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Lytro Shuts Down Its Light Field Photo Sharing Website

It started full of hope and possibilities: In 2011, Lytro promised a camera that could change photography forever with its light-field technology, which allowed photographers to refocus after the shot. But having already announced a change in the company's direction towards video rather than consumer still cameras, Lytro has now shut down its online sharing platform for light-field still images. pictures.lytro.com is no more.

A Look at the Lytro Illum, The Camera of the Future That Failed

Back in 2014, the light field camera company Lytro unveiled the $1,600 Illum, a camera of the future that shoots 40 "Megaray" photos and lets you refocus photos after they're shot. The tech specs were fancy, but no one bought the camera, leading to massive price cuts and eventually a complete change of direction by the CEO. The 5-minute video above is a hands-on look at the Illum.

Lytro’s First VR Demo Uses Immerge to Take You to the Moon

In 2015, light-field camera startup Lytro did a huge pivot, redirecting its focus from consumer light-field cameras (the original and the Illum) to its new light field virtual reality camera, the Immerge. Today the company released a first peek at what the Immerge can do.

755MP 300fps Lytro Cinema Camera Captures a 3D Model in Every Frame

Lytro has ditched the world of consumer cameras, and if the Lytro Immerge wasn't proof enough of this decision, their latest announcement should seal it. Yesterday, Lytro debuted "the world’s first Light Field solution for film and television," a 755MP cinema camera monster.

Why I Lit Up Lytro and Scrapped the Strategy as CEO

My name is Jason Rosenthal, and I'm the CEO of Lytro. A little over a year ago, it became clear to me that we needed to drastically change the direction of our company.

Here’s a Look at Panasonic’s New ‘Post Focus’ Feature in Action

Back in July, Panasonic announced an upcoming feature called "Post Focus" that allows photographers to select their focal point after photos are shot. Instead of using light field technology like Lytro or an array of cameras like Light, Panasonic's feature uses rapid-fire focus bracketing.

Panasonic has begun publishing videos around the world that show how the new feature works.

Interview: Lytro CEO Jason Rosenthal on the Future of Light Field Technology

Lytro’s research into the world of light field technology has produced two consumer devices. Their first camera was released in 2012 and introduced photographers to the concept of being able to refocus images after they had been taken. Then in 2014, Lytro released their flagship: the ILLUM. Armed with an integrated 30-250mm f/2.0 lens, a 40 megaray sensor, and upgraded software, Lytro was ready to show the world that their technology wasn’t just a gimmick.

Report: Panasonic Making the First Interchangeable-Lens Light Field Camera

Lytro may have launched the world's first consumer light field camera back in 2011 and a more powerful followup, the Illum (pictured above), last year, but it may not be alone in rushing for future milestones in light field photography.

Case in point: Panasonic is said to be working on the world's first light field camera that uses interchangeable lenses.

The Science Behind Lytro’s Light Field Technology and Megaray Sensors

The shutter fires and your camera’s digital image sensor is hit by photon particles, creating a two-dimensional photograph; this process is one that photographers are familiar with in their day to day work. However, when Lytro introduced the first commercially available light field camera, the game was changed with a sensor that could capture more than before - aperture and focus became adjustable in post-production, and an interactive perspective became possible.

Wedding Photos Shot with a Lytro Light Field Camera

Earlier this month, we shared some sample photos showing how Lytro's Illum light field camera performed in capturing the NFC Championship game. Here's another look at the camera with a very different subject matter: wedding photographs.

Lytro Branches Out from Photography, Offers Unprecedented Access to Their Tech for $20K

The folks at Lytro have always believed that light field technology is the future, and not just for photography and storytelling. They believe that anything with a lens and a sensor can benefit from the technology, and with today's announcement of the Lytro Platform, they're opening up their proprietary tech to anybody who wants to partner up with them and expand light field into new markets.

MultiCam App for iOS Lets You Shoot First, Pick Focus and Exposure Later

Ever since iOS 8 was released, most major camera apps have released updates allowing you to control things like exposure, focus, ISO and more thanks to the unprecedented access to iOS camera settings the new release allowed.

The MultiCam app also lets you adjust focus and exposure on iOS 8... but it handles things a bit differently. It lets you do it AFTER you've taken the shot, and it uses a creative approach to doing it.

Play Around with Refocusable Images from Pelican Imaging’s ‘Light Field’ Camera for Smartphones

With each passing day, it seems as though light field photography (and its imitators) is becoming more and more ubiquitous. Patents here, rumors there, it’s a conglomeration of what is very likely the next frontier in photography.

And this past week, Pelican Images published a collection of online 3D viewer images captured with its thin light field camera that might be making its way into mobile devices soon.

Lytro’s Interactive Light Field Images are Now Viewable in Full Glory on 500px

One of (if not the) main challenges Lytro faces as it attempts to bring light field photography into the mainstream is the fact that there aren't a lot of places you can actually experience the 'living' images where they're, to use Lytro's vernacular, alive.

Most places just don't support viewing of the interactive images, and while Lytro has taken some steps to remedy this in the past, the company just took what amounts to a giant leap.

Diving Into the Tech Behind the Lytro Illum and Its Impressive 30-250mm f/2.0 Lens

Lytro came into the photography world not only to create a novelty product, but to fundamentally change how we approach image capture. Because despite light field photography being around for over a century, it’s only with the latest technology that the company is able to exploit what it is a camera is truly capable of doing.

We recently spoke with Lytro about its upcoming Illum camera a bit, diving into the technology behind the specs and revealing how Lytro's approach is allowing the company to not only step, but leap into the future.

Lytro Makes Interactive Web Player Open-Source, Partners with 500px for Integration

A major drawback of Lytro's technology has been the closed ecosystem its files are trapped in. Unable to be edited in programs such as Lightroom or viewed on the Web without a proprietary image viewer, the experience is lacking the ubiquity needed to gain the acceptance of the masses.

Well aware of this problem, Lytro today takes the first of what we assume will be many steps in the right direction, by announcing that their images will now be viewable on the Internet via a new, open-source WebGL player.

MIT Project Would Like to Bring Light Field Photography to Every Smartphone

When it comes to technological innovations, the acronym MIT comes up often. Known for their incredible collection of human capital in the form of intellect, The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is constantly pushing the boundaries of what’s capable in every facet of life.

And in the case of a project called “Tesseract,” the boundaries being pushed are those surrounding the field of smartphone camera technology.

Lytro Unveils the ‘Illum’: A Beautiful Beast of a Light-Field Camera

More than two years after the debut of the company's first camera, Lytro has come back with a vengeance. Well, actually, Lytro has come back with an 'Illum,' which is the name of a new camera that the company says, "advances the light field category from novelty to game-changing visual medium that could one day rival digital and film."

Google Releases Standalone Camera App, Features Lytro-Like Focus Control

Google wants to give all Android users (or at least those running Android 4.4 and up) the opportunity to use a camera app designed by the same people who made the operating system, and so the company has decided to release a standalone 'Google Camera' app packed with a few features that will make it a very tempting download at the price of "on the house."

Apple Awarded Patent for Lytro-like Light-Field Camera System

A patent filed back in September of 2011 was finally awarded to Apple today, and it has the whole photo world atwitter. That's because this patent describes a camera system that would use the light-field technology made famous by Lytro to take refocusable images -- and it could work inside portable devices such as an iPhone.

That's right, light-field technology in an iPhone... now you see why everybody is excited over something that is, after all, still just a patent.

OPPO Will Integrate MemsCam ‘Take Now, Focus Later’ Tech Into Future Smartphones

If you've been wishing and hoping for Lytro-like 'take now, focus later" technology to appear in smartphones, it looks like a couple of different companies are planning on making that wish come true. Not only did Toshiba announce its own refocusing module just a couple of weeks ago, it seems OPPO will be putting similar tech into their future camera phones too.

Lytro Will Launch ‘Multiple Breakthrough Products’ in 2014, CEO Says

Ever since Lytro caused a stir by releasing the world's first consumer light field camera almost two years ago, the company has been somewhat quiet. With the exception of a few updates in November of last year and an iOS app released a couple of months ago, most of the stories we've covered with "Lytro" in the title had to do with competitors working on Lytro-like features. All of that is about to change, however, in 2014.

DSLR Add-On Brings Features Like Lytro-Style Refocusing to Any Camera

Lytro may have made a splash when the company first burst onto the scene with its 'snap now, focus later' technology, but the competition has been growing steadily ever since. In addition to companies like Pelican gunning at the light-field market, a new SLR add-on created by researchers from Saarland University in Germany promises to bring Lytro-style refusing and much more to almost any camera.