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 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."
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.
In addition to announcing the Nokia Camera app and RAW support for the Lumia 1020 and 1520 (read about that here), Nokia made one other camera-centric announcement that had us perking our ears up: the company also introduced a Lytro-like refocusing camera app called Nokia Refocus Lens.
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.
It's been 10 months since Toshiba was said to have been developing a tiny camera module that would bring Lytro-style refocusing to smartphones and tablets, but the company only just announced something official.
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.
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.
Lytro has today taken their light field camera to the next step with the release of a new application for iOS, eliminating the need for users to connect the device to a PC or Mac computer to sync and manipulate photos.
Lytro is seeing more and more competition these days, as more and more companies are jumping into the "snap now, focus later" game. There are now apps that mimic the technology, and companies like Toshiba are working on building Lytro-style smartphone camera modules.
Lytro's latest challenger may be quite a formidable foe: it appears that Nokia has invested in Pelican Imaging, another startup that's working on building Lytro-style smartphone camera arrays.
FocusTwist is a new app for iOS devices that lets you shoot Lytro-style refocusable photographs using your phone or tablet. Photographs shot using the app are interactive and dynamic in their focusing: click (or press) any area of the scene to see that area of the photograph come into sharp focus.
Lytro introduced refocus-able photos to the public when it unveiled the world's first consumer light field camera back in October 2011. Since then, a number of people and companies have been brainstorming refocus-able photo technology of their own.
One developer created a tool that can turn video footage into refocus-able stills. Toshiba and a company called DigitalOptics are both working to build Lytro-style smartphone camera modules. Next week, there's going to be a new contender: an app called FocusTwist.
California-based company DigitalOptics debuted their newest creation this week. It's called the Mems|Cam, and it's stirring up a bit of excitement in the tech world. That's because, in addition to blazing fast focus and facial recognition, the camera module actually mimics Lytro's "take now, focus later" abilities -- only it does it in 8-13 megapixel packages that can fit inside the thinnest of phones.
Lytro is currently the only camera on the market that lets you refocus photographs after they're shot, thanks to its fancy schmancy (and proprietary) light field technology, but it won't be the only one for long. Toshiba is reportedly developing its own Lytro-style camera that will target a different segment of the photography market: smartphone and tablet photographers.
Lytro's groundbreaking consumer light-field camera made a splash in the camera industry this year by making it possible to refocus photographs after they're shot. However, the cheapest model for the boxy device has a price tag of $399, and the reviews have been mixed so far.
If you'd like to play around with your own refocus-able photographs without having to buy an actual Lytro device, you can actually fake it using a standard DSLR camera (or any camera with manual focusing and a large-aperture lens).
We've known since last month that Lytro is planning to roll out at least one fancy new feature for its light field cameras (parallax-based 3D), but now the company has taken the wraps off the feature to give us a sneak peek at what they'll offer. The two new features that will soon appear in Lytro's Desktop software are called Perspective Shift and Living Filters.
Lytro has been upgrading its cameras and shipping them to store shelves all over the world as of late, and it's not planning to let up anytime soon. In addition to the newly added manual controls, the company is gearing up to jump into the world of 3D.
Lytro's light field camera began hitting store shelves around the world today, and to celebrate, the company announced a couple of upgrades to the camera: manual new colors and manual controls.
It has been nearly a year since Lytro announced the world's first consumer light-field camera that lets users focus photographs after they're shot. Throughout this time, the camera has only been available direct from the company when ordered through the website. That'll soon change, as the company announced today that it will be partnering with major retailers around the world to have the camera appear on a store shelf (and website) near you.
If you’re a Windows user that preordered a Lytro light field camera, here’s some terrific news: …
Lytro has been pushing to make their living pictures -- interactive, clickable photos that have a variable focus point -- easier to share. Lytro is a camera that has a very specific, proprietary way of saving and viewing photographs, so sharing these photos can be tricky. Nevertheless, Lytro has been able to quickly expand living photos across the web through social media, most recently to Google+ and Pinterest through Google Chrome extensions.
If you're at all familiar with Lytro cameras and their light field technology, you'll have heard of founder and CEO Ren Ng. However, he won't be holding the title of CEO much longer. Two days ago Ng announced via blog post that he would be stepping aside as the CEO of Lytro and moving into the Executive Chairman position previously occupied by Charles Chi (who, incidentally, is now the interim CEO).
Here’s a talk that Lytro founder Ren Ng gave at …
Lytro‘s groundbreaking light field camera is finally landing in the hands of customers, …
Designer Jean-michel Bonnemoy thinks that traditional camera designs are wrong, and that form factors were driven more by technical necessity (e.g. the need to hold film) than by ergonomics and ease of use. Instead, he proposes that modern digital cameras should be cylindrical and resembling a handheld telescope. A lens cap is built into the front, a viewfinder and LCD screen are built into the back, and the controls are in easy-to-access locations on the side of the camera.
Devin Coldewey of TechCrunch created this helpful diagram showing the relative sizes of …
Yesterday we wrote that Steve Jobs had been interested in Lytro's novel camera technology during the final years of his life.
In November of last year, Steve Jobs' official biographer Walter Isaacson revealed that Jobs had wanted to reinvent three things: television, textbooks, and photography. Last week Apple announced that it was reinventing textbooks with iBooks 2, which is intended to start a digital textbook revolution. The company is also rumored to be working on a Siri-enabled TV. Now, hints about what Steve Jobs wanted to do with photography are starting to emerge, and the murmuring is centered around one company: Lytro.
Lytro‘s consumer light field camera is currently …
Here’s CNET’s introduction to the new Lytro camera. The square LCD screen on the back of the camera might …