A Lytro for Peanuts

Curious about Lytro? Now's the time. Amazon's "Deal of the Day" today is a Lytro Illum 40 Megaray Light Field Camera, marked down from $1,299 to $399. All day or while supplies last.

Collectors, take notice.

The Lytro embodies breakthrough technology developed by Ren Ng and a team at Stanford called Light Field, which allows you to shoot first and select your plane of focus and the amount of depth of field you prefer later. The technology's potential earned widespread publicity and attracted high-level investors. Ng met with Steve Jobs before the latter's death.

The Lytro camera was introduced at $1,599.

Mike

Original contents copyright 2015 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Martin: "I researched this camera a couple of months back when I was asked if I could teach someone who had bought one. I read their tutorials, watched their videos and ended up thinking they had taken all the fun out of photography by making it so complicated. I knocked back the teaching gig and am not surprised to hear they aren't selling many."

Comments

[Jan Moren]

Just beware that AFAIK you need their online service to "develop" your images and to actually do the focus thing. If (when, judging by this news) they go belly up, your camera turns into a paperweight.

[Moose speaks to Jan's concern: "The camera itself can do some processing and JPEG output. More powerful processing from the two kinds of Raw output files is done with a program provided with the camera, which has recently been upgraded considerably. It does require a fairly powerful computer to do that. There is no on-line "development" offered or required." --Ed.]

[Bob Rosinsky]

This will become a sought-after collectors' item. If I were a collector, I'd by it, stow it, and sell it 25 years from now.

[Peter Barnes]

Mmmm, I never could quite grasp what the problem was that the Lytro was going to be the solution for. Seems I'm not alone. But then I'm the guy who pronounced in the late 90's, to anyone who would listen, that it was silly to think that anybody will want to connect their phone to the internet.

[Eolake]

Readers; check out the first video (on the left) on that page. It has an interesting panel discussion re formats, types of AF, etc.

[Nigel]

$399 is a lot of peanuts.

[Kenneth Tanaka]

Curious? Only kinda. But not $400 kinda. And certainly not $1,200 kinda.

I don't believe this will be a stand-alone product for long. The service bureau model that Jan noted, above, is stillborn. I expect that nutty spiders-eye camera to be much more successful. The Lytro technology will probably be bought by an established-but-struggling brand (Canon ?) to attempt an end-around maneuver.

Unless you're collecting samples for your museum of camera technology I'd say pass. When the service folds or the technology refines you'll probably be able to get these bodies for $10 on eBay.

[Wes]

I don't think there's a requirement to use their online service for developing the images; they offer both Mac and Windows desktop software for that. They do offer a web gallery feature on their website but that's simply an optional service to display your photos.

[toto]

Other vendors like B&H and Adorama are selling it for $599. I don't know how Amazon got $1299. I guess it makes the discount sound more impressive.

[Chris]

So I assume that the widespread publicity and even the meeting with St Steve failed to galvanize the public? I wonder why.

[Mark]

Neat technology but I wouldn't buy into it for anything over about 50 bucks. I know too many people who joined the company as a startup who now just a short time later are looking for work. I am sure the companies days are numbered.

[Steve Jacob]

$399 for something I don't want seems a little expensive... ;-)

[Moose]

Thanks, Mike! I hope you got your spiff, as I clicked through from your link. It appears I got the last one, or someone else got it a second or so after me.

Moot point now, as to this offer, but Jan Moren is doing the casual web misinformation thing. Beware of AFAIK!

The camera itself can do some processing and JPEG output. More powerful processing from the two kinds of Raw output files is done with a program provided with the camera, which has recently been upgraded considerably. It does require a fairly powerful computer to do that. There is no on-line "development" offered or required.

I'm very interested* in focus, DoF and bokeh, and it appears from examples on the web that this camera, for all its limitations, allows some amazing play with those factors. I'm expecting a mix of fun and frustration that I couldn't justify at earlier prices. Now I'm excited, and wishing it came with Prime two day shipping.

* I reject the word obsession. \;~)>

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

A solution looking for a problem?

[ctein]

Dear Jan,

How did you come to that conclusion?

They have software available for download, and sample images you can download to experiment with.

Did you run the software and determine that it requires a connection to their server?

pax / Ctein

[Mike R]

When the Lytro first was announced, I thought it was a cool technology, but with a limited market for personal use. It needed some reasonably widely available "after capture" technology to do something with the raw image files, thus requiring a computer of some sort. Perhaps something like the free download Adobe Reader for PDF's might have expanded the potential market. That apparently has not happened. So, it just has not gotten popular enough to survive.

[Andrew Molitor]

The trend is inevitable. Stuff moves from before the shutter press to after the shutter press. In transition, the established practitioners decry the changes as solutions in search of problems. After the transition, nobody remembers that it was ever any other way.

Computational photography will move DoF selection in to post, it's pretty much inevitable. Eventually.

Much more interesting is the possibility of moving lighting in to post, which is perfectly doable once you have a decent 3D model of the scene. Which these cameras, as well as several other technologies, provide.

[John Masters]

Can't afford the $399, even to use the TOP link and help you out a bit Mike.

I'm spending all my money on Star Wars movie toys 'cause I know I'll be able to retire on selling them years down the road for a bunch or money.

By the way, need any Beanie Babies? I have a bunch we stood in line for for my daughters in the late 90s. That was my first retirement plan.

The Star Wars toys are a sure thing though...

[Jan Morén]

Ctein, when the original lytro was released I remember (wrongly or rightly) that you had to use their online service to rezoom your images. That was what killed any interest in it for my part.

Now, either I misunderstood it at the time (entirely possible, even probable) or they introduced a desktop application sometime after the initial release. I would have missed that if that's the case.

[Fred]

I have a Lytro camera. I have not found a way to post "living photos" without using their server. I'd like to be able to just pop them up on my website with no connection to their server but I cannot. Yes, I can refocus locally and then export a static version, but I have found no way to post a dynamic version without using their server.

[Patrick Perez]

To quote Nigel "$399 is a lot of peanuts."

To quote Homer Simpson's brain "$20 can buy many peanuts"

Patrick

[Gene Spesard]

They now have it for $499 with "Only one left in stock." Don't worry I left it for someone else.

Update: I reloaded the page before posting and it is now $599. Or maybe it's still $499 since it switches back and forth when I reload the page.

[Moose]

" Yes, I can refocus locally and then export a static version, but I have found no way to post a dynamic version without using their server."

Ah, I see the problem. Fortunately, I have no interest in posting dynamic versions. I am interested in using the camera and software to create my own static version, with greater control over focus, DoF and bokeh than other tools allow.

Beyond the possibilities in the software itself, which I so far find less intuitive, and perhaps less capable, than I had hoped, the thought of exporting more than one version and overlaying them in PS with layers and masking almost gives me goosebumps.

It may all be a flaming failure, but that can be fun, too.

[jean-louis salvignol]

Amusing: twice as many responses for Zeiss Batis as for Lytro. And yet the future is Lytro, not Zeiss. It's like Alphabet and Tesla vis-à-vis Volkswagen indeed. Heaviness of the past ... and I thought it was an European and especially a French feature.