{"id":484776,"date":"2026-02-19T07:23:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-19T07:23:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/484776\/"},"modified":"2026-02-19T07:23:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-19T07:23:07","slug":"taking-photos-with-scotch-tape-instead-of-a-lens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/484776\/","title":{"rendered":"Taking Photos With Scotch Tape Instead Of A Lens"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Typically, when we want to take images, we use an image sensor paired with some sort of lens assembly to make a picture that\u2019s sharply in focus. However, [okooptics] is here to show us there\u2019s another way\u2014<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=97f0nfU5Px0\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">using Scotch tape in place of a typical lens element.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>If you just put Scotch tape over an image sensor without a lens, you\u2019ll just get a blurry image, whatever you point it at. With the right algorithms, though, it\u2019s possible to recover an image from that mess, using special \u201clensless imaging\u201d techniques. In particular, [okooptics] shows how to recreate the so-called coded aperture techniques which were previously demonstrated in [Laura Waller]\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/opg.optica.org\/optica\/fulltext.cfm?uri=optica-5-1-1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">DiffuserCam paper<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s complicated stuff, but the video does a great job of breaking down the optics into understandable chunks. Armed with a Raspberry Pi HQ camera covered in a small amount of Scotch and electrical tape, [okooptics] is able to reconstruct a viable image from what initially looks like a blurry mess of nothingness, with the aid of the right deconvolution maths. It\u2019s all about understanding the point spread function of the tape versus a regular lens, and figuring out how to fight off noise when reconstructing the image.<\/p>\n<p>We\u2019ve featured previous work from [okooptics] before, too, <a href=\"https:\/\/hackaday.com\/2025\/08\/07\/light-transport-and-constructing-images-from-a-projectors-point-of-view\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">like this impressive demonstration of light transport and reconstruction.<\/a> Video after the break.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Typically, when we want to take images, we use an image sensor paired with some sort of lens&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":484777,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[76,354,355,49,48,356,75],"class_list":["post-484776","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-design","tag-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/484776","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=484776"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/484776\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/484777"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=484776"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=484776"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=484776"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}