Panasonic ‘Post Focus’ Feature to Rely on Rapid-Fire Focus Bracketing

A few days ago, we shared a report on how Panasonic was developing focus-after-you-shoot technology. The company made an official announcement on it today, but it turns out it’s not the light field competitor to Lytro that we had thought.

Panasonic’s new “Post Focus” technology actually uses a burst of photos at 4K resolution and 30fps to create a stack of images with focus set at difference distances for each shot. It’s like focus bracketing on steroids.

The feature is designed to help photographers avoid “out-of-focus” errors, or loading a photo onto a computer and finding that they had actually missed the focus they were going for.

Apple’s iPhone camera (and other camera apps out there) already allow photographers to shoot a burst of 10 photos in rapid succession and then pick the best moment as the one to save permanently. Panasonic seems to have the same idea, except the purpose is to nail focus rather than composition.

When a photographer presses the shutter with the “Post Focus” feature, the camera will shoot at 30fps and capture about 50 different shots with different focal planes in each one. Photographers can then touch exactly where they want the focus to be in the frame, and a photo with focus at that point will be created as a separate photo file.

“Post Focus” will be launched as a firmware update for the newly-announced GX8 and FZ300 in late 2015 and early 2016, and will be appearing in upcoming Panasonic camera models as well.