Image Focus - A Thing of The Past?

[great_bear]

Not sure if I completely believe this:

Light Field camera | Lytro

The interactive picture gallery is fun - although I suspect it may be, shall we say, "mocked up"?

[daz]

That does look amazing - if indeed it is real!

[MrJulius]

It is indeed real, but it will have a very low pixel count and I think it won't work without focusing your telescope. But it looks really cool.

You can listen to an episode of This Week in Photo where they have an interview with the guys from Lytro.

[Polar Bear]

Forgive me for being cynical but is the camera not just recording variable focus points combined with variable depth of field ?

Clicking on the examples just brings up differently processed images of the same view.

This can be done with several images stacked as AVI frames. I fail to see how it is ground-breaking.

[JamesM]

In my everyday digital photography, I use depth of field to help 'frame' my intended point of interest such as with macro photography. There fore I'm not sure what the point is. Not being a typical bloke here (...clearly I'm in denial) but I chose the picture of the girl with the bicycle because I wanted to look at the girl - why would I want to see a close up of the wheel rim?

James

(now seen going back to the above mentioned picture (again) just to make sure he hasn't missed anything else! )

[Shibby]

I have just read about these cameras. Very interesting... You could use them not only for fine-tuning the focus but also for focus stacking when shooting macro. Shallow DOF at large aperture could be resolved!

Forgive me for being cynical but is the camera not just recording variable focus points combined with variable depth of field ?

Clicking on the examples just brings up differently processed images of the same view.

This can be done with several images stacked as AVI frames. I fail to see how it is ground-breaking.

Not quite, as I understand it the image is still captured in a single exposure, using an array of "microlenses" above the sensor. Your avi method would not work well on a moving target or without a tripod.

[cantab]

I'm skeptical. In part because of the shiny website, the quirky styling, the software being Mac-only - it all points to marketing and style, rather than actual engineering substance.

[umadog]

I think the engineering substance is real (I looked around at some other sites first). The question is: what's the point? There seems to be a major resolution tradeoff, so it's no good for real photographers, who would in any case be thinking through their shots at the time of capture. That's when the marketing style comes in: they're selling it as camera that captures "life" (whatever that means). Lots of blue buttons like those on the Apple store.

[Shibby]

Yeah it does look like the sort of company that Apple would snap up without a second thought.

Agreed, at least currently, the camera is no good for real photographers. It's good for people who want to take snaps without worrying about focus. But who's to say where this technology will go in the future?

[Mr Spock]

Looks similar to focus stacking.

[Andy McK]

This camera was reviewed on BBC's IT magazine, "The Click" a couple of weeks ago

As stated in the thread it's a multi lens low pixel camera for the casual photographer who doesnt know what to point there camera at

And sorry MAC users, if it's for MAC only, I cant see me loosing too many nites sleep to angst.