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Could this be a technical leap in the ability to take photographs or just a technical fantasy?


“A Mountain View start-up is promising that its camera, due later this year, will bring the biggest change to photography since the transition from film to digital.
Ordinarily, I’m turned off by such hyperbole, but after having seen a demo from Lytro, that statement seems downright reasonable.

The breakthrough is a different type of sensor that captures what are known as light fields, basically all the light that is moving in all directions in the view of the camera. That offers several advantages over traditional photography, the most revolutionary of which is that photos no longer need to be focused before they are taken.

That means that capturing that perfect shot of your fast-moving pet or squirming child could soon get a whole lot easier. Instead of having to manually focus or wait for autofocus to kick in and hopefully center on the right thing, pictures can be taken immediately and in rapid succession. Once the picture is on a computer or phone, the focus can be adjusted to center on any object in the image, also allowing for cool artsy shots where one shifts between a blurry foreground and sharp background and vice versa.”

There are some demo photos at the link above as well as a video in which a representative of Lytro states they plan on bringing a competitively priced consumer P&S to market.

Bringing a competitive product to market is extremely difficult, especially for a start-up company, so I’m wondering if they are looking to be bought out by one of the major cameras manufactures — which may just happen if their technology is real. I’m also wondering about photo resolution and if this technology has legs beyond technical demonstrations and perhaps the P&S field.

Any opinions?

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Don
Don
13 years ago

Sounds very promising. I’m more impressed that you’ve seen a demo of the process. It sounds too good to be true. On the other hand, our current digital approach goes way back and probably could use some quantum leaps.

Earl
13 years ago
Reply to  Don

Don, The post link above has a link to an on-line demo of the system that allow readers to try out this variable focus technology on their own. Very interesting and I’d recommend you trying it out if you’ve not already.

Ken Bello
13 years ago

Sounds fascinating. I would certainly want to try out this new technology. It could be a very creative tool!

Mark
13 years ago

It does sound interesting. Some pretty big claims of how revolutionary it will be. I think I remember reading the same thing about how Foveon sensors were going to be commonplace everywhere. I can see something helping in those “oops” moments, but would hate to think that the photographer never needs to focus the camera anymore to communicate what they are trying to capture.

David Leland Hyde
13 years ago

In one light it all seems very good for photographers if it is real. However, if you take a second look, making the capture of good photographs easier and easier to do, has not been particularly good for serious photographers or their careers.

Anita Jesse
13 years ago

Another seismic shift in photography is about to occur. Exciting stuff. I didn’t run across this on my own for several days. By then, it was old news to me, thanks to Earl, crack reporter.