Shopping for a new camera is about to change forever thanks to an amazing technology that Canon is viewing as a revolution in digital photography as it rushes to be the first major consumer electronics company to bring the so-called “X-ray lens” onto the market.

The new camera will ad high end functionality to a crowded digital camera market by giving the user the ultimate control over the basic elements of imagadry; light and heat. The camera works by collecting visible light and overlaying infrared information on top of the standard image. The two images are compared and a third composite image is created. Only the visible light and composite image are saved, and the camera has four levels of overlay to adjust to different light and heat conditions.

The new system does not actually emit X-rays and is similar to the design used by the Tokyo based company, Yamada Denshi, which sells an “X-ray Vision” like attachment in Japan that can be fitted to different camera phones like the Vodafone V602-SH handset. The device picks up heat radiation and creates an outline image of people and objects based on their relative ambient temperature, as bodies are warmer than their surrounding clothes or coverings. A variable light emitting system has been devised to extend the use of the system to low light and night images. Expect to see the first consumer cameras using X-Ray lens technology to start showing up some time in late 2008.