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05/09/2011 11:17:07 PM · #1
Anybody heard about this? Any further details?
Lytro computational photography
I haven't a clue what it means; one of my friends passed it my way and I was curious to see if any of you had heard something.
05/09/2011 11:49:49 PM · #2
I've heard vaguely about advances in post-shot focusing, but not about these folks in particular. Not sure how it works, but the demo is pretty cool: go to the bigger pictures, and click with the bracketed cursor to determine where you want the plane of focus to fall.
05/10/2011 12:49:18 AM · #3
I saw a clip about this. Photos are taken with special camera which takes photos using pixels as cubes. Don't ask me how, but this guy came with this idea, so when you try to change the focus, the cubes turns and finds the right focused image and brings it up. Not exactly cubes on the sensor, but it is used only for the concept. To view them you need a special software too. With special camera and special software, you can change focus just like the samples. i am not sure how practical it is honestly. It's like taking multiple images, focused on different areas, at once. I am pretty sure file sizes are for these pictures pretty large too.
05/10/2011 03:56:34 PM · #4
Yeah, I saw the demos... first thing it reminded me of was the Canon Wonder camera concept. Wonder cam
As my friend noted, it's privately held, so it's extremely doubtful anything will be explained before patents are granted. Interesting stuff, though.
06/22/2011 09:03:50 AM · #5
It appears to be "for real" and the claims are that it won't be expensive.

//mashable.com/2011/06/22/lytro/
06/22/2011 09:43:36 AM · #6
couldn't one just take an image with a large depth of field and do this in post?
06/22/2011 03:21:49 PM · #7
Wow! Imagine combining this with a cam+software that tracks what part of the screen you are looking at. It would be amazing to have it change focus based on what part of the picture you're looking at (without having to click).... Of course, this already is amazing.

Article about Lytro

Lytro Gallery

Message edited by author 2011-06-22 15:23:17.
06/22/2011 03:26:42 PM · #8
Originally posted by JMart:

Wow! Imagine combining this with a cam+software that tracks what part of the screen you are looking at. It would be amazing to have it change focus based on what part of the picture you're looking at (without having to click).... Of course, this already is amazing.

Article about Lytro

Lytro Gallery


yeah, no more al servo.
06/22/2011 06:19:38 PM · #9

//www.nytimes.com/2011/06/22/technology/22camera.html

i thought about it like this.

would i want to use this feature sometimes ( fast enviroments, vacations, etc ) ? Y

would i want to be limited to it's potential drawbacks all the time ? N

interesting concept though. for sure.


06/22/2011 09:51:03 PM · #10
Yeah... I considered stepping into the other conversation that was started about this...
There seems to be some pretty significant issues that will come up. The degree of defocus, it's quality, the quality of the optics (since they're homebrewing this whole thing), and resolution issues.
My friend and I were talking after this newest article, and he commented on how it might be similar in advancement to the Foveon chip, to which I said "yeah, it'll be just as great- packaged into a device that many find infuriating and refuse to adopt." With Foveon, people buy the DP's strictly for that, and accept the crappy rest of things on principle.
In any case, things will be interesting to watch.
06/23/2011 02:58:53 AM · #11
There's also this one for $30,000.
06/23/2011 10:03:56 AM · #12
//www.lytro.com/

Heard about this on the news this week. I thought it was worth a bump.

Message edited by author 2011-06-23 10:04:21.
06/23/2011 11:02:49 AM · #13
Seems cool, but at the same time, all the test shots all sorta felt the same. No super narrow depth of field, just the same nice smooth gradual blending every time. I'm curious as to whether this technology is planned to be marketed to the general public, or just the prosumers. I can see my mom liking this sort of stuff, but me personally, I'm not so sure.
06/23/2011 11:41:11 AM · #14
Originally posted by jamesgoss:

Seems cool, but at the same time, all the test shots all sorta felt the same. No super narrow depth of field, just the same nice smooth gradual blending every time. I'm curious as to whether this technology is planned to be marketed to the general public, or just the prosumers. I can see my mom liking this sort of stuff, but me personally, I'm not so sure.


well if its going to require regular consumers have to learn and use software to in order to obtain usable images its going to fail miserably.
06/23/2011 12:17:37 PM · #15
How do you get the whole picture in focus?
06/23/2011 02:48:21 PM · #16
If it was that good - Canon or Nikon would of brought the rights ages ago. I feel a gimmick coming on - I cant image the images are going to be that sharp - a new sensor requires a new lens technology - and I cant see that being that sharp - the fact that its being release in a point and shoot should tell us a lot.
06/23/2011 07:21:16 PM · #17
Originally posted by Simms:

If it was that good - Canon or Nikon would of brought the rights ages ago. I feel a gimmick coming on - I cant image the images are going to be that sharp - a new sensor requires a new lens technology - and I cant see that being that sharp - the fact that its being release in a point and shoot should tell us a lot.


Yes and no. From the sounds of it, the guy heading up Lytro is pushing things in a slightly different direction, one which was explained in his thesis. I don't know enough about light field cameras to say how it differs from that Raytrix, but it sounds like there are differences. As for it being in a P&S first and not trusting it... new technologies depend upon market penetration. Why do you think you've never heard of that Raytrix? Because it's a strange technology that runs 30K. Make it mass marketable and you gain market penetration and adoption by many, which gets everybody who is on the fence saying "well I'll spend the money once it's proven." Would you shell out the money you spent on your 1D on a mystery tech gamble? Also, it sounds as though he refused to sell the idea, electing to do it bottom up instead. Definitely agree about the optics though...
06/23/2011 07:38:18 PM · #18
Originally posted by spiritualspatula:

Originally posted by Simms:

If it was that good - Canon or Nikon would of brought the rights ages ago. I feel a gimmick coming on - I cant image the images are going to be that sharp - a new sensor requires a new lens technology - and I cant see that being that sharp - the fact that its being release in a point and shoot should tell us a lot.


Yes and no. From the sounds of it, the guy heading up Lytro is pushing things in a slightly different direction, one which was explained in his thesis. I don't know enough about light field cameras to say how it differs from that Raytrix, but it sounds like there are differences. As for it being in a P&S first and not trusting it... new technologies depend upon market penetration. Why do you think you've never heard of that Raytrix? Because it's a strange technology that runs 30K. Make it mass marketable and you gain market penetration and adoption by many, which gets everybody who is on the fence saying "well I'll spend the money once it's proven." Would you shell out the money you spent on your 1D on a mystery tech gamble? Also, it sounds as though he refused to sell the idea, electing to do it bottom up instead. Definitely agree about the optics though...


Generally though most new tech enters the market at the pro/luxury end of the market (e.g. Cars) - then filters down into the mainstream. I guess its all down to how people select their focal point - if its software based then Mr Average consumer probably wont be interested - you need to think that low - low/mid compacts are for the facebook brigade - take them to a party, nightclub and dump the images straight up to FB when they fall through the door - they dont want to start selecting focal points and decided what kind of DOF the images have.. So we move onto the hobbyists - but they are the Low - mid range DSLR brigade - and apart from a few users (serious amateurs) not many will buy it just to test out the new tech, although I guess a few will. But yes, I agree that I certainly wouldn't want to try a new sensor technology in the field - but the concept is something I`d love to play with!

Its a toughie - but a lot of `game changing` technologies need to be seamlessly introduced to the consumer and not thrust upon them as the main selling point of your product.

iPhone excluded :)

Message edited by author 2011-06-23 19:39:39.
06/25/2011 03:40:03 PM · #19
Yeah, good point about the user base. I guess what I was getting at is that it's less expensive for a start up to create a more simplistic device than a more complex one, and that's really important when you're talking about limited production numbers and keeping things competitive price-wise. But even so, I'm dubious of it gaining much momentum even if it does work well, what with the overwhelming amount of P&S being sold by big companies to facebookers, as you noted. How many of those folks will even ever hear about one of these devices when the likelihood of them being carried at a big box chain is so low?
06/26/2011 10:58:26 AM · #20
//www.nytimes.com/2011/06/22/technology/22camera.htm?_r=1
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