Lytro has announced the world’s first “light field” camera. The camera provides users the ability to refocus the image after taking it. Pocket sized and featuring an 8x optical zoom and f/2.0 lens, the pictures that the new Lytro camera is capable of producing are being dubbed “living pictures”. They can be endlessly refocused by clicking on different elements of the scene. Can you imagine how powerful this will be for budding photographers or people who want to document an event?
According to Lytro, the camera captures the entire light field, which is all the light travelling in every direction in every point in space. To process the information, the cameras also contain a light field engine that allows users to focus the image in-camera after it has been captured.
The design of the Lytro camera is very simplistic. It has two buttons, power and shutter, along with a glass touch screen.
What I find particularly interesting is that this product has not come from a traditional camera manufacturer but rather from a startup. The other thing of interest is that the camera will be available in 2 versions of storage: 8GB and 16GB.
I guess I am going to have to wait until 2012 for this to launch as the Lytro looks to be a winner. Gadget of the year winner for 2012 or is this the beginning of a totally new category of photographic products available to the public?
