1. A method for synthesizing a light field representation of a sample, the method comprising: acquiring bright field image data for a plurality of pixels of the sample; acquiring phase image data for the plurality of pixels; calculating mean ray pointing direction data, ( θx , θy ), for the plurality of pixels based on the acquired phase image data, based on the following relation: [ θx , θy ]∝λ/2π∇φ(x, y), wherein φ(x, y) is the phase image data, λ is the wavelength of light utilized to acquire the phase image data, and ∇φ(x, y) is the gradient of the phase image data; and calculating a light field based on the calculated mean ray pointing direction data and the acquired bright field image data.