Light Field Camera: Lytro The World's First 4D Consumer Camera (INTERACTIVE IMAGES)

If a four dimensional camera sounds a bit outlandish, prepare to be surprised.

Lytro has released its first camera, which supposedly captures more rays of light than any other camera on the market. According to Lytro's press release, the camera can capture an astounding 11 million rays of light.

But just what makes it "4D"? Using a the light field sensor, the camera not only captures the color and intensity of every ray, but the direction as well.

Still don't get it? Check out the Lytra gallery, and be sure to click on some images to get the full effect. You can also scroll down to see it for yourself.

Simply stated, the Lytro captures as much data as possible in each photograph and producing "interactive" images. The effect is somewhat magical, allowing users to refocus images directly in the camera, meaning almost no shot can be a bad one.

The enormous amount of light it takes in (a constant f/2 aperture) means it functions well in low light. Both the 16 GB version ($399) and the 32 GB version ($499) keep the same specifications.

As far as the ultimate use for the camera, Lytro's founder, Ren Ng told the New York Times in June that he sees a future in the use of Lytro photo on sites like Facebook. Apparently, they are also preparing an app for the social network.

Example images:

Comments

[SuperBenFranklin]

09:03 AM on 10/24/2011

yawn.

so instead of one picture, they take multiple shots at once at focus settings at various spots at the same time.

[p456]

06:32 AM on 10/24/2011

I don't know much about photography but this looks like it will be allot of fun. I wonder what will be the upgrades over the next few years? I thing I will buy one after seeing what else they will add to it to improve it.

[SomethingStronger]

12:18 AM on 10/24/2011

this is simply amazing for photography and to all the idiots with the "blurry" and "its a called a video camera" comments-you probably are the type who would take photos of your kids graduation with your cell phone. You simply dont get it.

[jaredbrain]

03:35 PM on 10/23/2011

so now you can choose which part of the picture is blurry....why not just not make any of it blurry

[kinogod]

04:29 AM on 10/24/2011

Blur is as important as focus.

[RecreationalPilot]

11:55 AM on 10/23/2011

That's the direction of the ray coming into the camera device, not the original sourced light vectors which were originally hitting the object.

Since it detects the light rays, but not the distance that light rays was sourced from, I don't think you can properly compute the algebraic calculations to adequately determine the 4D Euclidean space.

[Kmuzu]

08:19 AM on 10/23/2011

Only available for MAC

[Genders]

09:13 PM on 10/22/2011

wow, very cool tech.

[Tanrioldu]

07:53 PM on 10/22/2011

The 4th dimension is time.. So captures the 3 visual dimensions and time... Where have I heard that concept before? ... Oh yeah it's called a video camera.

[StephenJK]

08:48 AM on 10/23/2011

It has to do with space. Not time.

[SkeeBee]

03:42 PM on 10/22/2011

So So.
So So SO.
Sofa King Shuh-weeeeeeet.

[J Owen Williams]

03:41 PM on 10/22/2011

It has 8x zoom and two buttons, power and shutter. What do you press to zoom?

[odchavez1]

02:16 PM on 10/22/2011

At the end of her report, the girl flubs up a line, then restarts it. I wonder why they didn't edit out the flub. Strange. :/

[Dominic Orlando]

02:14 PM on 10/22/2011

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racking_focus

[jackstpaul]

01:46 PM on 10/22/2011

Looks like a 3D effect to me, though much better than anything else I've seen for still photos.

[kingofthenet]

01:43 PM on 10/22/2011

It's great tech, but I want to see Nikon or Canon incorporate it into a body, I got to much invested in Glass(Lens)

[kingofthenet]

01:39 PM on 10/22/2011

This is incredible. it's kinda like EVERYTHING is super sharp, but you can change the Depth of field by clicking on different areas.