I have been seeing a lot about a "new kind of camera" called the Lytro light field camera. I would like to ask if anyone here on FM has had any hands on experience with this camera and if so do you feel that it could be a serious addition to the professional photographer's gear, or is it just a fancy toy for those with more money than sense? Or does it fall somewhere between those two options?
I am curious too, seems that they do their best to hide the fact it's a 1.1mp camera. I'm afraid they'll have to do better than 1080x1080 images before I'll give it a try.
Interesting idea, but in terms of practical use (resolution, viewing), it's just a toy at this point. The concept is very cool. But in some way it reminds me of an even less functional analogue to Foveon. Both great ideas, but for broad adoption by the mainstream, particularly higher end mainstream/professionals... just not there. Perhaps never will be. OR perhaps it will change photography.
Thanks for the input. I do see it having a use in macro photography though. If they develop it enough to take macro shots the idea of being able to bring anything from closest foreground to farthest background selectively into focus means it would be possible to do focus stacking with as many images as desired from a single frame without having to worry about the subject moving between frames.
I didn't catch the part about low pixel count. That is a serious limit until they can get larger sensors no matter what it might be useful for in theory. But for now it looks like way to much money for way too little camera unless you are a gadgeteer with deep pockets.
I'm waiting for 10-15 years till I can seriously use this technology. It would be so awesome for fast and long (135mm f/2) street photography and sports photography....
Actually maybe the Department of Energy or National Institutes of Health can commission a million dollar Lytro for cell biology to take 5000x5000 images maybe ... Two summers ago as a second year undergrad I worked with a $100k Nikon microscope camera, using techniques to defeat the diffraction limit and superlocalise nanorod probes in a cell to a resolution of 10nm. Government research would probably be able to commission a Lytro for biology. If you're trying to track probe activity in a cell, you need to be able to monitor and record all focal planes at once. The Lytro is potentially a "3D microscope camera".
