Street Photography Magazine

(Elle) #1

T


he Lytro camera promises previously
inconceivable creative possibilities and an
end to blurred images to anyone who is
prepared to invest at least US$400 in this very
new technology. Not only does the world’s
first consumer light field camera enable you
to focus after shooting but – because it
doesn’t have to focus first – also claims to be
faster than conventional cameras. The Lytro


has been available since March, and one of the
models to hit the market found its way to our
test lab.
Ren Ng, who worked on the prototype
Lytro at the Computer Graphics Laboratory at
Stanford University, published details of the
new ‘Digital Light Field Photography’
technology in his doctoral thesis in 2006 (see
[1] below). Ng says, “I love photography, but

I’m just not a great photographer. This thesis
is grounded in my frustration at shooting so
many out-of-focus photos.” He has identified
three basic challenges in focusing
photographs:
Firstly, the subject has to be in proper focus
before the shutter is released. Neither an
autofocus system nor the photographer can
solve this problem.

Ulrich Hilgefort, Angela Meyer

Light Field Photography


with the Lytro


If focus or depth of field in a photo don’t turn out the way you intended,
you will probably try to improve your technique or repeat the shot.
Scientist Ren Ng has taken a different approach, developing camera
technology that enables you to decide where you want to position the
plane of focus after an image is captured. His company’s Lytro ‘light field’
camera is available now, so we decided to take one for a spin ...
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