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PhoenixOD
As a professional photographer i was quite excited to see this post. I thought id have to get one of these as it would save me some time in focusing and post production.
But after looking at the examples and reading up on the specs of the camera i can see lots of problems with it , at least for a professional.
- Fixed f2 aperture. A fixed f2 aperture has a very shallow depth of field. This means only a small part of the picture will be in focus at any one time. Thats great if you are doing macro photography or taking a picture of a single object/person. But anything with a bit of depth will mean you will never get a fully focused picture. This would be terrible for taking pictures of more than one person.
- F2 lets in a LOT of light , and i mean a lot. Most of the photographs you take with an f2 lens that are outdoors will be over exposed (blown out white or yellow). This is why they have built in some ND filters but its still going to be hard work getting the right shot.
- Resolution 1024x1024 this is a tiny size photograph , round about 1mega pixel. it will be great for low-res selfies but not for anything you would want to show on an HD screen or have printed out.
-ISO 3200 max. This camera will be pretty useless in very low light.
- No white balance control. Colors will seem wrong in different lighting conditions.
PhoenixOD
- Fixed f2 aperture. A fixed f2 aperture has a very shallow depth of field. This means only a small part of the picture will be in focus at any one time.
zeroBelief
My wife, an experienced photographer, absolutely agrees with everything you just said!!!!!!!
PhoenixOD
reply to post by Arbitrageur
this is a lot of work and very hit and miss. Its far easier to just use a normal camera at f16-f22 to do the job in a single snap.
There is no image stabilization on this camera either. So because there is a super low max shutter speed you would have to be very careful when taking photographs to keep it super still so you dont get any motion blur.
edit on 13-1-2014 by PhoenixOD because: (no reason given)
Imagine you take multiple random pictures and never worry about blurry unsharp pictures anymore
You do?
PhoenixOD
I do fully understand the technology involved in this camera
That's the output. But since you understand the technology fully, please explain why there's only 1 megapixel of output from the 11 million light rays captured.
For a start its not an 11 megapixel camera its a 1 mpx camera 1024x1024.
And is there a clue as to why there are 10 million more light rays captured than pixels of output in there somewhere? It's not exactly like 11 one megapixel images, but I think you are getting closer to the truth here, than in your original comment about depth of field.
The only way to simulate an aperture higher than f2 using a fixed f2 lens would be to produce a series of photographs over a range of focal lengths and then use something like Helicon to combine them into a single fully focused picture. this is a lot of work and very hit and miss. Its far easier to just use a normal camera at f16-f22 to do the job in a single snap.
So you can either shift the focus, or you can make everything within the light field in focus, thus enabling you to get depth of field results like much smaller apertures than the f/2 aperture used. I think that's part of the reason there are so many more light rays than pixels of output.
2D formats [export resolution - 1080x1080]
Refocused Image (.jpg) - Choose a focus point and export, will create a .jpg image with your selected focus point
All-in-Focus Image (.jpg) - Perspective shift processing required. Will create an All-in-Focus .jpg image. Note "All-in-Focus" range will be the same as in the lightfield image; out-of-focus targets in the original due to range or movement will still be out of focus.
Yes and I don't think this technology will change professional photography. Polaroid didn't change professional photography either, but it was an alternative some people used for certain reasons. It remains to be seen if this technology will find a niche, but the review I read isn't very promising:
ErosA433
Its very neat technology, but in terms of professional photography... the game hasn't been changed for about 50 years.
They do leave the door open for the release of higher resolution versions of the technology which might be a lot more interesting.
The Lytro LFC is so unlike any conventional camera that it doesn't make sense to score it in comparison to them. Ultimately, though, we're not convinced that the Lytro either solves any existing problem or presents any compelling raison d'etre of its own. If it were higher resolution or allowed greater separation or could produce single lens 3D video it might generate a lot more excitement. As it is, it feels like a product arriving before the underlying technology is really ready.
All of which is a great shame, because Lytro has done a great job of making a credible consumer product out of a piece of fairly abstract scientific research. It's quite possible that in the hands of the right people it will result in some interesting creations but we just don't yet see it as a mass-market device.
Silcone Synapse
reply to post by nugget1
They are a bargain-$499
Cheaper than a decent DSLR...
store.lytro.com...
Could be worth waiting for the next gen to get any bugs worked out.
But great for post processing images.
Very low processed resolution
Explorable output tends to require contrived compositions
Small, low-res screen
Focus slow in Creative mode
Cross-hatch banding visible in high ISO images
No control over white balance can leave unpleasant tint under artificial light
Sadly, we're not fully convinced by the Lytro, conceptually interesting though it is. The limitations of the current LFC, both in terms of final resolution and the limited range of scenes its can bring something interesting to, mean we'd struggle to recommend it.
As a 'don't worry about focus' point-and-shoot, the Lytro isn't terribly successful - sharpness of close subjects isn't great in Everyday mode and the camera can't focus its lens fast enough to make Creative mode a credible alternative. Either way, the final resolution of 1080 x 1080 is simply too low to make it useful for much more than Facebook. The lack of control over any shooting functions, including white balance can also spoil the results.