THOSE fuzzy family snapshots that make cousin Jane look like the blob from outer space may soon be a thing of the past after the development of a camera that shoots first and then focuses the picture later.

The digital technology will not only help to enhance sports pictures — when images are often blurred — but also surveillance footage that is hampered by bad lighting. The camera, developed by scientists at Stanford University, California, has been designed to enhance blurred shots by storing information on the same light levels when a scene is photographed.

Amateur photographers using film cameras are frequently left with poor quality images caused by movement in the frame, and even the preview screen on a digital camera does not always reveal the extent of blurring. It is only when photos are downloaded on to a computer that a photographer is able to see if they are sharp.

In a conventional digital camera, a sensor behind the lens records the amount of light hitting millions of tiny spots on its surface. If the light rays reaching the sensor are not in focus, the image will appear blurry. Professor Pat Hanrahan, of Stanford’s computer graphics laboratory, and fellow researchers, have now discovered a means of adjusting the light rays after they have reached the camera, reports New Scientist magazine.

Software can then be used to manipulate the image. The end result is a picture that is properly focused, regardless of the photographer’s ability. The technology also means that any part of the image can be refocused — not just the main subject.

Millions of consumers have abandoned rolls of film and gone digital. Sales of digital cameras now outstrip film cameras by 15 to one. Earlier this year Kodak abandoned the production of film cameras in Europe and the United States, as well as black-and-white film.

Experts believe that Professor Hanrahan’s system would be useful for surveillance cameras, which must work at night but also need to have objects in focus at different distances from the camera. Advances in digital image rendering and analysis have been used to assist many criminal investigations, such as the 2002 murder of Surrey schoolgirl Amanda Dowler. Videotape of the teenager’s disappearance was enhanced using software that allows manipulation of milliseconds of film.

David Breen, a video image analyst, said that the latest advance is an important development. “CCTV is being relied on very heavily for evidence and potential convictions,” he said. “A lot of CCTV we are presented with is shabby because it is out of focus, there’s bad lighting or it is taken too far away.

“There are many areas that such a development could assist. If it can enable clearer, better images then when it comes to comparing a photo of someone with their appearance on CCTV, we could come up with more decisive results.”

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