Lytro, where did you come from??

Ummm, wow?  This one completely took me by surprise, and I will open by saying that a whole lot more investigation will be undertaken before I get too excited.  On the surface, the Lytro sounds like weird voodoo camera magic, and maybe it is!  Continue on for more…

Lytro ain’t no web startup, (although they are on Techcrunch and news of their launch has sort of gone viral!). With $50m(!) in venture funds behind them, Lytro is

developing a new type of camera that dramatically changes photography for the first time since the 1800s. Rather than just capturing one plane of light, it captures the entire light field around a picture, all in one shot taken on a single device.

If this is everything they are claiming it is, then “game changing” in the photography space is an understatement!! I’m not going to try and explain the whole thing in this post, but I’ve read enough of the dissertation (over 200 pages!) and the background information to broadly understand what it does. The links to all the information I’ve read are at the end of this article, but here’s the quick summary:

Cameras take a single plane of light, as a single 2D image. However, we know that light actually occurs on multiple planes, and if we have that data available to us, then we can do some amazing things – like changing the focal plane, or creating 3D stills. Changing the focal plane is the important one – being able to shift the focus means you have options, well beyond simply fixing a photo you got wrong!

While I love the concept, I can also immediately think of some potential limitations from a professional photography perspective:

• Surely images that capture the entire light field are going to be much larger file sizes?
• The sample images demonstrated on the various websites look soft, so I wonder what the resolution is going to be like
• It clearly needs software to go with it, probably for rendering and presenting the “compiled” image that you see in the samples

Lytro has stated that they plan to release the camera later in the year, and that it will be a competitively priced consumer device. That is an interesting statement all on its own – the advances in digital photography has closed the gap that previously existed between the photographer and the average person. In the old days of film (and even further back), the photographer was both a technician and an artist, and the gear was seriously expensive. Now it is possible for anyone to point and shoot, and the gear deals with the bulk of the issues. Panasonic nailed the problem on the head with their ad.

Technology like Lytro further closes the gap between amateur and professional images, which I think is a great thing (yes, controversial alert!!). In case you hadn’t noticed, the gear is merely the mechanism to take the image, it doesn’t automagically make the image awesome. It happens all the time in wedding photography – the happy couple gets the professional photographers images, as well as all the shots taken by guests on their entry level DSLRs, and what happens? The happy couple likes plenty of the amateur images, sometimes more than the pro’s images!! Why?? It’s because it’s not the gear that makes the photo, it’s capturing that moment and nailing all the components to produce awesome!

What does the advance of technology mean for professional photographers?? It shouldn’t mean much, if you are really honest with yourself. Like I posted in the past, you can shoot fashion with an iPhone and get great results. What will differentiate professional photographers from amateurs?? It will be consistency behind the lens (better hit rates and more usable shots), and it will be workflow – better retouching, faster delivery times, higher quality output.

I’ve come to learn that waiting for the latest camera is a false economy – my images won’t automatically be better because of it. Only shooting a couple of times a month is what’s hurting my art – I’m just not practicing enough. And if you don’t shoot a lot, your results on “game day” are going to be unpredictable!! So I will continue to focus on the areas that differentiate me from the average amateur – I think I’m better than average at lighting, and I know how to run a shoot efficiently to get good results, and I know how to keep my workflow short so that the costs to my clients are low. I fully expect some amateurs will absolutely nail a shot that I miss occasionally, it’s just the way it is. But if I can produce higher quality more consistently over time, then I can absolutely say to my clients “I have the experience and the knowledge to produce better outcomes for you than the cheap point and shooter – with me you are paying for the experience I’ve learnt from all the clients before you, from all the test shoots and experiments before you, from all the classes I taught other people before you, all so that you get the benefit”. If that isn’t enough for them, then their probably not a client I want (but that’s a business statement, and a discussion for another day!).

Regarding the Lytro, I’m excited by the idea and I suspect I’ll be keen to get my hands on one – I’ll be waiting until others have purchased and reviewed, but WOW!!

Here’s the links to the articles:

Lytro – http://www.lytro.com
Lytro Dissertation – http://www.lytro.com/renng-thesis.pdf
Digital Trends Article – http://www.digitaltrends.com/photography/lytro-the-camera-that-could-change-photography-forever/
TechCrunch Article – http://techcrunch.com/2011/06/21/lytro-launches-to-transform-photography-with-50m-in-venture-funds-tctv/