Video focus stacking?

[Tom Hamilton]

Thought I'd throw this out to the assembled illuminati on the RU forum, was just looking at some underwater coral macro stills that used focus stacking to obtain spectacular results. Pardon my lack of research if the answer is already available, but, what technology would it take to employ this technique with the moving image? Thanks all. Tom.


http://www.microworldsphotography.com/Misc/Prints

 

[Todd T]

Focus stacking does not look like a technique that lends itself to the moving image since you need to merge multiple images taken at different focal point distances, which would be impossible with conventional lenses.

Lytro does this by putting permanently adjusted microlenses on the sensor itself in order to "capture" near medium, far and infinite focal ranges. This example would result in four images that you could focus stack together, the cost being that but each "photo" is only 1/4 the resolution of the sensor.

Most of the examples for Lytro show people doing the opposite; re-positioning the focal point of narrow DOF back and forth through the picture.