Imagine taking a photo and choosing the focus point later on. That's exactly what the new Lytro let's you do. Andrew Fildes takes a look at a very unusual camera.
Imagine a camera that doesn't require you to think about focus at all. Simply take the shot and choose the focal point later on. There had been rumours of such a camera for few years but it didn’t seem possible. How could it be achieved? Multiple exposures at
different focus points combined into one huge file, like a sort of
super RAW file? That would require huge processing power, surely?
Well, the first "focus-free" camera has been released and it delivers on the promise. Consider a digital image of a spider spinning a web. The spider appears sharp while the foliage in the background has faded away to a soft green blur. Click on the foliage and it suddenly appears sharp while the spider drifts out of focus. And the same goes for any point in the image. There are seemingly endless focal points to choose from.
The Lytro ‘Camera 3.0’ is a very strange little beast indeed. It’s a cute box about 110mm long and 40mm square so it fits neatly in the hand. It has no resemblance to any other camera apart from perhaps a security CCTV unit. That could be a problem because although developer/designer Ren Ng admits that they were aiming for an ‘iconic design’, the cameras that we use are the shape they are for a reason – ease of use, perhaps?
The innards are more understandable. Two thirds of this square barrel are taken up with a lens – 35-280mm equivalent, 8x zoom, f2. The back third contains the gubbins – sensor, processor, battery, storage. There are only three physical controls, a power switch, a zoom slider and a shutter button. That’s it. On the back is a tiny 128 pixel square touch screen for viewing and reviewing – you can also refocus and magnify.
This camera is unique and seriously simple. The design reminds you of the first iPods (one of Ng’s inspirations). It has other resemblances too. The battery and memory (8 or 16gig) are not removable or replaceable by the owner. The 350 or 750 square images taken on a full memory are downloaded direct to computer and the unit is charged by USB connection.
The technical details are a bit mysterious but there’s a lot of talk about the device capturing ‘rays of light’. The sensor is said to capture 11 million light rays. I don’t think that’s quite the same as an 11-megapixel conventional sensor but it gives some idea. The aperture is fixed at f2 across the range of the zoom to maximise light information capture and possibly reduce depth of field for maximum effect.
Apparently each light ray is split over several pixels by special microlenses which allow recording of the direction that the light arrives at the camera. This directional information allows the image to be refocussed by a recalculation of the information. Got that? No, me neither but apparently it works. You have to rethink the way you think about digital images. It’s also interesting for 3D as it’s capturing enough information. I’m going back to thinking of it as a super RAW file!
At present it works for a simple point and shoot, low-resolution device. Customers are expected to use images on Facebook, Flickr, etc, or share through Lytros’ own customer server where viewers can refocus the images themselves. Printing does not seem to be important. Ng describes it as a ‘disruptive technology’ – something like people using iPhones for their snapshots. And remember that this is early days – if this technology takes off, then the cameras that we’re using in ten years time might be very different.
Lytro is an independent start-up company and you’re unlikely to find
one in a store here in Australia – but you can buy online from the web
site. It's US$399 for the 8GB version or $499 for the 16GB.
My twenty-something son thought it was really cool. He suggested I buy
one. I suggested he buy one. He might. This could be the next big thing,
or not. I’ve given up predicting the future.
Full details here: https://www.lytro.com
These screenshots show two versions of one Lytro image. The original image can be refocused by clicking on different parts of the image. (Monarch at rest in Phoenix, AZ. Photo by Adam Gould.)