I can't quite understand the article. What does the lidar have to do with medium format cameras?

Are you familiar with how you focus a rangefinder camera like a Leica?

You are NOT looking through the lens but a small viewfinder offset from the lens. The viewfinder is usually on the far left. Then there is another window a few inches away that are reflected at various angles by mirrors into the main viewfinder. When you focus the lens that angle of that mirror moves.

This is what it looks like in the camera.

https://licm.org.uk/livingImage/Rangefinder-Camera.html

Here are some internal diagrams showing how the light bounces around in the camera.

https://leicaphilia.com/how-a-rangefinder-works/

https://www.macfilos.com/2024/11/22/fokus-pokus-time-to-reas...

In an SLR or compact camera or iphone the camera sensor or viewfinder is seeing through the lens that is used for taking the picture. So you adjust the lens until you see with your eye that it is in focus and that's it.

With the rangefinder camera the viewfinder is ALWAYS in focus. So you use this secondary image (see the sheep in the first link) and when the 2 images overlap then you know the lens is now in focus.

This camera in the article does not seem to be an optical rangefinder that I described above. When you look through the viewinder everything will be in focus as it is not looking through the lens.

So how do you focus? Instead it uses LiDAR to measure the distance and display that within the viewfinder. It also displays the distance that the lens is currently focused at. Many lenses will have focus scales like this.

https://www.pointsinfocus.com/blog/2010/07/modern-distance-s...

Here is the description from the camera's web site.

"LiDAR" range-finding with high accuracy and distance up to 12m In-viewfinder display with

    Light-meter with aperture range set by selected lens

    Lens focus distance display, and LiDAR rangefinder distance display

    Focus accuracy indicator