New Lytro Review

[kjay27]

Wall Street Journal has a new review on the latest Lytro camera, the Illum:

http://online.wsj.com/articles/review-lytro-illum-camera-focuses-on-everything-1406735646?mod=WSJ_hpp_MIDDLENexttoWhatsNewsTop

So they've gone from a $300 toy to a $1600 real camera, of sorts. It does sound interesting, though. It's ability to provide refocusing in post is obvious, but the ability to provide a means to display a photo interactively, kind of like a hybrid still/movie camera could be a way to its future --but not for $1600, at least for me.

 

[lo lite]

Those light field cameras are just another means of postponing photographic decisions to the office desk. In former times you had to get it all right at the moment of the shot, now we can, thanks to raw imaging correct the exposure later, thanks to cameras like the 1DC choose the right moment later (when recording video, Canon did promote this with the term "micro expressions" google for "micro expressions canon"), now Lytro offers postponing the focusing …

Call me old fashioned, I don't like all this. Off course I also make mistakes and I am happy when I am able to correct them to some extend later on but usually I prefer to choose the right moment, the right framing, the right focus point, the right exposure and the right field of depth at the moment I take the shot.

Imagine a future where an omnidirectional viewing light field detector is mounted onto a stick which one just holds into the air during an event. This detector would then just capture everything around it in a form of a three dimensional scene movie. Later then, at the office you would sit down and have your real photo session: choosing the right moments, do the framing, setting the focus points and so on. Would that be better in any way or just a duplication of what we're already doing nowadays, only time shifted?

 

[slclick]

Those light field cameras are just another means of postponing photographic decisions to the office desk. In former times you had to get it all right at the moment of the shot, now we can, thanks to raw imaging correct the exposure later, thanks to cameras like the 1DC choose the right moment later (when recording video, Canon did promote this with the term "micro expressions" google for "micro expressions canon"), now Lytro offers postponing the focusing …

Call me old fashioned, I don't like all this. Off course I also make mistakes and I am happy when I am able to correct them to some extend later on but usually I prefer to choose the right moment, the right framing, the right focus point, the right exposure and the right field of depth at the moment I take the shot.

Imagine a future where an omnidirectional viewing light field detector is mounted onto a stick which one just holds into the air during an event. This detector would then just capture everything around it in a form of a three dimensional scene movie. Later then, at the office you would sit down and have your real photo session: choosing the right moments, do the framing, setting the focus points and so on. Would that be better in any way or just a duplication of what we're already doing nowadays, only time shifted?

I'm with you. I like to get more work done in front of the VF than the monitor.

 

[vstrike]

Those light field cameras are just another means of postponing photographic decisions to the office desk. In former times you had to get it all right at the moment of the shot, now we can, thanks to raw imaging correct the exposure later, thanks to cameras like the 1DC choose the right moment later (when recording video, Canon did promote this with the term "micro expressions" google for "micro expressions canon"), now Lytro offers postponing the focusing …

Call me old fashioned, I don't like all this. Off course I also make mistakes and I am happy when I am able to correct them to some extend later on but usually I prefer to choose the right moment, the right framing, the right focus point, the right exposure and the right field of depth at the moment I take the shot.

That's not what the purpose of the camera is for. It is not so you can correct your mistakes, it is so you can make the process interactive. You determine the depth and the focus range in camera. There is just as much to think about when using the Lytro as a DSLR, if not more. This is built more for the monitor than it is for prints. Not saying whether it is good or not, but I find the concept very interesting.

 

[lo lite]

Those light field cameras are just another means of postponing photographic decisions to the office desk. In former times you had to get it all right at the moment of the shot, now we can, thanks to raw imaging correct the exposure later, thanks to cameras like the 1DC choose the right moment later (when recording video, Canon did promote this with the term "micro expressions" google for "micro expressions canon"), now Lytro offers postponing the focusing …

Call me old fashioned, I don't like all this. Off course I also make mistakes and I am happy when I am able to correct them to some extend later on but usually I prefer to choose the right moment, the right framing, the right focus point, the right exposure and the right field of depth at the moment I take the shot.

That's not what the purpose of the camera is for. It is not so you can correct your mistakes, it is so you can make the process interactive. You determine the depth and the focus range in camera. There is just as much to think about when using the Lytro as a DSLR, if not more. This is built more for the monitor than it is for prints. Not saying whether it is good or not, but I find the concept very interesting.

I think too that the technical concept is very interesting. But you need a special viewer to have the interactive aspect for the shots. And then again how many subjects can you imagine (aside from the hand picked examples at the lytro website) where an adjustable focus really makes sense? To me this lytro stuff is still mostly a nice toy, nothing that I would really miss in day to day photography.

 

[RGF]

Those light field cameras are just another means of postponing photographic decisions to the office desk. In former times you had to get it all right at the moment of the shot, now we can, thanks to raw imaging correct the exposure later, thanks to cameras like the 1DC choose the right moment later (when recording video, Canon did promote this with the term "micro expressions" google for "micro expressions canon"), now Lytro offers postponing the focusing …

Call me old fashioned, I don't like all this. Off course I also make mistakes and I am happy when I am able to correct them to some extend later on but usually I prefer to choose the right moment, the right framing, the right focus point, the right exposure and the right field of depth at the moment I take the shot.

That's not what the purpose of the camera is for. It is not so you can correct your mistakes, it is so you can make the process interactive. You determine the depth and the focus range in camera. There is just as much to think about when using the Lytro as a DSLR, if not more. This is built more for the monitor than it is for prints. Not saying whether it is good or not, but I find the concept very interesting.

I think too that the technical concept is very interesting. But you need a special viewer to have the interactive aspect for the shots. And then again how many subjects can you imagine (aside from the hand picked examples at the lytro website) where an adjustable focus really makes sense? To me this lytro stuff is still mostly a nice toy, nothing that I would really miss in day to day photography.

What about to increase DOF to your images? Can allow focus stacking from a single image.