I have a first gen and a Illum camera. They are lovely, tight little pieces of equipment, surprisingly well made little cameras. The Illum was great for macro photography, since you could shoot from 0mm to several inches in one shot and refocus the entire distance; and you had amazing control over the depth of field. The problem is the autofocus is horrible on the camera; which at first is kind of typical of cameras from the era; then you realize that if it worked the way it should have worked, you wouldn't have needed an autofocus at all! The other big problems are the depth map is sometimes confused with surfaces with holes in it (like leafy tree branches), the resolution of the photos is quite low (1.4 Mpx and about 4 mpx), the storage space required (each photo takes up 16mpx or 40mpx worth of space), accessory non-availability (the flash, spare batteries, and so on), and that the software never really worked that well, and now it is completely abandoned. This is such an ultimate "Oh, I really wish that this would have had a couple more generations to go" kind of camera. I figure version 3 or version 4 would have been spectacular, had they been able to get the software really going.
I was able to pick one up today and cannot, for the life of me find any forums or firmware updates for this Gen 1 Lytro Camera. Is it even possible to update the firmware now that the site is down? I used to have one about years ago and loved the post focus ability. Now, the desktop software says that Gen 1 photos can't have their focus (and most other things) adjusted. Is this true? Am I doing something wrong? Can you throw any light on this one, please?
It seems to still have to somewhat focus the main lense onto the general place of the sensor, and the image might have been 16 MP to be able to extract all that info. My guess it each 4pixels are under one micro lense, call it a big PIXEL, so when light hits the PIXEL from different angles, the four sub pixels can pick up on the direction which the light is coming from. If it had been completely out of focus, then it would be a mess anyway
I feel like these light field cameras would work amazingly well with today's hardware, having enough power to give you a render image and share it to your phone right away. As a wedding photographer I'd love for a 30 mega pixel light field camera to never worry about critical focus whilst dealing with fast paced shoots.
I have a number of Lytro Illum cameras and use them as the main focus of my current photography. They are tricky but have proven to produce great and unique results. I like that after an exhibit a year ago in Tasmania using red/blue glasses I can now still use the same data to produce really good images for new 3d display things like the Lume Pad etc. The depth based effects and animation are quite amazing and I've not seen much that is true lightfield but also consumer/pro-sumer focused that allows such creativity. But they can take a lot of time to get right. ;-)
I collect various odd cameras and equipment, including Lytro and stuff like Light L16. Talking about the Lytro (I have the first "brick" variant, not Illum), the main issue for the user was the resulting photo quality, or rather lack of. After all those tricks with rays, the final resolution was like 1 Mpx, which was pretty much useless. It was so bad, that you couldn't even print the most basic 10x15 cm photo sharp. The other downside was its crappy quality of the microlens production, which resulted in various artefacts in the image, blurry spots, etc. So in the end, does it work? Yes. Is it good? Not really. Is it a conversation starter, if you take it outside? Hell yes! I assume, that the Illum has fixed many issues of the first variant, but I would say, it was a bit too late.
Great Video! Earned my subscription. Cannot believe it has so few views. Thank you for producing it. I was wondering what happened to Light Field Photography since I first heard of it years ago.
I only started making videos a few months ago, so my view counts are really low, but growth is good. Thanks for subscribing! Let me know if there are any other topics you’d like me to cover.
I used to work for Britain's biggest camera retailer until ~10 years ago and I sold a reasonable number of these cameras. There was always mediocre interest in them and they were only bought by people who didn't really understand the camera world and ecosystems therein. The main things about this camera that kept those "in the know" away from it are: 1. It was the same price as cameras from the big players such as Sony, Nikon, Canon, so why would you want to buy into Lytro when they had no other lenses etc etc. 2. Early adopter scepticism. 3. The main feature of being able to refocus was handy buuuut at the price it was listed for, it put it in the realm of customers who pretty much never ever misfocus a shot. 4. Myself and other staff members viewed it a novelty so our hearts weren't really in it. Over the years we had seen plenty of various types of cameras come and go and come and go. We knew that people at that price tag were already heavily invested in their preferred ecosystems so trying to sell a Lytro was a gargantuan task, and that task often resulted in a resounding and predictable "no thanks.". Honestly, every time I sold one of these I felt slightly guilty because I knew enough to know it would never catch on and that it would soon be abandoned, I mean hell, if freakin' Samsung failed to make it in the same market then why did Lytro think they could do it? I remember selling the last Lytro we had in the business. A customer noticed it was in our display cabinet at half price - which anybody who works in retails know; is warning enough - customer said he had heard of the camera and was interested, I stated the fact that it was our last one, he purchased it a minute later, perhaps bought it a bit too quickly, the nagging guilt started creeping in, but, I can't stop people spending. Anyway, that's my insider experience with Lytro. It was just a weird experience. Selling them never felt quite right.
Perhaps 100 years from now someone will look back on our generation and say "wow they had something way back then that we use today!" just like I did when I got my first 3D film camera! Now I'm using a Lumepad that takes 16MP 3D photos and displays them autostereoscopically from 4 views. I wonder what my great grandchildren will make of my old tablet?
The technology inside Lytro is awesome, and is based on excellent research by the CEO Ren Ng. I think the difficulty was that in order to succeed, they needed to replicate many/most features of high-end cameras; and doing so is difficult for a startup. Just doing the focus was not enough, as most consumers expected a complete product. It's like being a startup that invents a new car engine, but then you still need to make the rest of the car awesome too. I think with more time and funding, they could have succeeded; it would take one or two more iterations of their product.
I had an original Lytro. I was very excited about it. But the experience really focused on one thing: focus. It became a gimmick. I had hoped to see extreme depth of field for close up macro photos but that never happened. Sigh.
Agreed. I still have an original (Gen 1) camera I inherited from my father. While it still works and holds a good charge, the software sucks and I can't get it to run on MacOS. I'd love to play with it more, but it has become relegated to my display cabinet as a conversation item since it is so different than a standard (D)SLR.
What they do do it export very good 3D imagery and video. Much better than a stereo two camera setup for sure. Resolution and very sharp are things is does not do so well. Reasonable sharp, but not super.
I think that Lytro should create a Lightroom add-on, not a single software product. That's amazing - one click focusing, than exporting a .dng and editing in usual program
Does the .dng format support storing the lightfield, as opposed to just a flat 2D image? The .dng may not support storing the lightfield, and therefore, one can't import it into Lightroom. This might have been the reason why they didn't do it this way. It would obviously be better, but there might have been a technology blocker that prevented that.
You can pick one up for 40 or 50 bucks on eBay, today! Not much support though, obviously. But still fun to use - like that of a Polaroid, or those really really cheap intentionally blurry cameras that gained popularity a few years ago. I forget their name.
I think if they did Lytro video they would have succeeded being able to refocus afterwards would have been amazing also increasing their quality the cameras were terrible
I have a Lytro camera, the truth is that it is very nice which makes it really surprising. but the truth is that the processing is slow in the development program and that reduces the desire to use it. but the camera itself I love.
The fundamental problem with Lytro was the diameter of the primary objective lens which limits the depth of focus. The light field camera came out of a research project in microscopy where focus varies greatly over the specimen. That may seem odd, because microscope objectives are tiny, but they are recording very shallow depths of field. In the macro world of photography, only large primary objectives provide the variation in the angles on the primary that are needed at significant distances from the camera.
I still have my Lytro, and I broke it out a few days ago. It was always a disappointment. The "groundbreaking lightfield array" is just a bunch of lenses over the sensor that captures makes the camera capture a bunch of lower resolution images. All it spits out is 1 low-resolution image with a depth map. The "focus later" feature is a post-processing effect. The depth map just adds a Photoshop-like filter based on the depth map, and the depth map is not very accurate. You get a better effect with a deep focus and 2 minutes of photoshopping your image.
The music analogy was terrible. A better way to think about it is: a traditional camera is like a microphone. The microphone can pick up on the sounds around it, but it doesn't tell you where the sound came from. A light field camera, in this analogy, is like an array of microphones. By measuring the differences in the wave forms from each mic, you can pinpoint the exact source of each sound in 3D space. The more microphones you have, the better the result. In the case of the Lytro, each of the microlenses helps to focus light on individual parts of the image sensor. It's a bit like cramming a million tiny cameras onto a single device.
I made this video so long ago that the music analogy didn’t ring a bell. Then I rewatched and realized that it wasn’t even my analogy lol. You make a really good point though!
Yeah, like the concept is so interesting and the result looks cool but you can get the same result if you just have a clear image to begin with and Photoshop, or even just any basic photo program can do that. And in reverse if you have a image that's not clear, AI can fix it and it can do it well if you know which tools to use and how to use them. I guess the one exception would be of a person's face is literally blurry because it's going to have to make assumptions about their face and it doesn't know it. But if you have another picture of their face, you can use that as a reference image and then it can do it. I still kind of want to buy one of these just because I think it's so cool. And I think they were like $2,000 and they first came out. But they're like $300 now so I'm just going to get one I think. The one context people were talking about using it in my circles because I'm an astrophysics was as an astro photography camera, but I don't see how it could be sensitive to for example milli arc seconds of angles. There's just no way so I don't know what they're talking about but I think some of them are planning to like spread to a add another lens to their telescope or something to spread the light out and then just exaggerate it using python, but at that point they may as well just build their own camera from the beginning.
Would it be possible to use a light field camera for something like robot navigation? Robots need to navigate in a 3d environment so you could use two separate cameras and program the robot to use parallax to judge the distance from itself to an object, but a light field camera might allow the use of a single camera to judge distance which might streamline things a little bit.
I have a gen 1 I got from someone and would love to play with it, but I can't get the software to work on MacOS, so... no way to download the files. It sits in my curio cabinet as a discussion piece only now.
Really well produced Video, John. Looks like to you've been at it for years. I'd love to see a video entitled "WTF is up with AR?" Seems like it's disappeared. I was so looking forward to buying into the technology once it was more refined. Max.
That would be a cool overview. I actually think AR is going to come back in a few years. You might like my video on Magic Leap, it’s a bit older, but covers some of the problems they faced: ua-cam.com/video/142m7FInihc/v-deo.html
Yeah, I’ve got the Redbox and I’ve used it, but I never could figure out what to use it for and I’m just now finding out what it was used for a question I have which is really not a question and now it is OK whatever is this has Wi-Fi built into itso my question is how does that or what is that for and was there or was there an app for this to be used on or does it even use an app? I was originally intended for back but I have an iOS phone so
Does everyone not remember that HTC had the first dual camera phone with fancy depth and such extra features in 2013? Why do people always say 'iPhone 2014!!', when they literally copied HTC. Wasn't the first time either. 😕 Just like Rosalind Franklin discovering the double helix of DNA, telling her male 'co-professors' about it, but having her work stolen, allowing Watson and Crick to take all of the credit. ALL WHILE SHE WAS NOT ALLOWED IN THE 'MALE' AREAS, GIVEN GARBAGE EQUIPMENT AND SO ON! The only reason she figured it out is because she had a male accomplice that would sneak her instruments and chemicals she needed, or get her access to laborities after hours. Like, she had a severe handicap, AND STILL managed to do better work then her contemporaries... Credit where credit is due... I guess is my point.
The iPhone aperture is the limitation of its resolution. Telephoto lenses aren’t what gives you shallow depth of field. Again. Aperture does that. The 48 megapixels on my 14pro max captures fuzzy details because that’s as good as the aperture can do. Unless you made the sensors and lenses as big as a full from 35, there’s no point in going past 12 megapixels let alone 48.
I got a mint one on ebay a few years ago. The 3D separation it offered could only be as wide as the entry pupil, making it bad for anything but closeup 3d work. Next I played with the depth maps, and found them to be next to useless. It's a shame they never opened up the software like they promised. I do think it will be a collectible camera at some point... but as a practical tool it was a failure. I sold mine for more than I paid, but have slight seller remorse.
I have an original Lytro, already clearance priced when I bought it. The Mac software was okay, but the PC software was unusable, seemed to be a grudging afterthought. Too bad I'm a PC guy, with only occasional access to Macs. Now I just struggle with the stitching quality I get from my Kodak Orbit360 and its unsatisfactory PC software.
Yeah, hardware startups are particularly hard because you almost always have to develop great software alongside it. It’s hard to build one great engineering team, let alone two.
Love to know where you got and how you got it to run (the software). I too have the camera, but not succeeded in getting it to be recognised by MacOS (Big Sur).
I am expecting one in soon enough, one of those second hand stores had the first model. At the price of 60 euros why not? If it is a dud, I got a lovely piece of camera jewelry so to say. If it has a half working battery? Awesome, I can even test it out! If it works fully, which I don't expect, I might even be able to take it out. In a way this feels like shooting an early Foveon Sensor camera. A weird system that did something different...
@@JohnCooganPlus It got in. I got a good one, the battery works 100%. Of course, the final image quality is still just fit for instagram, don't expect wonders. But eh, it is a fun little toy. And isn't photography about the experience at times. Trying out new things?
Oh man I bough this first gen way way back 2012 /2013 now I still have it in good condition wish to use or able to transfer my pictures. They are old tech but fancy design. The screen is too small but wish I can navigate them from my phone like my pocket DJI. Anyone know how I can transfer them. My kids are 11 now. Their baby picture still in my lytro . I tried using usb cable to iPad it doesn’t work. Only charge no way to transfer file. Little help please
I didn’t research about lytro other than watching this video but it seems they didn’t had a product market fit? Pros like to have control over their photos, and for everyday consumers is a weird hand held camera specially when at the time we had in the market super compact cameras like the powershot S100. It seems lytro would be better at developing the tech and sell it to other companies than creating consumer products. 🤷♂️
it's not really because it's hard. Mainly because it's solving a problem nobody really asked. It might sound like a great idea, but nobody's going to refocus their photos after taking it.
I have a first gen and a Illum camera. They are lovely, tight little pieces of equipment, surprisingly well made little cameras. The Illum was great for macro photography, since you could shoot from 0mm to several inches in one shot and refocus the entire distance; and you had amazing control over the depth of field. The problem is the autofocus is horrible on the camera; which at first is kind of typical of cameras from the era; then you realize that if it worked the way it should have worked, you wouldn't have needed an autofocus at all! The other big problems are the depth map is sometimes confused with surfaces with holes in it (like leafy tree branches), the resolution of the photos is quite low (1.4 Mpx and about 4 mpx), the storage space required (each photo takes up 16mpx or 40mpx worth of space), accessory non-availability (the flash, spare batteries, and so on), and that the software never really worked that well, and now it is completely abandoned. This is such an ultimate "Oh, I really wish that this would have had a couple more generations to go" kind of camera. I figure version 3 or version 4 would have been spectacular, had they been able to get the software really going.
I was able to pick one up today and cannot, for the life of me find any forums or firmware updates for this Gen 1 Lytro Camera. Is it even possible to update the firmware now that the site is down? I used to have one about years ago and loved the post focus ability. Now, the desktop software says that Gen 1 photos can't have their focus (and most other things) adjusted. Is this true? Am I doing something wrong? Can you throw any light on this one, please?
@@phc3165 I have one too, is there a repo for all its firmware/software?
It seems to still have to somewhat focus the main lense onto the general place of the sensor, and the image might have been 16 MP to be able to extract all that info. My guess it each 4pixels are under one micro lense, call it a big PIXEL, so when light hits the PIXEL from different angles, the four sub pixels can pick up on the direction which the light is coming from. If it had been completely out of focus, then it would be a mess anyway
I feel like these light field cameras would work amazingly well with today's hardware, having enough power to give you a render image and share it to your phone right away. As a wedding photographer I'd love for a 30 mega pixel light field camera to never worry about critical focus whilst dealing with fast paced shoots.
I have a number of Lytro Illum cameras and use them as the main focus of my current photography. They are tricky but have proven to produce great and unique results. I like that after an exhibit a year ago in Tasmania using red/blue glasses I can now still use the same data to produce really good images for new 3d display things like the Lume Pad etc. The depth based effects and animation are quite amazing and I've not seen much that is true lightfield but also consumer/pro-sumer focused that allows such creativity. But they can take a lot of time to get right. ;-)
That's awesome that you're still using the tech! Good that it hasn't gone to waste!
Can you still find software?
I collect various odd cameras and equipment, including Lytro and stuff like Light L16.
Talking about the Lytro (I have the first "brick" variant, not Illum), the main issue for the user was the resulting photo quality, or rather lack of. After all those tricks with rays, the final resolution was like 1 Mpx, which was pretty much useless. It was so bad, that you couldn't even print the most basic 10x15 cm photo sharp. The other downside was its crappy quality of the microlens production, which resulted in various artefacts in the image, blurry spots, etc.
So in the end, does it work? Yes. Is it good? Not really. Is it a conversation starter, if you take it outside? Hell yes!
I assume, that the Illum has fixed many issues of the first variant, but I would say, it was a bit too late.
Great Video! Earned my subscription. Cannot believe it has so few views. Thank you for producing it. I was wondering what happened to Light Field Photography since I first heard of it years ago.
I only started making videos a few months ago, so my view counts are really low, but growth is good. Thanks for subscribing! Let me know if there are any other topics you’d like me to cover.
I used to work for Britain's biggest camera retailer until ~10 years ago and I sold a reasonable number of these cameras. There was always mediocre interest in them and they were only bought by people who didn't really understand the camera world and ecosystems therein.
The main things about this camera that kept those "in the know" away from it are:
1. It was the same price as cameras from the big players such as Sony, Nikon, Canon, so why would you want to buy into Lytro when they had no other lenses etc etc.
2. Early adopter scepticism.
3. The main feature of being able to refocus was handy buuuut at the price it was listed for, it put it in the realm of customers who pretty much never ever misfocus a shot.
4. Myself and other staff members viewed it a novelty so our hearts weren't really in it. Over the years we had seen plenty of various types of cameras come and go and come and go. We knew that people at that price tag were already heavily invested in their preferred ecosystems so trying to sell a Lytro was a gargantuan task, and that task often resulted in a resounding and predictable "no thanks.".
Honestly, every time I sold one of these I felt slightly guilty because I knew enough to know it would never catch on and that it would soon be abandoned, I mean hell, if freakin' Samsung failed to make it in the same market then why did Lytro think they could do it?
I remember selling the last Lytro we had in the business. A customer noticed it was in our display cabinet at half price - which anybody who works in retails know; is warning enough - customer said he had heard of the camera and was interested, I stated the fact that it was our last one, he purchased it a minute later, perhaps bought it a bit too quickly, the nagging guilt started creeping in, but, I can't stop people spending.
Anyway, that's my insider experience with Lytro. It was just a weird experience. Selling them never felt quite right.
Perhaps 100 years from now someone will look back on our generation and say "wow they had something way back then that we use today!" just like I did when I got my first 3D film camera! Now I'm using a Lumepad that takes 16MP 3D photos and displays them autostereoscopically from 4 views. I wonder what my great grandchildren will make of my old tablet?
The technology inside Lytro is awesome, and is based on excellent research by the CEO Ren Ng. I think the difficulty was that in order to succeed, they needed to replicate many/most features of high-end cameras; and doing so is difficult for a startup. Just doing the focus was not enough, as most consumers expected a complete product. It's like being a startup that invents a new car engine, but then you still need to make the rest of the car awesome too. I think with more time and funding, they could have succeeded; it would take one or two more iterations of their product.
I had an original Lytro. I was very excited about it. But the experience really focused on one thing: focus. It became a gimmick. I had hoped to see extreme depth of field for close up macro photos but that never happened. Sigh.
Yeah it’s too bad. Would have been awesome. Hopefully the tech goes somewhere eventually.
Agreed. I still have an original (Gen 1) camera I inherited from my father. While it still works and holds a good charge, the software sucks and I can't get it to run on MacOS. I'd love to play with it more, but it has become relegated to my display cabinet as a conversation item since it is so different than a standard (D)SLR.
What they do do it export very good 3D imagery and video. Much better than a stereo two camera setup for sure. Resolution and very sharp are things is does not do so well. Reasonable sharp, but not super.
Well executed video and informative!
I think that Lytro should create a Lightroom add-on, not a single software product. That's amazing - one click focusing, than exporting a .dng and editing in usual program
Definitely
Does the .dng format support storing the lightfield, as opposed to just a flat 2D image? The .dng may not support storing the lightfield, and therefore, one can't import it into Lightroom. This might have been the reason why they didn't do it this way. It would obviously be better, but there might have been a technology blocker that prevented that.
You can pick one up for 40 or 50 bucks on eBay, today! Not much support though, obviously. But still fun to use - like that of a Polaroid, or those really really cheap intentionally blurry cameras that gained popularity a few years ago. I forget their name.
Do they still work? Ready somewhere that software was no longer available
I think if they did Lytro video they would have succeeded being able to refocus afterwards would have been amazing also increasing their quality the cameras were terrible
I have a Lytro camera, the truth is that it is very nice which makes it really surprising. but the truth is that the processing is slow in the development program and that reduces the desire to use it. but the camera itself I love.
Yeah, it’s such a cool technology. I really hope the whole category takes off and we start seeing amazing light field cameras everywhere.
The fundamental problem with Lytro was the diameter of the primary objective lens which limits the depth of focus. The light field camera came out of a research project in microscopy where focus varies greatly over the specimen. That may seem odd, because microscope objectives are tiny, but they are recording very shallow depths of field. In the macro world of photography, only large primary objectives provide the variation in the angles on the primary that are needed at significant distances from the camera.
I still have my Lytro, and I broke it out a few days ago. It was always a disappointment. The "groundbreaking lightfield array" is just a bunch of lenses over the sensor that captures makes the camera capture a bunch of lower resolution images. All it spits out is 1 low-resolution image with a depth map. The "focus later" feature is a post-processing effect. The depth map just adds a Photoshop-like filter based on the depth map, and the depth map is not very accurate. You get a better effect with a deep focus and 2 minutes of photoshopping your image.
I just bought a Lytro illum for about 60 Dollars. Looking forward to playing around with it
I own one, the early little red one. I still use it sometimes, absolute magic when they came out.
Does software still work? Ready somewhere software wasn't available any longer
@@andrescarrasco1248 Still got it on my old iphone, but I believe there is a web site still curating and offering the old desktop software.
The music analogy was terrible. A better way to think about it is: a traditional camera is like a microphone. The microphone can pick up on the sounds around it, but it doesn't tell you where the sound came from.
A light field camera, in this analogy, is like an array of microphones. By measuring the differences in the wave forms from each mic, you can pinpoint the exact source of each sound in 3D space. The more microphones you have, the better the result.
In the case of the Lytro, each of the microlenses helps to focus light on individual parts of the image sensor. It's a bit like cramming a million tiny cameras onto a single device.
I made this video so long ago that the music analogy didn’t ring a bell. Then I rewatched and realized that it wasn’t even my analogy lol. You make a really good point though!
How Lytro imagined a camera "stick" was a good idea is truly baffling.
Great video. I always wondered what happened to them.
Yeah, like the concept is so interesting and the result looks cool but you can get the same result if you just have a clear image to begin with and Photoshop, or even just any basic photo program can do that.
And in reverse if you have a image that's not clear, AI can fix it and it can do it well if you know which tools to use and how to use them. I guess the one exception would be of a person's face is literally blurry because it's going to have to make assumptions about their face and it doesn't know it. But if you have another picture of their face, you can use that as a reference image and then it can do it.
I still kind of want to buy one of these just because I think it's so cool. And I think they were like $2,000 and they first came out. But they're like $300 now so I'm just going to get one I think.
The one context people were talking about using it in my circles because I'm an astrophysics was as an astro photography camera, but I don't see how it could be sensitive to for example milli arc seconds of angles. There's just no way so I don't know what they're talking about but I think some of them are planning to like spread to a add another lens to their telescope or something to spread the light out and then just exaggerate it using python, but at that point they may as well just build their own camera from the beginning.
I have a Lytro Illum, haven’t shot with it as yet because my laptop is to old to run Lytros software
Would it be possible to use a light field camera for something like robot navigation?
Robots need to navigate in a 3d environment so you could use two separate cameras and program the robot to use parallax to judge the distance from itself to an object, but a light field camera might allow the use of a single camera to judge distance which might streamline things a little bit.
Possibly yes, but it's usually easier to use two (or more) normal cameras in the same way as we use eyes.
I have a gen 1 I got from someone and would love to play with it, but I can't get the software to work on MacOS, so... no way to download the files. It sits in my curio cabinet as a discussion piece only now.
Really well produced Video, John. Looks like to you've been at it for years.
I'd love to see a video entitled "WTF is up with AR?" Seems like it's disappeared. I was so looking forward to buying into the technology once it was more refined.
Max.
That would be a cool overview. I actually think AR is going to come back in a few years. You might like my video on Magic Leap, it’s a bit older, but covers some of the problems they faced: ua-cam.com/video/142m7FInihc/v-deo.html
Yeah, I’ve got the Redbox and I’ve used it, but I never could figure out what to use it for and I’m just now finding out what it was used for a question I have which is really not a question and now it is OK whatever is this has Wi-Fi built into itso my question is how does that or what is that for and was there or was there an app for this to be used on or does it even use an app? I was originally intended for back but I have an iOS phone so
Have the latest version lying around as the company no longer supports software and my Mac got several OS updates since…
I need a camera where i could know distance of an object after the recording just from the video data.
Can i we the Lytro ?
I would use it definetly! But, I agree on how hardware are way harder compared to software!
I have the illum, I made a 3D zine with the photos. Only used it once.
Does everyone not remember that HTC had the first dual camera phone with fancy depth and such extra features in 2013?
Why do people always say 'iPhone 2014!!', when they literally copied HTC. Wasn't the first time either. 😕
Just like Rosalind Franklin discovering the double helix of DNA, telling her male 'co-professors' about it, but having her work stolen, allowing Watson and Crick to take all of the credit.
ALL WHILE SHE WAS NOT ALLOWED IN THE 'MALE' AREAS, GIVEN GARBAGE EQUIPMENT AND SO ON! The only reason she figured it out is because she had a male accomplice that would sneak her instruments and chemicals she needed, or get her access to laborities after hours.
Like, she had a severe handicap, AND STILL managed to do better work then her contemporaries...
Credit where credit is due... I guess is my point.
Where can I find a battery charger replacement
My dream was always to have a DSLR that would allow me to focus images in post processing. I've had many images ruined because they were out of focus.
It's extremely difficult to miss focus with a modern camera, specially mirrorless their af is just perfect nowadays
just bought
lytro first gen
Let me know how you like it!
The iPhone aperture is the limitation of its resolution. Telephoto lenses aren’t what gives you shallow depth of field. Again. Aperture does that. The 48 megapixels on my 14pro max captures fuzzy details because that’s as good as the aperture can do. Unless you made the sensors and lenses as big as a full from 35, there’s no point in going past 12 megapixels let alone 48.
I got a mint one on ebay a few years ago. The 3D separation it offered could only be as wide as the entry pupil, making it bad for anything but closeup 3d work. Next I played with the depth maps, and found them to be next to useless. It's a shame they never opened up the software like they promised. I do think it will be a collectible camera at some point... but as a practical tool it was a failure. I sold mine for more than I paid, but have slight seller remorse.
I have an original Lytro, already clearance priced when I bought it. The Mac software was okay, but the PC software was unusable, seemed to be a grudging afterthought. Too bad I'm a PC guy, with only occasional access to Macs. Now I just struggle with the stitching quality I get from my Kodak Orbit360 and its unsatisfactory PC software.
Yeah, hardware startups are particularly hard because you almost always have to develop great software alongside it. It’s hard to build one great engineering team, let alone two.
Love to know where you got and how you got it to run (the software). I too have the camera, but not succeeded in getting it to be recognised by MacOS (Big Sur).
I am expecting one in soon enough, one of those second hand stores had the first model. At the price of 60 euros why not?
If it is a dud, I got a lovely piece of camera jewelry so to say.
If it has a half working battery? Awesome, I can even test it out!
If it works fully, which I don't expect, I might even be able to take it out.
In a way this feels like shooting an early Foveon Sensor camera. A weird system that did something different...
That’s awesome. I would love to start collecting tech relics like this. Might need to get a storage space though!
@@JohnCooganPlus It got in.
I got a good one, the battery works 100%.
Of course, the final image quality is still just fit for instagram, don't expect wonders. But eh, it is a fun little toy. And isn't photography about the experience at times. Trying out new things?
@@MasticinaAkicta for sure, you learn so much from shooting with weird equipment, like macro probe lenses, tilt-shit, etc.
I have the lytro illum, very interesting camera indeed, only problem is software
Oh man I bough this first gen way way back 2012 /2013 now I still have it in good condition wish to use or able to transfer my pictures. They are old tech but fancy design. The screen is too small but wish I can navigate them from my phone like my pocket DJI. Anyone know how I can transfer them. My kids are 11 now. Their baby picture still in my lytro . I tried using usb cable to iPad it doesn’t work. Only charge no way to transfer file. Little help please
I have no idea but good luck! Try searching old forums maybe?
You need Lytro Desktop software to do the transfer
Can it be 3d ?
I didn’t research about lytro other than watching this video but it seems they didn’t had a product market fit? Pros like to have control over their photos, and for everyday consumers is a weird hand held camera specially when at the time we had in the market super compact cameras like the powershot S100. It seems lytro would be better at developing the tech and sell it to other companies than creating consumer products. 🤷♂️
Haha rightly said, "Hardware is hard". And "Software is eating the world" - Andreessen Horowitz.
RIP HW
it's not really because it's hard. Mainly because it's solving a problem nobody really asked. It might sound like a great idea, but nobody's going to refocus their photos after taking it.
Google bought the company and replaced the technology with a different concept but called the same..... a really weird case.....
Apple should by them out and release icamera
That’s an interesting idea!
Why do you look like you're about to cry
Is there a way to install a mobile application on an iPhone for Litro?.