The idea has been around since the turn of the century.Lippmann proposed it [1]. But the first guy to BUILD a light field camera was a Russian in 1911 [2]. He built a light field camera AND display using a copper plate drilled with 1200 pinholes and reconstructed the light field of a lamp.
BTW, your comment illustrates that much of "computational photography" is just re-application of tricky imaging tech from other fields. Nothing wrong with that, but something to keep in mind.
Of course they're not really holograms - they deal on the "pencil" ray level and not the wave optics level - even so... seeing the first 3D reconstruction of a light field (the apparent image of the lamp) must have been totally thrilling.
Film still has many advantages for plenoptic stuff. It's a large, single-use sensor.
BTW, your comment illustrates that much of "computational photography" is just re-application of tricky imaging tech from other fields. Nothing wrong with that, but something to keep in mind.
[1]http://www.tgeorgiev.net/Lippmann/index.html [2]http://www.futurepicture.org/?p=34