

Lytro cameras are ready for preorder. - sahillavingia
https://www.lytro.com/camera

======
sbierwagen
Hmm, they don't mention image size on the details page. So lets guess at it
ourselves.

The viewable area of the flash widget is 540x540. You can zoom in 2x. There's
plenty of sensor artefacting at that zoom, (even in these carefully chosen
press-kit photos, which is worrying) so lets assume it's 1:1... which makes
the image size 1080x1080. 1.16 megapixels, for $400? Ouch. For that much
money, two ounces more weight, and a much more conventional form factor, you
can get a DMC-LX5, which is probably the best single-lens digital camera on
the market. (Full disclosure: I bought a LX3 with my own money back in 2009)

Poking around with Chrome's network tools will tell you that the LFP file is
between 900 and 1100 kilobytes, about four times bigger than a JPEG of the
same dimensions.

~~~
colanderman
No you're totally missing the point. This is _holographic photography_.
Capturing the entire light field means this captures depth. I'm surprised
they're not touting this on the web site -- there are already 3D displays.
Perhaps they don't have the processing technology yet?

Edit: Yup here it is: <http://blog.lytro.com/news/it-gets-better-
lytro-3d-demo/> They can do more though; with a proper holographic display you
could actually focus on different parts of the image (with your eyes) and "see
around" objects to a limited extent. (Their field-of-view-to-depth-of-field
ratio is limited by the size of the lens though.)

~~~
est
> This is holographic photography. Capturing the entire light field means this
> captures depth.

So can we reconstruct 3D image data if Lytro record some kind of RAW data?

~~~
colanderman
Yes! They do in the demo I linked in my edit.

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bprater
I'm pretty surprised that they don't have a "play with the focus" widget on
the homepage. It took me too many clicks to find out why I needed this camera.

~~~
pitdesi
For those who didn't find it right away: <https://www.lytro.com/living-
pictures>

Fun times. Too bad the science requires a deep back... would be awesome to
have this technology in your cellphone... hopefully we're just a few years
away. Technology is amazing.

~~~
joshu
It doesn't. I've seen it in a normal camera form-factor. It does require a
larger sensor, though.

~~~
rbanffy
A normal camera is much deeper than a cellphone. At least one I'd like to
carry with me ;-)

Nokia once had a cellphone with the camera on the side, mounted in the
clamshell hinge. With smaller lenses it could be a side-facing camera.

~~~
woadwarrior01
Are you talking about the Nokia N93? A friend of mine had it. It was the only
cell phone I'd seen with optical zoom.

~~~
rbanffy
It's most probably the only one where an optical zoom would fit. A quite
ingenious solution. A periscope-like mount would also be viable for cellphones
- it would still be at least twice as large as a common camera, but it
wouldn't be much deeper.

------
Jun8
I think focusing (pardon the pun) on the "focus later" feature is limiting,
for a lot of people this doesn't matter and it rubs many photographers the
wrong way, as seen from the comments. Rather, I think they should emphasize
that this is a _new_ way of taking pictures, you may decide to have different
focus planes on different parts of the photo, which may lead to interesting
new effects in photography. It also has many scientific applications.

~~~
wavephorm
No question, the technology is more impressive than the product. Most people
don't need more than the camera in an iPhone 4S.

I think this lightfield tech might have a lot more applications for video,
where focus can be troublesome due to movement.

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chrislomax
Can someone offer some serious comments on whether these are worth buying?
They look really cool and I would buy one but I am concerned about how they
operate and how big the pictures are?

I presume it takes hundreds of smaller pictures and merges it into one
picture, allowing you to zoom anywhere after the event but that makes me
wonder on the end quality of the picture?

I have been following these cameras since they were demonstrated on their site
earlier this year and got a bit excited then.

~~~
gjm11
No, not hundreds of smaller pictures.

A photosensor is (roughly speaking) sensitive only to the intensity of light
falling on it, and not the angle the light comes from. A plenoptic camera
(this is what Lytro are selling) trades off resolution against the ability to
discriminate between angles.

Take an ordinary camera sensor, with (let's say) 16MP in a 4000x4000 array.
Group them into (let's say) 8x8 blocks, of which there are 500x500. Now put a
little lens in front of each block, with focal length equal to the distance
from lens to sensor.

A light ray reaching one of those blocks will end up on one of the block's
pixels; which ray depends on (not the exact position at which the ray meets
the array of lenses, but) the angle at which it's travelling.

Now, imagine an image that's not quite focused correctly on the camera sensor.
What that means is that for each point of the object you're imaging, you get a
cone of light rays that are converging towards some point either in front of
the sensor or behind it. With an ordinary camera, that just gives you a
circular blur and you're screwed. With a plenoptic camera, you can tell what
angle the light in that circular blur was coming in at, which means you can
determine where it would have gone if the sensor had been further back or
further forward, which means you can reconstruct what you'd have got if the
focus had been different. (What if it _is_ focused perfectly? Well, you still
get to know the distribution of angles from which the light is reaching the
sensor, which means you can work out how the image would have been blurred out
with a different focus.)

The main price you pay for all this is a severe loss of resolution: your
output "pixels" are the blocks of pixels on the sensor. So the physical size
and noise level of the sensor, and the size of your raw image files, are those
of (in my example) a 16MP sensor, while the final image is (in my example)
only 1/4 MP.

~~~
chrislomax
So would you say this is more of a gadget camera rather than an everyday use
camera? I have just paid out for a pretty decent point and shoot, would I
replace it with one of these camera's or opt to use both?

I do love the concept of them but if all I am ever going to get out of them is
a 6x4" pic to print at the end of the day then it's only really useful for
"playing" with?

~~~
gjm11
I can't see a Lytro camera replacing a "pretty decent point-and-shoot";
they're very different.

The post-hoc refocusing feature is neat but I can't think of many practical or
artistic purposes for which it would actually be more useful than having way
more pixels. But I'm not an expert photographer and could easily be wrong. One
kind of situation in which it might be useful is where an object is moving
rapidly towards or away from the camera, but not moving much laterally. Then
the freedom not to worry about rapid and accurate focusing might be useful. As
soon as your object is moving laterally too, though, the limited resolution is
going to bite you: you've avoided having to locate the object accurately in
_z_ at the cost of needing to get _x_ , _y_ right, so to speak.

There may be non-gimmicky applications for which Lytro is The Right Thing.
Right now, I can't think what they'd be. Depth measurement, perhaps.

~~~
rbanffy
Spatial resolution will increase at the same rate the process allows the
sensor elements to shrink, so, in a couple years, a Lytro-like imaging sensor
will have the same resolution as a top-of-the-line DSLR.

I think they are on to something

------
delackner
Very curious what the final output resolution will be. Sure it is fun to be
able to not have to deal with focusing until you are back home "developing"
the images, but if the final output is 3mp, after you develop you are still
left with an image too low-resolution for anything but screen display. In the
words of Brian Peterson (Understanding Exposure) for any particular scene
there may be many "correct" exposures, but only one creatively interesting
exposure. Likewise, in their image gallery there is generally a single focus
point that makes the most creatively interesting image, so after you've chosen
that point at home, you are still looking at a very low-res image.

Of course, for shooting in the wild, some of their shots would just never ever
get taken correctly by an autofocus system and would disappear before even a
pro managed to manually focus. And many of us never print a single photo
today, so being stuck with a beautiful 3mp image may be enough. They have a
stunning image in the gallery of a woman standing outside of a shop, taken
through the shop glass. <https://www.lytro.com/living-pictures/152> Imagine if
she was walking by, not just posing. You would never have time to capture it
if you were using a traditional camera.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
> _for any particular scene there may be many "correct" exposures, but only
> one creatively interesting exposure_ //

If there are multiple points of interest then there are surely going to be
multiple points of focus that are interesting either because they focus or
because they defocus the point of interest.

Take the rocket behind a water fountain image. I think it works well both as
is and as a water fountain in front of a rocket.

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tamersalama
I'm not sure I like this form factor in a camera (let alone one for new
imaging). It's very prone to rotations, the screen size is too small for
interactions/focus-views, the design is not all too appealing.

Still has the cool factor.

~~~
Titanous
It looks like the depth is due to the optics:
<https://www.lytro.com/science_inside>

~~~
devindotcom
Yeah with a darker lens they could have gotten away with something shorter,
but an F/2 with internal 8x zoom is going to be pretty big no matter what.

------
mrspandex
I really like their idea of a facebook app that lets my friends play with the
focus. Stroke of marketing genius if you ask me.

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devindotcom
I think this is great, but I wrote up my reservations about the system here,
if a little self-linkage isn't frowned upon:

[http://techcrunch.com/2011/07/22/doubts-about-lytros-
focus-l...](http://techcrunch.com/2011/07/22/doubts-about-lytros-focus-later-
camera/)

I can't wait to actually use one, though. From what I've heard, it's something
photographers who love the old methods (like myself) sort of "get" once
they've used it for a while. And of course it can live in peace alongside the
Canons and Sonys of the world.

~~~
jessriedel
>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
focusing as “a chore,” and believes removing it simplifies the process.

You really seemed to miss the point here. The Lytro camera captures all
possible focus settings, allowing the photographer to choose one later...or
combine multiple settings together in a single image. This isn't the machine
taking over the photographer's job, it's the machine increasing the choices
available to the photographer. Similarly, you might not like images which have
been heavily dodged/burned, but it certainly was a victory for artists when
that technique was developed, allowing them to choose differing levels of
exposure in the same image.

~~~
jeroen
It seems you're always stuck with f/2, so there's no way to adjust the depth
of field. That not only simplifies the process, it also takes away an
important choice.

~~~
nrp
_Physically_ , you're stuck at f/2 in the sense that that is the actual f-stop
of the lens. The information exists to let you choose the focus and the depth
of field of the desired display image after capturing the light field. This
simplifies the capturing process, but allows for more complex post processing
that is not possible with a normal camera.

------
cleverjake
* now for preorder. Delivering on revolutionary hardware is often harder than expected. I really want to buy one, but am hesitant to put down full price without something shipped on a new company.

~~~
eridius
I just ordered one. They say they won't charge my credit card until it's ready
to ship.

------
jrockway
Is this compatible with Free Software, or is it a big chunk of proprietary
software with a good amount of proprietary hardware thrown in for good
measure? The site does not make this particularly clear.

~~~
fader
According to their FAQ they do not plan to support Linux:
[http://support.lytro.com/entries/20552347-will-the-lytro-
des...](http://support.lytro.com/entries/20552347-will-the-lytro-desktop-
software-support-linux)

So my guess is that this will be proprietary and limited to proprietary
systems. (Which disappoints me, as I have a preorder code and my credit card
ready to buy, but I'm not going to change OSes to use their camera.)

------
daeken
I'm tempted to get one of these simply to play around with the potential for
3d reconstruction based on the data in the images.

~~~
rapind
I think you need two lenses to get enough info for 3d. DXG has a cheapy if you
just wanted to mess around. <http://www.dxgusa.com/products/dxg-3d.html>

~~~
colanderman
Nope, not at all. This is in essence digital holography.

(In holography, each "pixel" captures along the 3rd dimension of angle of
incidence. The image is reconstructed simply by each pixel
reflecting/emanating light as a function of its angle of incidence.)

~~~
rapind
Thanks for making me waste an hour of my time reading about digital holography
;) Pretty cool.

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mcantelon
You need a Mac to use it. Meh.

~~~
akent
And they only ship to the US. Meh.

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finnh
Their "Living Pictures" messaging doesn't resonate with me - letting viewers
set the focus themselves strikes me as an interesting tech display the first
two times, and then nobody will bother. Especially if there's a massive
download associated with that ability.

However, letting the photographer set the focus post-facto, "print" that image
into a jpeg, and finally share that jpeg in the standard fashion ... that
seems like the real benefit ("take a picture super fast, and get it right
later!").

Lytro alludes to this benefit, but they talk about "getting it right later" in
the context of the end audience interacting with the Living Picture (TM) ...
which I think is a gimmick that the audience will tire of. But the original
photographer will love it for the generation of final product (once the
resolution issue is solved), by moving the fiddly "get the focus etc right"
effort from "in the moment, time-sensitive" to "post-production, leisurely".

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libraryatnight
Super interested, but had to sign up for the 'let me know when it's for
Windows' option.

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fastfinner
the tech is great & the product is very cool, no arguments.

as a a photographer myself, i'm wondering why people actually buy this though?
how many photos do people take that they wish they could refocus later?

~~~
Lewisham
Focus on the entire picture, no. Zoom in on (and then inevitably have to
focus), yes. So I guess it depends on the density of capture for me, at least.

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greyhill
Pretty amazing; I had no idea these cameras were so close to being cheaply
produced.

I hope they make lightfield data available for tinkering -- this could be an
awesome research toy.

------
kqr2
For more technical details, check out the CEO's PhD dissertation:

<https://www.lytro.com/renng-thesis.pdf>

~~~
ajkessler
I remember reading this and seeing the demos 5 long years ago, thinking
"Coooool... hope it's not vaporware."

If he actually gets this to market, I imagine it won't be too long before it,
or similar tech, is available in high end dslrs and video cameras. This is
going to be freakin revolutionary and so, so, so cool.

Kudos, Ren Ng, and thanks! Hope you get real rich off this.

------
kaitnieks
I remember that these cameras could make the whole picture to be in focus. I
think 3-d movie makers should start using similar technology because it's kind
of weird when you're watching a 3-d movie with the glasses and the background
is blurred even if you're looking right at it.

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bprater
Another review of the camera: [http://thisismynext.com/2011/10/19/lytro-
plenoptic-light-fie...](http://thisismynext.com/2011/10/19/lytro-plenoptic-
light-field-camera-pre-orders-today-shipping-2012/)

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fstevens
The curse of not living in The United States raises it head again. I would
gladly lay cash down today for the preorder.

~~~
brianobush
If it hurts, then solve it - startup idea: In Japan there is a company called
tenso.com that will ship to anywhere so you can buy products for the Japanese
market and have them shipped to your local tenso Japanese address. They box it
up and forward to you where ever you are - for a nice fee. Not sure if this
exists here in the US, but maybe you should create it if there is a market.

~~~
alexhawket
There's are a number of services in the US for shipping US products overseas
such as <http://www.shipito.com/>

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rbanffy
I felt kind of nostalgic about the form factor - it reminds me of my Canon
Photura.

~~~
nooneelse
I think I like the Photura form better. Looks like it is designed to be held
by human hands, instead of to be sat on the table and looked at itself.

~~~
rbanffy
It was a great point-and-shoot camera. It was nearly impossible to ruin a
picture (and, mind you, those were the chemical film days).

And it looked something straight out of a sci-fi movie.

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k4st
I HATE when a website tries to prevent me from leaving with the back button.

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joelhooks
I'm a control freak. I hate to have people manipulating my images. This is a
cute toy, but it eliminates a bit of what makes taking photos fun for me.

~~~
ugh
You look at it wrong. Nothing manipulates anything here. It’s a different
technology with different properties.

~~~
joelhooks
I just phrased it poorly. I understand the ramifications. The widgets are
nifty (and just a way to demo the tech), but I take photos very intentionally.
I just my aperture settings specifically based on a given situation. I shoot
on M (with a manual focus lens for the most part) because I enjoy doing so.

