Cinematography has hugely benefited from the technology advancement camera equipment has seen in the past few years. But a camera system which is being developed by the Ishikawa Oku Lab, University of Tokyo, is truly unique. This camera is able to track a very fast moving object and keeps it at the centre of the screen and continuously maintains focus on it. For a camera to do something similar it has to move continuously which needs predicting the movement of the object and doing so the resultant video is often blurry and out of focus. But this camera system uses two moving mirrors and a group of lenses to produce amazing HD videos.


In the demonstration video the camera tracks a ping pong ball in real time, the output video looks as if it’s digitally rendered, surreal! Moving and rotating mirrors are quite common but this system has it in the front which lets it take really wide angle shots. It captures and processes an image every 1/1000th of a second which makes it blazingly fast and extremely stable. The researchers believe the system will be ready for commercial usage in two years and has the potential to completely transform the sports broadcasting. Imagine tracking a golf ball or a baseball with such steady focus, it’ll kickass!

[Via – Diginfo]