SummaryA new coded splitting imaging technique is proposed to reconstruct the complex amplitude of a light field iteratively using a single‐shot measurement. In this technique, a specially designed coded splitting plate is adopted to diffract the illuminating beam into multiple beams of different orders and code their wavefronts independently and differently. From the diffraction pattern array recorded on the detector plane, both the modulus and phase distributions of the illuminating beam can be reconstructed iteratively using known transmission functions of different orders of the coded splitting plate. The feasibility of the proposed technique is verified both numerically and experimentally.