Fisheye lens gets a bug-eye makeover

You’ve probably heard of the fisheye camera lens, but how about a bug-eyed one? Researchers at the University of Illinois and Northwestern University have developed a unique hemispherical digital camera based on the eye of a fly. It takes photos with nearly 200 tiny lenses to put together one giant wide-angle almost three-dimensional image that is in focus at all depths of field.

Professor Yonggang Huang, a researcher at Northwestern, joins Marketplace’s Ben Johnson to discuss how this type of camera could be used for surveillance, particularly in major cities. In the meantime, you can bug out with the pictures above.