Lytro – No, I Don’t Think This Camera Is Amazing

But I do think it will be fun to play with. When a friend on Twitter posted that there was a new gimmicky gadget, and it happened to be a camera, you could see my ears perk up from a mile away. Being an Orlando photographer, news of a photographic camera, and not just the latest small HD video gadget, is what gets my attention.

I go to Lytro’s site and I just think: Apple. And Icon Factory. Alright, so that’s a very small roadblock and I get back into checking what this is about. When you visit the most important page to Lytro (this one) you get three main points.

1. The camera takes pictures instantly. (Great…? Most do.) Okay, I’m being fussy. They are saying it takes a “multi-picture” instantly.
2. The pictures focus on every single thing (for the most part) in the scene very clearly (for the most part) and later on your computer, you can choose the focus.
3. SharepicturesonFacebookYEAH!

So what is the point? Now anyone can control bokeh with a simple consumer device. Bokeh is the creamy blurriness you see in photos, and in movies, when focus is on a nearby object leaving the background muffled.

Here’s the part that benefits professional photographers. There is something that happens to us sometimes, and we don’t really talk about it. Sometimes while we are quickly snapping away (such as with kids or pets) some of our pictures are out of focus even though we are doing everything right. This is usually no biggie, but on occassion you are culling through your images and see an amazing expression – and gosh darn it, that’s the blurry one.

If the technology used to make Lytro could make it into DSLRs, that would be amazing for fast-paced situations. But this is not a feature I would have on all of the time. It’s basically like cheating, and the bokeh is not as beautiful. It looks cheapened.

In closing, I guess I do look forward to people pointing little sticks at each other. And one of the winning marketing phrases of 2011 is definitely “The only camera that captures living pictures.” Living pictures. It’s got everyone crawling! (To order.) Okay I’m going to sleep.

P.S. The day after I wrote this, there were interesting hits. Maybe someone agrees, or they are doing a little research: