View larger image 1. A camera built from off-the-shelf parts, dubbed the Frankencamera, is programmable. The team that designed it has also released the code needed to manipulate the commercially available Nokia N900. 2. The BigShot camera comes as an educational kit. During assembly, kids will learn about optics, mechanics, electronics and the human eye. Researchers hope to have the kit on the market within two years. 3. A throwable, panoramic ball camera developed by researchers at Technische Universität in Berlin snaps a full spherical panorama. There’s a design, but no word on investors — yet. 4. The Pelican camera, designed to fit inside a smartphone, has an array of 25 lenslets that capture a scene’s entire light field. A release date hasn’t been announced. 5. Lytro ($399 for 8GB, $499 for 16GB) allows the photographer to refocus at will after a shot has been taken. Credit: from left: Camera 2.0 Project/Stanford University; Columbia Computer Vision Laboratory; Jonas Pfeil/jonaspfeil.de/Ballcamera; Pelican Imaging; LYTRO