New camera company "Lytro"

[Paul in PDX]

Interesting technology. I’m not sure it really will impact the high end DSLR market as much as the author might claim unless the photo format was adopted by all software we use on a daily basis. Also there will be some resistance to the idea of “fixing” your focus in post production I would think. It would make adding or subtracting depth of field possible in post production though. Here is a link to the article.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/23086...otography.html

[The Blue Boy]

Be interesting to see how this pans (sorry! ) out. Technology is coming in leaps and bounds at the minute. Can't help but think the file sizes would be quite large, bit bigger than raw files maybe.

[ktuli]

I would also wonder about capture time as well. In theory, one can already do this with a series of shots taken with different DoFs and focal points and a flash app. Possibly even doable with a single exposure (taken with maximum DoF and then multiple sub-versions created in PP with blurring techniques). But in either scenario the capture time would be too great for most useful purposes.

Additionally, I don't see how the files could be adopted by current software without an additional app layer involved. The alternative would mean that an entirely new format would need to be developed and implemented in the original code of thousands of applications like web browsers, email clients, etc, etc... considering how PNG format was developed in 1996 and still is struggling to gain widespread traction, I'd say that's a very long shot.

Neat idea, but I'm not about to hold my breathe.

- Bill

[Paul in PDX]

So i dug a little more into this company and apparently it was born out of some guys Computer Science thesis from 2006. I guess he adds micro lenses to the sensor that take the information that passes through the main lens and view it from multiple angles. Then software can recreate a 3D image, a flat all in focus image, or simulated normal camera image from the depth of field that you designate. At least thats what it seemed it was saying. Here is the link to the thesis.

http://www.lytro.com/renng-thesis.pdf

[Bobobird]

Last year of the year before there were a number of news items about Adobe experiments using similar techniques. They have either progressed some in that direction and spun-off into a separate company or this one is a entirely different one.

[KTHXBAI]

I read about this company today. I do believe it will be a game changer for many digital camera makers. I must admit i will be curious to see the product but may not be an early adopter.

[slooky]

sounds awesome!

[Paul in PDX]

Here is a new update from the company. Does not look very exciting. Did they really have to come up with a new way to confuse people about image quality? My camera has 11 megarays so i take better pictures!

http://news.cnet.com/8301-30685_3-20...camera-design/

[Letrow]

This looks like an interesting concept. It will probably be suitable for special purposes, as you can get some good effects with this. The camera itself looks a bit weird to me at the moment. I am probably stuck in the past