This camera is going to change everything...




Have you ever taken a picture, pulled it up in your editor and though it was perfectly focused, wished you had focused elsewhere within the frame?

Now you can.... I kid you not.

The new Lytro light field camera will let you do just that.

Once the image has been captured you can change where the focus point is after the fact, either in the camera or on your computer. If you visit their image gallery you can try it for yourself.

(click on either image to view larger in a new screen)


Instead of capturing just the info where your camera has focused, the Lytro captures all the light, all the information, throughout the entire image area.

In fact you don't (can't) even focus with this camera.

I am not going to try to explain everything about how the camera works, as it takes a bit to wrap your head around it (at least it did for me), and their explanation (with representative images) will do it far more justice that I can. So follow these links to their website and their blog and be prepared to witness a game changing camera.

It will be interesting to see how this new way of taking pictures develops and grows as technology progresses at the speed of light.

In the mean time, check out the video below from C|NET, it will give you an idea of what the future holds.



11 comments:

Unknown said...

Wow this is cool. I want one too :)

photography by anika alonzo said...

did you get to try one? I want one too!

half blind said...

Looks very interesting! Thanks for letting us know, Scott.

last minute photog said...

I love the idea and its super handy that you can bring it anywhere you like.

Maryann [Maryann's*****Fotos] said...

Incredible technology but what kind of prints can you make? How does light ray resolution compare to pixels? Curious minds want to know and I didn't see anything on their web site to explain it. ;-)

Ken said...

It's certainly very cool. However, there are serious limitations in multiple areas at the moment that render it just an expensive, but cool, toy IMO.

Parkylondon said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Parkylondon said...

I still don't have enough information to decide whether this camera is at the "toy" or "tool" level.

I have not, to date, found a clear explanation of the depth of field equivalents within an image. I understand the shifting focus and that is great - but it seems to imply a very low equivalent DOF number.

Does anyone know more about the depth of field in a Lytro camera. Their website has nothing about it that I can see and that, to me, is worrying.

Ken said...

Paul,

I vaguely recall reading somewhere on their website that the DOF was about 2.0.

They are very secretive about release information regarding resolution of exported images. Their canned response is always, "you loose the benefit of the living picture" when you export.

Another problem I have is you can only host images on their web site for people to view online. They have a desktop app for Macs only right now with PCs coming next year sometime.

So, while being able to change the focal point of an image is cool, the applications are very limited at the moment and users have little flexibility in what they can do with images.

I'm hopeful all this improves in the near future.

Scott said...

Though this is very cool and quite interesting I am not going to run out and buy one any time soon.

This is new and groundbreaking and it will be interesting to watch just how fast this will develop and the direction it will go in.

Look at the leaps and bounds that digital photography took in such a short period of time, who knows what the future holds for this.

Sony Camera said...

Interesting to read that.... Lots of people miss that feature in their costly digital cameras or SLRs..... if this camera successfully delivers what you say.... it might be best selling product...