Shoot now, focus later

[mjs1973]

Interesting new camera technology by Lytro. Watch the video and then go to the picture gallery and play with some sample images. Pretty cool idea, if it actually works as good as the demo.

http://blog.lytro.com/

According to CNN, this company was launched on Tuesday (yesterday) and has raised $50 million in venture capital.

[Liz]

Interesting new camera technology by Lytro. Watch the video and then go to the picture gallery and play with some sample images. Pretty cool idea, if it actually works as good as the demo.

http://blog.lytro.com/

According to CNN, this company was launched on Tuesday (yesterday) and has raised $50 million in venture capital.

WoW! Awesome.......... it would save a bit of time in the post processing too. I wonder what the price will be.

Thanks for sharing this.

Liz

[Greg McCary]

Why can't I find a picture of their camera? Could they just be fishing the market?

[Liz]

Why can't I find a picture of their camera? Could they just be fishing the market?

Hmmm....I thought it was some kind of software???

ETA: Actually you're right - it has to be a camera. I don't think you could do this with software. Sounds good though.

Liz

[freygr]

First you can't focus in software. It is possible to produce a camera but it used a continuously focusing lens as the image would snap into focus on the film and the brightness of the focused image would override the unfocused image. But I don't remember who the article written by or the publisher was. I remember it was used in the movie industry.

[mjs1973]

I remember it was used in the movie industry.

I read an article yesterday about this type of technology. Remember that scene in The Matrix Keanu Reeves is dodging bullets? That is the same type of technology, only they are using multiple cameras to capture the light from multiple angles. I think the NFL used this type of technology during a super bowl as well.

My guess is that this new camera is doing the same type of thing, only instead of having multiple cameras capturing light from multiple angles, you have a single camera with multiple lenses focused on different parts of a scene at the same time.

[Photo-John]

The camera is still in development. They have sample photos up but since it's still in development they must not want people to actually see it. From what I was able to pick up reading a bunch of articles, it's a point-and-shoot sized camera. I published my own little article about it this morning:

Lytro Camera Allows Photos To Be Focused After Capture >>

This is definitely an interesting bit of news. It remains to be seen what kind of quality the camera will produce, though. The sample photos are cool. But I am not sure this is something that more serious photographers will really be interested in. Or if the technology will end up in a camera that serious photographers would use.

[megan]

Careful, P-J, I said a similar thing about digital cameras in the early 90's!
But seriously - yeah, it really really takes any skill and fun out of the actual taking of the photo, and puts it all post-processing. An interesting shift, and an interesting tool, but makes it less and less photography and more and more... illustration? Either way - it inspires me to use film even more!

[OldClicker]

Careful, P-J, I said a similar thing about digital cameras in the early 90's!
But seriously - yeah, it really really takes any skill and fun out of the actual taking of the photo, and puts it all post-processing. An interesting shift, and an interesting tool, but makes it less and less photography and more and more... illustration? Either way - it inspires me to use film even more!

I find that new technologies (when learned) allow more creativity, and (for me) do not take the skill and fun out of the capture at all. I wonder what I would need to do to capture an image that could best use this technology. Photography (again, to me) is the process from capture, through post processing (or darkroom) to display. – Terry

[freygr]

Careful, P-J, I said a similar thing about digital cameras in the early 90's!
But seriously - yeah, it really really takes any skill and fun out of the actual taking of the photo, and puts it all post-processing. An interesting shift, and an interesting tool, but makes it less and less photography and more and more... illustration? Either way - it inspires me to use film even more!

I find that new technologies (when learned) allow more creativity, and (for me) do not take the skill and fun out of the capture at all. I wonder what I would need to do to capture an image that could best use this technology. Photography (again, to me) is the process from capture, through post processing (or darkroom) to display. – Terry

Just remember there is the composition of the photo, the new camera does not make a photo good, just in focus.

[draymorton]

I want it.

[Laurel421]

First you can't focus in software.

[wfooshee]

Actually, yes you can! Not with a standard flat image, but that's not what this camera shoots.

Sorry for the zombie thread, but I figured that this was better than a new thread, now that the device is actually out and in the hands of consumers.

My brother played with one that a friend bought, and he's amazed by it. But me, I don't see the point. Here's one he shot. Notice that you can focus on the face of the mug, the handle, the base, and it shifts. Pick the background mug, or the cabinet handles. Here's another, a field of flowers.

Technically, I didn't understand what it was doing until I found the word "plenoptic" somewhere, and read up on what that means. I thought maybe it was just snapping a few images as it moved automatically from minimum to infinity, kind of like a focus stack that it didn't bother stacking. How many points did it have in the process? Were they the points you wanted, or could you point and select before shooting? Well, none of that applies when you read up on "plenoptic."

Plenoptic means that the sensor doesn't just record light and color, but the direction of the light as well. By putting a microlens array over the image sensor, they can detect how far away an item in the image is, storing true 3D information with the image. That's what they mean by "light field."

To really oversimplify, a near object is seen at one edge of the image sensor at a substantially different angle than at the other edge of the image sensor. A distant object has a narrower angle. By seeing that object several times across the sensor (the reason for the microlens,) the camera can store that distance information with the image. When it presents the active image file, the person viewing the file selects a point, the file "knows" where that point is and shifts the images focus to that distance.

The best "non-geek" site I found that explains it to us simple folk is here. I also found a "real" fashion shoot done with it here.

It works, and it's quite effective, pretty cool to use. But I'm wondering what the point is. You can't print it, the image has to be presented on an active device like a PC screen, tablet, or maybe even a phone. Why would I want to focus on something in the background of my picture instead of the subject of my picture? And the microlens results in the resolution being rather low, especially considering the file size (although Adobe seems to have an answer for that.)

Lytro has a samples page here.

An extension of this technology (not what Lytro's doing, but what a plenoptic could do, maybe) could be to build a 3D image from a single lens view, since depth information is being recorded as well. I'd think you'd want better than f:2 depth of field for that, though. Displaying that is another issue altogether, though.

[MotorToad]

This thing's pretty neat. I think the target for Lytro is exactly what wfooshee's saying is its limiting factor: tablets, phones, facebook, etc. Most handheld snapshooters are taking pics of friends to put on the internet and this thing removes focus (and P&S's crappy autofocus) from their problems. As you can see from the flower pic I took, sharp detail is not among this thing's strong points, but it has enough detail to tell Bob from Joe from Cindy at a party. I think with a bit better low-light performance and quite a bit better image detail it'll be the flat-out best amateur P&S ever. Hell, "P" and "S" are all you can do with it.

Hrm, another thing occurred to me which might be its greatest strength in my mind. So far as I know this thing is photoshop-proof! No more of those internet prank photos.