I had expressed an interest in the technology and signed up to test the camera when it became available. However, I was never contacted by the company to test their camera, and assumed it was still under development. I just received an email that indicates the cameras are going to be sold to the public early next year, but I can order one now and receive priority delivery. I guess that the companies interest in having people sign up to test it was to create of list of people who were willing to buy it instead! Despite that I signed up to buy one anyway.
In past communications Lytro wouldn't give any hint about how the camera would look, work or even how much it would cost. I now have that information, so here it is hot off the press:
(Click on an image below to enlarge it)
It doesn't appear that the camera does video and I am not sure how you get the images off of the camera yet. It also doesn't seem to have a place for an SD or CF card. It is being marketed like an Ipod or Iphone in that it comes with 8GB or 16GB, and as the memory increases so does the price.
It is small, but the use of a square camera seems odd, and the LCD on the back looks very small.
It will be interesting to see if this is merely an interesting toy, or the start of a new type of camera technology.
2 comments:
Thom Hogan has presented some interesting information and comments about Lytro's "Light Field" technology. See the entries for June 22 and 24: http://bythom.com/2011%20Nikon%20News.htm
The small size of the camera should not be a surprise given the size of the sensor it requires, which is probably what the 8MB and 16MB refer to. According to Hogan, a 16MB sensor for this type of camera can only produce a 90kp (kilo-pixel) image (albeit of variable focus and probably mostly noise-free).
A square image makes perfect sense for a digital sensor - rectangular images are a historical artifact from the (early) film era.
Thom Hogan has some recent interesting comments about this camera on his blog (Oct 20): http://bythom.com/index.htm
Also check out some of his previous blog entries about Lytro and "Light Field" (June 22 and 24): http://bythom.com/2011%20Nikon%20News.htm
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