004 (Score:5, Interesting)

      by tomhudson ( 43916 ) <barbara.hudson@b ... com minus distro> on Wednesday August 17, 2005 @11:06AM (#13339850) Journal
      Yep, that was my first thought, too. A dupe. So, how about I recycle on of my comments:
      So what happens when it gets well below freezing ...

      • frozen camera (Score:3, Interesting)

        by StrawberryFrog ( 67065 )
        My digital didn't work well on the ski slopes anyway - I ran out of charge in double-quuick time. It seems that the batteries just don't like it cold.

        • Re:frozen camera (Score:2, Interesting)

          by ackthpt ( 218170 ) *
          My digital didn't work well on the ski slopes anyway - I ran out of charge in double-quuick time. It seems that the batteries just don't like it cold.

          Most digital cameras are current hungry, the necessary chemistry to take place to produce that current is likely constrained by the cold.

          IIRC the wisdom of several years ago was that you could extend the shelflife of batteries by keeping them in your fridge.

        • It seems that the batteries just don't like it cold.


          I did alright with my Nikon D100 in Alaska by using an external battery and keeping it inside my coat, next to my chest. That worked until the temperature got down to about -23F, where the electronics themselves started to have trouble.

      • Re:f1r5t p05t3d Dec. 2, 2004 (Score:5, Funny)

        by ChrisF79 ( 829953 ) on Wednesday August 17, 2005 @11:36AM (#13340176) Homepage
        I didn't read the article, but what if it isn't water? Different liquids freeze at different temperatures so maybe they're using vodka. That's one liquid I know doesn't freeze at 32 degrees.

        • My Guess, a ferro-fluid (Score:4, Interesting)

          by Vitriol+Angst ( 458300 ) on Wednesday August 17, 2005 @01:45PM (#13341412)
          I was looking to patent an idea like this. I created a liquid lense with oil and Iron-Oxide -- nothing really exotic, Ferro-fluids have been used for quite a while. In my design I used a combination of ionization and magnetism to shape the lense. It was only part of a more complicated idea--I didn't think the lense was worth a patent by itself--kind of obvious. The only reason this is useful now is that we have new technologies in video that can actually use such a tiny lense.

          I was actually using this to move a laser to boost radio signals. I kind of gave up on the whole thing because I didn't have a job and didn't have any idea how to get the ball rolling. I'm an idea synthesizer-- not a lawyer. Anyway, I could have had about five patents out of this.

          So, in short, this lense may possibly be as simple as mineral oil and rust surrounded by water between two pieces of glass (I haven't been able to read the article due to the "slashdot effect"). Inside the small area of water, surface tension works to hold the shape and relax the effects of gravity--It's best to have an oil of the same specific gravity as water (most are lighter) so that motion will not pull one liquid more than another. Still, unless you used a strong magnetic field on the ferro-fluid, motion would change its shape-- so no long exposures. The difference in light distortion between the water and the oil will allow for your lense to focus. My idea was to use two lasers--one as a reference beam to calculate unwanted distortions. I'm guessing there is going to have to be some feedback mechanism to determine what the spherical abberation of the resulting liquid lense would be. I wouldn't want to say anymore because it would then be easy to guess the tricks I figured out. Since I have nothing but a love of science and no degrees in the material sciences, the actual fabrication of this device would not be my forte.

          On an aside, I still think it would be a nice idea to spin water in space to create a large lense for telescopic or sunlight collection purposes. About 30 years ago, when fiber optics first came out, I played with a lot of ideas for uses-- things like piping sunlight into the house, using it to peer inside the body and lase out blockages (I used a parasol design to stop blood flow and expand arteries--rather than a more obvious and more elegant balloon). It amazes me that things as obvious as a liquid lense can still find patentable uses.

          I actually submitted this as an idea to a company that says it helps people with Inventions. When I got a follow call asking for $1200 more than the original $500 I realized it was a scam (sigh). If these scumbags realize they have prior art--I'm guessing they won't, since they are about scamming more than actually understanding any technology that people submit. Well, lessons learned. Nobody is going to "discover" your brilliance in life--everyone has to do their own leg work.

          One of these days, I'd love to get back to inventing.
        • The vodka I keep in my freezer at -18C (or at least I hope so, that chicken did taste odd) becomes rather thick at that temp. Good for vodka, bad for optical hardware (I'd think).
    • wow, do you just love when they talk about great new technology, and then a year later it's still just talk?

  • changing shape (Score:5, Insightful)

    by jest3r ( 458429 ) on Wednesday August 17, 2005 @10:58AM (#13339755)
    I have yet to master the art of 10x zoom by changing the shape of my eye ..

    • Re:changing shape (Score:5, Funny)

      by yellowbkpk ( 890493 ) * on Wednesday August 17, 2005 @11:01AM (#13339798)
      You're not squeezing hard enough. I can see the individual molecules (they're very colorful!) moving around when I squeeze my eyes hard enough for long enough...

      • Re:changing shape (Score:5, Interesting)

        by DarkHand ( 608301 ) on Wednesday August 17, 2005 @11:08AM (#13339881)
        What you're actually doing is depriving the rods and cones in your eyes of blood. Similar to the nerves in your leg sending 'static' signals back your your brain when your leg falling alseep, your eye's start doing the same.
        • Wow, I think there was some static in the grammar center of my brain when I wrote that. :P Ignore the grammar and take in the raw info please! :)

    • Re:changing shape (Score:2, Insightful)

      by dcurley ( 892794 )
      From TFA:
      Currently there is no practical alternative to compensate for the fixed focus lens system where a camera lens, for example, is moved along a linear axis until the image comes into focus.

      So, they're not talking about how your eye zooms, which it obviously doesn't. They're talking about how the lens changes shape to focus while zooming, like your eye changes shape to focus. Of course, I aint no optician.

      • I belive this is directly related to why squinting your eyes helps you see better

        • Re:Squinting (Score:5, Interesting)

          by viking099 ( 70446 ) on Wednesday August 17, 2005 @11:11AM (#13339905)
          Incorrect. Squinting acts as a filter for scattered light (kind of like how those showboxes with the pinholes in them allow you to see an eclipse).
          There was a guy a number of years back who sold "sunglasses guarenteed to improve your sight!" and all it was was a opaque plastic lens with hundreds of tiny holes in it.

          To do any kind of zooming, you need 2 lenses, I believe, otherwise it's just a shift in focal points.

          • Re:Squinting (Score:5, Informative)

            by Overzeetop ( 214511 ) on Wednesday August 17, 2005 @11:42AM (#13340240) Journal
            I was under the impression that squinting, like the sungalsses you mention, do not filter scattered light, but rather artifically reduce the aperture of you lens, increasing the depth of field. The result is that an object which is not at the image plane is more likely to be "in focus", thus relieving your eye from needing to focus to that point. It's particularly good for astigmatism, as the small aperture compensates for the cylidrical portion of the lens. The down side is that you lose total light collection.

            Note that the opposite is true, as well. When your iris is at its largerst aperture (at night, in dim lighting), your vision will be at its worst.

            • Re:Squinting (Score:3, Funny)

              by tomhudson ( 43916 )
              When your iris is at its largerst aperture (at night, in dim lighting), your vision will be at its worst.
              ... so THATs why they keep the bars so dark. And here I was thinking it was the "beer-bottle-bottom glasses" affecting your vision and decision-making ability that makes you take home the ugly that gives you the morning-after coyote-ugly gnaw-yer-arm-off.

        • Re:Squinting (Score:2, Informative)

          by sledd_1 ( 464094 )
          That's part of it - squinting also helps to reduce the amount of light entering the eye.

          Plenty of details here:
          http://www.ccmr.cornell.edu/education/ask/?quid=78 1 [cornell.edu]

          Chris

          • Re:Squinting (Score:3, Informative)

            by sledd_1 ( 464094 )
            "By squinting people are actually changing the shape of their eye, just ever so little, so that the light focuses correctly on the retina.

            Squinting also decreases the amount of light that enters the eye. Go ahead and squint right now - notice that you can start to see your bottom and top eyelid. When a lens is misshapen (due to age, damage or genetics) the light that passes through the lens is deflected incorrectly and misses the focal point; the farther the light rays are from the center of the lens, the m
            • Same principal as a camera lens. Apeture is how much the camera is "squinting" (and therefore, "stopping down" is sharper in most circumstances, but requires more light) and then focal length is if you are nearsighted or farsighted.

    • Re:changing shape (Score:5, Funny)

      by lastchance_000 ( 847415 ) * on Wednesday August 17, 2005 @11:06AM (#13339860)
      You have to make that "dit-dit-dit-dit-dit-dit" noise for it to work.
    • Yes of course but the manufacturing process for eyes and lenses are in no way logically comparable. Not to mention the goal and objective when designing lenses is ends up being completely different then having to design a biologically non-toxic/corrosive/maintainable for decades by food biological eyes you got there.

      Not to mention your eyes have to fight all sorts of organisms wanting to have it for lunch. Making an lense or lense components that you do not have to grow with one where you control the manu

  • Neat (Score:2, Interesting)

    by ShoobieRat ( 829304 )
    Cool beans. That's pretty sweet. Wonder if they'll be able to build something like an eagle's eye that can see both macroscopic and microscopic extremes. That'd be sweet.

  • Pardon the ignorance... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by lpangelrob ( 714473 ) on Wednesday August 17, 2005 @11:00AM (#13339772)
    ...but is this really only useful for cameras in camera-phones?

    Since it seems the lens size is necessarily very small, will the maximum resolutions of the resulting picture be limited in any way? Or is lens size correlated with the maximum resolution of a camera?

    • It's possible this could lead to a whole new approach to lenses in general. Keep in mind we went from vacuum tubes to transistors to integrated circuits. This could just be a first step towards a whole new way of processing optics.

    • Re:Pardon the ignorance... (Score:5, Informative)

      by otter42 ( 190544 ) on Wednesday August 17, 2005 @11:09AM (#13339887) Homepage Journal
      Lens size is correlated with the amount of light captured by the lens, and not the size of the image.

      In fact, for a long time hobbyists have played around with "pin-hole" cameras, cameras that, well, have a pin hole in the place of a lens. The light diffracts throught the small hole, spreading out and thus blowing up the image.

      Really expensive lenses such as you'd see in telescopes are big so they can get the maximum amount of light.

      For a neat demonstration of this principle, take some binoculars and cover half of one lens. You'll notice that-- surprise, surprise-- you still see the entire image!

      So, in the end, the lens diameter will allow you to take pictures in lower light situations. Which might well equate to better picture quality if you're not in bright, shiny daylight since the picture will be acquired faster with less chance for motion blur.
    • You have got two resolutions confused.

      The resolution of a lens, according to optical theory is measured in lines per milimiters resolved , this is purely an optical concept (not photographical), this resolution does not depend on the size or the amount of light that passes through the lens, but rather depends on the quality of the glass , the other parameters that is measured when testing the lens is contrast . Often the characteristics of a lens are displayed as MTF graphs (resolution v/s contrast).

      The s

    • What you're losing with a small lens is "light gathering power", i.e. the ability to take pictures in low light conditions.

      As far as resolution goes--it's harder to maintain quality the bigger the lens gets (hence the big bucks you have to put out for a good quality lens with good light gathering power).

  • Like a contact lens (Score:5, Funny)

    by FunWithHeadlines ( 644929 ) on Wednesday August 17, 2005 @11:00AM (#13339773) Homepage
    So can you distract a party by yelling, "Nobody move! I've dropped my camera lens."

  • Improvements for the smallest cameras (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Sv-Manowar ( 772313 ) on Wednesday August 17, 2005 @11:00AM (#13339776) Homepage Journal
    Being able to get good image quality in tiny cameras is becoming increasingly useful because of the adoption of cameras into phones and similarly small devices. The amount of times I've see something I want to take a picture of, but don't have my camera is pretty significant, and I've found that since getting a camera phone its filled this void nicely. Being able to get a high quality image from a phone would be a great step forward for those who are using phone cameras for this kind of role. (Especially as the amount of storage available increases)

  • It'd be cool (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Holi ( 250190 ) on Wednesday August 17, 2005 @11:01AM (#13339784)
    If they could make it into a contact lens, allowing the wearer to view distances without the benefit of binoculars.

    • Re:It'd be cool (Score:3, Informative)

      by Dun Malg ( 230075 )
      If they could make it into a contact lens, allowing the wearer to view distances without the benefit of binoculars.

      It'll never happen. Telephoto or "zoom" lenses require a pair of lenses with some amount of separation between them. There's no practical way to mount additional lensing in front of your eye with enough separation to get a zoom effect and not interfere with normal eye function.

  • Glad to see a real invention for a change (Score:4, Insightful)

    by The I Shing ( 700142 ) * on Wednesday August 17, 2005 @11:01AM (#13339785) Journal
    I'm glad to see someone patenting an actual invention instead of just claim-jumping someone's idea for a website layout.

  • Details? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anakron ( 899671 )
    Somewhat light on detail. So is the effective zoom limited only by the amount of liquid they can put between the squeezy-things?
    Is the real innovation in the material of the lens or the method to make it deform to specification?

  • the question is... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Avohir ( 889832 ) on Wednesday August 17, 2005 @11:02AM (#13339804)
    is it waterproof?

  • Does this mean... (Score:3, Funny)

    by slorge ( 722786 ) <slorge@gmai l . com> on Wednesday August 17, 2005 @11:04AM (#13339826) Homepage
    Does this mean your camera will have a "squint" button instead of a focus?

  • Another successful SF prediction... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by ex_ottoyuhr ( 607701 ) <ex_ottoyuhr@hotOPENBSDmail.com minus bsd> on Wednesday August 17, 2005 @11:06AM (#13339856)
    "OIL LENS: hufuf oil held in static tension by an enclosing force field within a viewing tube as part of a magnifying or other light-manipulation system. Because each lens element can be adjusted individually one micron at a time, the oil lens is considered the ultimate in accuracy for manipulating visual light." -- DUNE, "Terminology of the Imperium."

    This is right up there with those relatively small, sealed nuclear reactors, IMHO. Neat.

  • 10x zoom + focus vs. just focus (Score:3, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 17, 2005 @11:07AM (#13339871)
    The diagrams show how it can both zoom and focus by changing shape, while the human eye only focuses by changing shape (and loses flexibility with age, thus presbyopia, or loss of near vision in age, which few of you slashdot whippersnappers know about).

    The diagram shows how it gets pushed or pulled in two sections, a top and a bottom, which mimics a 2-element 1-group lens. It may focus with the "front" half and change focal length with the back, or use a combination of both to get the right focal length and focal plane for a given situation.

    The lens in a vertebrate eye (and many invertebrates too) is flexible and is focused at "infinity" when in the relaxed state. When pulled by little muscles that surround it, it flattens, and that changes the focal plane so that it focuses on near objects. The focal length is fixed, so there can be no change in angle of view (zooming).

    Normal myopia (nearsightedness), hypermetropia (farsightedness) and astigmatism come from the whole eye being the wrong shape, usually a function of the eye being squished one way or the other during childhood growth, and the lens tries to focus where it can't.

  • Low cost glasses (Score:2, Interesting)

    by waxigloo ( 899755 )
    I was a test subject for a physics professor here at the University of Oxford that developed the use of the same type of fluid lens technology for low cost eyeglasses (they cost about a tenner). They had plans to take them to 3rd world countries to provide spectacles for people who couldn't normally afford it.

    See there webpage here [adaptive-eyecare.com].

  • This is a duplicate story, and even worse, it's a story that ran on Slashdot in MARCH. [slashdot.org]
    So thanks a lot for the 6 month old news.
    • Am I the only subscriber who notifies Slashdot when there is a problem with the original article. If I wasn't at lunch when this was posted I may have been able to stop it. Why don't other subscribers who "Can see into the future" tell slashdot when it is a dupe. Because any one person cannot remember all of them.

    • Tripe! (Score:2)

      by schon ( 31600 )
      it's a story that ran on Slashdot in MARCH.
      So thanks a lot for the 6 month old news.

      It's not a dupe, it's a tripe (at least - it was posted in December, too.)

      And the pedant in me has to point out that the link you posted was from March 2004 - which makes it 18 months old, not 6 :o)
      • oops, I should have checked the year too. I didn't realize it was that old.

        I recalled seeing this appear more than once before but I could only find the one instance in the searches I performed.

        You know, this is the problem with blog style "journamalism." If this was a real news organization, there would be one guy who covered the Optics beat, who would remember he'd already published this story before.
    • You MIGHT be correct - except that if you had bothered to read TFA, you would have seen that it specifically talks about NOT using electricity to change the shape of the lens.

      A pretty handy difference, for things like cell phones.
  • Do I have to pee in it? [slashdot.org]
  • If this lens is made of liquid, then why is this story under hardware?

  • Jeez stop the all the glass is a liquid posts (Score:4, Informative)

    by papasui ( 567265 ) on Wednesday August 17, 2005 @11:14AM (#13339962) Homepage
    Glass is an amorphous solid. [wikipedia.org]
  • ...is that it actually took this long for such a thing to be invented: it's basically imitating nature, and a simple concept, at that.

    Consider that geometrical optics is a very old science, and some sort of plastic/elastic material has probably existed for the better part of last century.
  • In DUNE, Frank Herbert had his characters use binoculars with "oil lenses"...
  • Wow, this is an old story. It was on Engadget back in March and in the local paper in May. I wonder how many times the story was rejected before they finally posted this . . .
  • Next stop, bionic eyes!
  • Magnificent invention.

  • Now *THAT*... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Twinkle3 ( 733540 )
    ... is intelligent design!

  • What? (Score:3, Funny)

    by autopr0n ( 534291 ) on Wednesday August 17, 2005 @11:32AM (#13340136) Homepage Journal
    The human eye can change shape... and zoom?

    I've got to figure out how to do that... hell I could fix my nearsightedness!
  • There was show on the NGC about killer whales and while different pods use different hunting techniques, one group of whales that prey on sea lions that rest on the shallow shores, make use of the water to help them hunt. They first spy their target and then swim quickly into shore (surfing the waves for additional speed) to the target. The bow wave made by their head acts as a magnify/zoom lens for the whale helping them spot their target....or at least that is what the show claimed.

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