
Doubts About Lytro’s “Focus Later” Camera - aaronbrethorst
http://techcrunch.com/2011/07/22/doubts-about-lytros-focus-later-camera/
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anigbrowl
_Speaking from the perspective of a tech writer and someone interested in
cameras, optics, and this sort of thing in general, I have to say the
technology is absolutely amazing. But from the perspective of a photographer,
I’m troubled. To start with, a large portion of the photography process has
been removed — and not simply a technical part, but a creative part. There’s a
reason focus is called focus and not something like “optical optimum” or
“sharpness.” Focus is about making a decision as a photographer about what
you’re taking a picture of. It’s clear that Ng is not of the same opinion. He
describes focus as “a chore.” The Lytro solution simplifies photography the
way hot dogs simplify meat. Without focus, it’s just the record of a bunch of
photons. And saying it’s a revolution in photography is like saying dioramas
are a revolution in sculpture._

The jury's still out on questions of whether digital is going to kill film or
whether photography is going to kill painting, so I think you can safely
ignore his doubts. His technical misgivings, which are so obvious as to seem
trite. I do a lot of creative photography, but other times I just want a grab
a good picture in a hurry and I'm happy to let the autofocus do the work. News
photographers and videographers will find this a godsend because there are
many situations where they need to shoot under difficult conditions with
limited time, and maintaining perfect focus can be extremely difficult. If
they get it wrong, the resulting images may be commercially worthless, and
editors are then faced with a choice of an inferior substitute, an expensive
reconstruction, or simply dropping that imagery from the print/tv/movie to the
detriment of the story being told.

What this is guy is upset about is that he's spent years learning the tricks
of proper focus and getting good at it, and now they're going to be available
to anyone for a few hundred bucks, regardless of their photographic skills.

~~~
gojomo
Also, Lytro doesn't eliminate the creative decision about which focus to
choose – it just defers it to a more leisurely time.

The author could argue the harsh constraint of requiring a snap decision which
irrevocably discards every other option improves art, but he doesn't, and
that'd be a more tenuous case. Disregarding resolution issues, you could
always carve the same traditionally-focused photo from the Lytro data.

