The Lytro camera is the world’s first consumer light field, or plenoptic, camera.
If you want to understand more about the science behind a light field camera, then Google is your friend. For this review it is sufficient for you to know that capturing the light field allows you to choose the focus point for the image after it has been taken. How useful is that? Your answer to that question may help you decide whether a Lytro is worth your money.
So let’s get the money side of things out of the way first. An 8GB model will cost you $399, a 16GB model will cost you $499. The 8GB will hold 350 images, the 16GB holds 750; although the battery may not last long enough for that many shots. It’s a lot of money; but as the only other light field camera on the market (for industrial use) can cost you up to $30,000, you might feel that this is a reasonable price for a neatly packaged chunk of cutting-edge technology. Plus, it comes in a choice of colours which must be worth something.
On first inspection, it looks nothing like a camera:
The minimalist design makes you think that this is what a camera might look like if Apple designed one, and the packaging reinforces that impression. Coincidentally, it is also exactly the same length as an iPhone 4S:
The Apples ethos extends to the documentation, there isn’t any; other than a single card with a website address and a suggestion that a visit might be in order. There is also a twenty three page Product Information Guide, which sounds promising but it only tells you not to drop it, not to allow small children to swallow it, and then launches into nineteen pages of warranty details.
Never mind, what else can we find in the box? There is a carrying lanyard, a lens cap which falls off really easily, a cleaning cloth and a USB cable. So let’s plug the camera into the computer via the USB cable and see what happens.
What happens is that the desktop software for the camera is downloaded and any firmware updates for the camera are installed. From then on, every time you plug in the camera, your photos are downloaded to your computer and show up in the Lytro application, and the battery recharges while the camera is connected. It’s all very slickly done and even my granny could manage it if it wasn’t for the fact that she is dead.
Still, we haven’t taken any photos yet, so it’s off to the Lytro website which indeed contains plenty of “how to” information.
The camera controls are pretty basic. On the bottom of the device is a power switch and a cover, beneath which is the USB connector.
On the top is the photo taking button, which also acts as a power-on button, so you would only use the power button on the bottom to turn the camera off if you don’t want to wait for it to do it by itself.
Near the photo taking button is a little ridged area. You slide your finger along this to zoom in and out. The lens offers 43mm-340mm (full frame equivalent) zoom. It is easy to move the zoom slider by mistake, so you have to keep an eye on the zoom indicator in the LCD:
Talking of which, at the back is a a touch-sensitive LCD.
It may not look like it in this example, but it does display colour. But this example does show that the resolution is very low and the display is poor. Plus, the touch-sensitivity is very variable and it can take several stabs, with associated swearing, to select some options.
And finally, at the front, there is the lens; beyond which lies all the clever light field stuff.
Right, now we know where all (both) the buttons are, lets go take a photo.
Basic Shooting
Lytro suggest you start by getting about six inches away from a subject for your first attempts, so let’s do that:
Click on the nose. It’s in focus! Click on the hair. It’s in focus! Click on the building in the background. It’s in focus!
Is that it? Well yes, that’s pretty much it.
Here are a couple more, have a play:
A target market for Lytro are people who attend social gatherings, take crap out of focus shots, and then load them to Facebook. “Look at all my friends, they are all blurry, how can I get them all in focus? Never mind, with my Lytro I just take the snap and people can choose focus later”.
Sadly, I don’t have any friends and I don’t attend social gatherings; so instead I dragged out she who must be obeyed’s doll collection (I knew it would come in useful one day), and pretended they were my friends. “See my friends; I can make each of them in focus! My social standing has just increased immeasurably, thank you Lytro”.
Using “everyday” mode you can just snap away, knowing that everything from about six inches out to infinity can be re-focused. In this mode you can also tap on the screen to indicate where you would like exposure to be calculated.
Creative Shooting
But slide up on the screen and you can not only check your battery and storage status, but you can also select “creative” mode. This allows you to get much closer to a subject, almost touching. You then use the touch screen to indicate the point around which the focus depth will be calculated. If you get really close to the subject, then you cannot re-focus to infinity; but it does allow for some interesting close-up shots.
If you get really close, you need to be aware that your re-focusing will be limited accordingly. In this shot you can just about re-focus on the second doll, but not on the one in background.
Manual Shooting
Put the camera into “Manual” and you can then slide down on the LCD to bring up controls that allow you to lock either the aperture, or shutter speed, or both. In manual mode you see the aperture and shutter on the LCD (as in the LCD shot above). This can be interesting if you want to see how the camera is managing the shot; beyond that I didn’t feel a need for manual mode.
There is no aperture control as such on this camera, but it has the equivalent of F2 in terms of light gathering potential. Take it outside on a sunny day and the maximum shutter speed of 1/250th second means that there is going to be too much light coming into the camera at F2. So it employs a built-in neutral density filter which seems to take the effective F stop down to around F8.
Indoors it can push the ISO up to 3,200; but the pictures look pretty dire:
Still, under normal social lighting conditions, the camera will probably be using around ISO 800, and the pictures are quite useable at this setting:
Sharing your shots
Assuming you are not the sort of person who just likes to sit in a darkened room, clicking and re-focusing Lytro photos; you will want to share your creations with the world, and the Lytro software is designed to facilitate this. From the desktop application you can export to your own gallery on the Lytro website and create albums of photos. In addition, you can export to Facebook or Twitter or Google+. In all cases, the photo sits within a piece of software so the full clicking and focusing experience can be shared. It’s elegantly done and even my grandfather could do it; although we would have to dig him up first.
Image quality
If you are only going to look at Lytro images in their re-clickable 400 pixel wide frame; then the quality is quite reasonable provided very low light does not force the camera to use very high ISOs. But the Lytro approach is only relevant when you have objects at varying distances from the camera, and at least one is quite close. What about a normal landscape holiday snap like this:
Everything is in focus so clicking round the photo doesn’t do anything.
Never mind, you always have the option of exporting a normal JPEG image from the Lytro desktop application. Problem is, the resulting images are rubbish.
Here is a JPEG from the Lytro:
It’s pretty ugly, even at 640 pixels, at the original full size of 1080 pixels it looks even worse. If you are going to use the Lytro as a general camera, you are not going to like what you see once you step outside the world of the little Lytro box.
The obvious contender to a Lytro for general snapping is a phone. Here is a snap of the same scene taken with an iPhone.
Your phone will take better photos than a Lytro, and your phone offers you different processing options, sharing to Instagram and other social photo sites. It’s hard to see Lytro competing with phones for the social media marketplace.
Conclusion It would be easy to be blasé about the technical wizardry built into this camera, but the team behind Lytro should be congratulated for producing a tiny, useable light field camera, albeit at a fairly hefty price tag compared to normal point and shoot cameras. Both the hardware and software are well designed and the whole makes for an interesting product.
However, as a camera, it really isn’t very good. The LCD touch screen is of poor resolution and is vicious stab sensitive rather than touch sensitive. The shape of the camera is interesting but not convenient for taking shake-free photos; although it does look promising when placed inside a gentleman’s trousers (but a cucumber makes for a more impressive and cheaper solution. Allegedly). Resolution is low and image quality is poor, perhaps inevitably at this stage of the development of this technology.
The only gimmick in favour of the Lytro is the ability to snap away and then choose the focus point later. To make this in any way interesting, you have to choose your subject matter quite carefully. And the interest does not last very long. Once you have played with the focus point on a couple of photos, it ceases to amaze.
Lytro promise more software improvements so, for example, you can choose to have everything in focus or can produce 3D images. These improvements will work with images you have already taken. You can also imagine future technology enhancements. Surveillance cameras where you can grab focus anywhere in the frame. A movie camera where you could edit the footage and change focus points as the movie plays. Cameras that produce images of the quality of a reasonable point and shoot camera, with the ability to change the focus point. Light field technology built into phones.
But given the current state of the art, would I buy a Lytro camera? No. Should you buy a Lytro camera? Probably not. And why did the owner of my test camera buy one? I have no idea; but I would like to thank Spacefruit for entrusting me with his new toy and I hope he has many happy hours shooting with it. And when he gets bored of using it, he can always stick it down his trousers.
Comments 🔗
2012-11-08| Spanky saysThe dolls as usual scare me. Their eyes are just creepy. No idea how you sleep in the same condo as those obvious killer dolls.
Your review is spot on accurate on everything I have read about that camera. The idea of sticking it down your trousers is a novel one and if I come across one for sale that is under $100 I may start a new trend in photographer, trouser cam with focus change!
2012-11-08| Pete saysI’ll agree with Spanky about the dolls - it’s the way their eyes can change colour when you’re not looking that creeps me out!
As for the latest toy, good review and well presented, but two questions remain in my mind and I can’t be arsed to google them as I’m sure you know the answers. 1 - why is it called a “light field” camera, and 2 - how the fuck does it do that?
2012-11-08| Grant saysYes, great review, very interesting, you could do them for money! Your total grasp of the subject is an inspiration to those of us who have trouble lining our thoughts up now-a-days… I’ve got Pete’s two questions as well and look forward to your answers with great interest.
2012-11-08| Grant saysOk,ok, how much is it going to cost for you to never, ever, show us the trouser-cam shots?
2012-11-08| Spanky saysI’m thinking monthly payments of 30000 Baht will be a nice start.
2012-11-08| Grant saysCheap at twice the price!
2012-11-09| Wally saysWikipedia ‘Light Field Camera’ gives a good explanation. Here’s my take on their explanation - Hidden behind the front glass are thosands of micro lenses each recording a small portion of the overall view with each portion in perfect focus. But unlike the human eye which focuses automatically on a subject, you have to indicate on the final picture which portion of the photo you are looking at, it then uses the appropiate micro lens to display that portion. How it actually does it is beyond me. Hope that helps.
2012-11-09| Spike saysPeople who can’t be arsed to type a couple of words into Google and read the results really don’t deserve any help, but: http://graphics.stanford.edu/papers/lfcamera/lfcamera-150dpi.pdf
2012-11-09| Grant saysThank you Wally, you are indeed a gentleman and very helpful. I think the answer to the second question is ‘smoke, mirrors and computer wizardry’, magic not being a rational consideration…
2012-11-09| Grant saysThank you Uncle Spike for the reference, although I regret I am but little the wiser not having had my mind so thoroughly boggled since being forced at gunpoint to consider the more arcane aspects of 18th century European Nationalism at secondary school…