Living Pictures: A review of the Lytro Camera
From Aaron Scott on January 26, 2012
Recently, Ian and I wrote a point, counterpoint post about products that have social sharing built into them. Then I was arguing against those products but today I'd like to talk about one that I think really gets it right -- and not just in the sharing department.
Most shooters will probably be familiar with the new Lytro camera, but for those that aren't here is a brief description. Lytro is a plenoptic "light field" camera that gives users the ability to point, shoot, and refocus their images later. It achieves this feat by using a completely different approach to gathering light information than standard cameras.
All standard cameras, both film and digital, operate by focusing rays of light onto a single area of film or a sensor. Lytro does the opposite. Rather than focusing light rays onto a single area it focuses them onto multiple areas and records the direction that those light rays are coming from, which allows the camera to extrapolate from that light data what an image would look like if the focus area was changed.
So for all you CSI fans that hope to one day stand over a tech operator and utter the words, "Zoom… Enhance… Rotate… and THERE is our killer!" Your day has come.
Cool, right?!
The design of the Lytro is as much a departure from standard camera design as the capturing technology. Rather than designing a box with a lens on the end of it, the designers of Lytro have wrapped the entire product in a sleek, simple rectangle - like a short square telescope. One end reveals the lens while the other is reserved for a touch screen. It is, in a word, Apple-esque.
Okay, so now for the few bad things (and there are only a few).
The resolution isn't great. Its fine for shooting pictures of your cat and posting them to Facebook, but not much else. But to be fair, that is the audience they are targeting according to Lytro CEO Ren Ng. Also, the interactive samples they have on the web lack any real sharpness when refocused, which will be a little disappointing to photophiles. Again, to be fair, Mr. Ng says that the interactive images on the web are not representative of the camera's full capabilities. I hope so.
The sharing aspect comes into play with the photo editing application that accompanies the camera. Once you're satisfied with your photo you can post it directly to Facebook from the editor interface, and that's nice. But what is nicer is that your friends can then edit the very same photo once you've shared it. The photos themselves are a flexible medium (insert Keanu Reeves 'whoa' here).
As an amateur photographer (who isn't nowadays), I'm less interested in the camera as it stands for image quality reasons but am really excited about what it could mean down the road. I can't tell you how many times I've been out shooting and missed a shot while trying to focus or tweak my settings. Its situations like that when the ability to quickly point, shoot, and correct later would be a lifesaver.
My quality reservations aside, I have to give the Lytro a big thumbs up, if for no other reason than revolutionizing how images have been taken since the Camera Obscura (roughly 1000AD). Thats no small thing.
Happy shooting.
