My focus is on "Smart Capture" for analysis and synthesis applications. To me, smart capture of visual data (usually video) means having or finding satisfying answers to these questions about a system, whether interactive or fully automated: 
I love this field because it allows us to apply our expertise to a variety of tough problems, including film and photo special effects (computational photography), action analysis (of people, animals, and cells), and authoring systems (for architecture, animation, presentations) that make the most of user effort. "Motion reveals everything" used to be my main research mantra, but that has now taken hold sufficiently (obviously NOT just through my efforts!) that it no longer needs championing.