
War Stories: Why I Lit Up Lytro - tim_sw
https://backchannel.com/war-stories-why-i-lit-up-lytro-b46124da32a6#.yrorcr8jw
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DenisM
I bought a Lytro Illum to play with 3D pictures, which id did quite well on
smaller scale objects. I have beautiful roses to show for it on my 3d Samsung
TV.

Unexpectedly to me, it turned out to be very useful for a different purpose.

With a regular camera you have plenty of megapixels, so in post-production you
can crop left and right. This allows you to learn how to frame your shots well
via rapid iteration. Had you not had the megapixel surplus, you would have to
make new shots to iterate on your framing technique, and that would take a lot
longer.

While Lytro is lacking in megapixels, it can serve the same purpose with
respect to depth of field. You can take hundreds of photos with a regular
camera honing your DOF skills, or you can just play with it in post-production
and very quickly see how it changes the overall picture.

Had they shipped their third-generation camera, it would allow to do both,
making it an indispensable photography training tool.

It's sad that they had to wrap it up, but I wish them the best of luck with
that VR thing.

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jacobolus
Various stories posted to HN in 2015 for context:

[http://recode.net/2015/02/25/lytro-cuts-jobs-
raises-50-milli...](http://recode.net/2015/02/25/lytro-cuts-jobs-
raises-50-million-in-shift-toward-virtual-reality-and-video-exclusive/)

[http://www.fastcompany.com/3042910/tech-forecast/seven-
sober...](http://www.fastcompany.com/3042910/tech-forecast/seven-sobering-
takeaways-from-lytros-move-beyond-consumer-photography)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10513295](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10513295)
[http://uploadvr.com/lytro-immerge-vr-light-field-video-
camer...](http://uploadvr.com/lytro-immerge-vr-light-field-video-camera/)

[http://www.wired.com/2015/11/lytro-refocuses-to-create-a-
gro...](http://www.wired.com/2015/11/lytro-refocuses-to-create-a-
groundbreaking-vr-camera/?mbid=nl_11515#slide-1)

~~~
sowhatquestion
Thanks for the links! The tech is absolutely stunning, I can't believe it flew
under my radar for months after being announced.

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bunderbunder
I had so much fun with my (original) Lytro camera. For about a month. Then the
novelty wore off and it just became a slightly difficult-to-use camera that
often took pictures where none of the 10 focal lengths it offered gave a crisp
rendition of the subject. So much for "focusing the picture after the fact."

So I thought, hey, that's too bad, but maybe this would be a really great
platform for experimenting with computer vision! Or at least I could dig into
the file and look for other interesting things to do with the light field
photos.

Unfortunately, no dice. The thing is not-at-all hackable - at least at the
time, they hadn't posted any specs on their file format or specs for the
protocol it uses to talk to the computer. If they had, it might have had a
serious 2nd life as a toy for makers. Instead, my unit has gone untouched for
at least the past 18 months.

Considering how quickly I lost interest in it for general photography uses, I
never even considered buying the Illum. The things it does differently from a
regular camera are, by and large, things a decent photographer doesn't really
want.

So a consumer product was never going to happen, and even if they had
scratched my itch and make a toy for hackers, it would have penned them into a
very small niche market in the absolute best case scenario. He made the right
choice.

~~~
whatnotests
> my unit has gone untouched for at least the past 18 months

Good thing this isn't slashdot.

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phoboslab
Somewhat OT: if you write a blog post about a company (or product, etc.),
please provide a link to the company in the first paragraph.

I know it's trivial to google, but it's still very annoying. I see this here
all too often. E.g. many companies have their blog at blog.example.com but no
obvious link anywhere to example.com. It's just a huge oversight.

So, out of courtesy: [https://www.lytro.com/](https://www.lytro.com/)

------
ISL
I'd missed their new product launch. That thing is very cool, and potentially
a better use of their light-field imaging than their camera-like projects.

You guys have a Seattle office?

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jessriedel
Summary? And is the article worth the time?

