Lytro light-field cameras: shoot now, focus later
Silicon Valley startup Lytro has a truly novel way to take photos.
A 鈥減lenoptic light-field camera鈥� may sound like the kind of multimillion-dollar lab equipment you鈥檇 expect to find at CERN, being used for black hole research. Instead, in its current incarnation, it鈥檚 a small rectangular aluminum tube that fits in a pocket and captures light rays rather than flat images, allowing you to refocus a photo after you鈥檝e taken it or even see it in 3D.
Ladies and gentleman, meet . The company鈥檚 much-hyped light-field camera was unveiled this week. For $399, this bit of engineering wizardry (or perhaps, we suspect, actual wizardry) can be yours. Lytro says a special sensor allows its devices to instantly capture 11 million rays of light, cataloging color, intensity, and direction of the rays. That information makes it possible for the image to be refocused and otherwise shifted after the fact 鈥� either on a computer or on the camera鈥檚 1.46-inch touchscreen. The company refers to the resulting images as 鈥渓iving pictures.鈥�
The Lytro cameras themselves are pretty straightforward devices. The touchscreen (which doubles as a viewfinder) is positioned at one end of the 4.4-inch tube, with an eight-times zoom lens at the other, a strip on the top for zooming, and a shutter button. That鈥檚 about it, really. There鈥檚 no video recording, and precious little in the way of on-board settings. The screen shows no extra information beyond the camera鈥檚 battery life and a storage meter.
While we鈥檙e on the subject of storage and batteries: the cameras come in either 16GB or 32GB flavors, and Lytro says they鈥檒l be able to take about 400 images on a charge. There鈥檚 no slot for an SD card or other expansion, just a micro-USB port for downloading 鈥渓iving pictures鈥� to a computer (the accompanying software only runs on Mac OS 10.6 or 10.7 for now, but the company says a Windows version is in development). The battery is sealed in the camera, too 鈥� no swapping cells when the charge runs low.
Early impressions are pretty positive, and although many reviewers griped about the tiny viewfinder and low-resolution images, the fact is there鈥檚 nothing else like these cameras on the market. Over at tech site This Is My Next, Sean Hollister , 鈥淲e seriously can鈥檛 wait to get our hands on a final unit, and we鈥檙e already dreaming [of] what this could be like in a high-resolution DSLR-sized package.鈥�
Interested in picking one up? The 16GB model (which holds 750 pictures, according to the company鈥檚 website) will set you back $499, while the 8GB model (350 pictures) goes for $399. That鈥檚 certainly not cheap enough to make these an impulse buy for some families, and light-field cameras won鈥檛 be replacing anyone鈥檚 SLR soon, but their uniqueness is a big selling point. Lytro鈥檚 filling pre-orders right now, and expects the cameras to be available by early 2012.
What do you think about these cameras? Tempted to place an order in spite of the steep asking price, or are you sticking with your point-and-shoot for now? Let us know in the comments.
