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How about a 400/5.6L IS...
No, it is not a revolution, it is a toy. IQ-wise it is competing with mobile phone cameras.
The Personal Computer (in its generic sense) started as a toy, too, and look what happened to the "real" computers.
The question is not whether, in its current, first incarnation it is a threat to the DSLRs or P'n'S cameras, the question is, extrapolating another 10 years of technological progress — is there any inherent reason that it will not be usable by Pros?
The digital camera and the phone camera initially got laughed at, too, because they started really low down, and look what happened to them...
Just by the way the technology is working the IQ of the Lytro will always be far lower than what you would get with a regular camera with the same sensor size. So no matter how much technology advances, the 'normal' technology will be ahead. Now it might be that at some point the sensors will get so good that the drop in IQ and resolution wont matter, but I do not think this will ever happen. Problem there is that at some point you will simply reach the limit of what is physically possible due to the way light behaves, and I don't think we are that far away from that border anymore.
No, it is not a revolution, it is a toy. IQ-wise it is competing with mobile phone cameras.
Would be a shame to see it go in just one camera. Maybe this will give us the "split" 5D that's been discussed: an "entry-level" 18MP FF, plus a high MP direct competitor to the upcoming Nikon D800. Of course, it won't be exactly the same sensor, but a "reduced-performance" variant.
Anyhow, what you are saying is that the larger pixel's larger well doesn't help because if the well is Z times larger it also collects Z times the light and therefore saturates equally fast?
Correct, for the most part. You take 4 smaller pixels that fit into the area of one larger pixel, and while the larger pixel has a deeper well, it's getting more light, and if you sum the wells of the smaller pixels, they're equivalent to the single larger pixel, and together they get the same amount of light.
I'm with you on the noise, but at some point the smaller per-pixel full-well capacity must start to dominate by reducing the possible dynamic range per-pixel, which in this case translates into reduced dynamic range for the whole image (like "of what use is a 14bit A/D if you can only hold 400 photons per pixel")?
You would think this is the case, but the full-well capacity usually scales with area, so the dynamic range per solid angle does not depend on pixel size. In other words, smaller pixels have smaller wells, but since you add up more of them, this (almost) exactly adds up to the well of the larger pixel with the same total area.
The idea that smaller pixels mean more noise is commonly held, but in fact, it's wrong. If you take a single pixel in isolation, it's certainly true that a smaller pixel has lower full-well capacity, less sensitivity, and more noise.
The big question is how the current lenses will hold up to a 36mp+ camera
Most of everybody else wouldn't have noticed and/or wouldn't have cared, at least not until the official announcement is made!
Boom!
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This can only be good for all of us as the ante has just been upped!