Lytro

"Light field" digital camera

Photography

Create pictures that are worth exploring.

You'll never think about pictures the same way. The Lytro camera lets you create living pictures that you can endlessly refocus after you take them. Share your pictures online, and your friends can instantly refocus them just like you do. Your pictures are about to surprise...More


Reviews

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Review added on March 15, 2013 by Courtney Svajian

Some "perspective" on Lytro

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Before trying Lytro, I played around with the pictures on the site and looked at some of the reviews. The product definitely lived up to my expectations. I wasn't sure how Lytro would fit into my uses for a camera. With two young kids, I'm the family cameraman. I usually tote around a DSLR and what I found was that Lytro replaced my DSLR. The only drawback would be that in order to take advantage of perspective shift, you need to process the images after they've imported. This can take some time. I wasn't crazy about that. Overall, I'd definitely recommend Lytro as a DSLR replacement. Thumbs up!

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Review added on April 19, 2013 by Stephen Svajian

I wanted to love it.

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Unfortunately, I can’t give this product a good review. I’d been reading about Lytro since before the product launched, which perhaps led to slightly heightened expectations. However, I think the execution of Lytro leaves a lot to be desired. The idea behind Lytro is that you can take one picture and then adjust the image post-snap. I was excited about that idea, but disappointed by the execution and how it works as a practical matter. Here are the pros and cons: Pros: - “Light-field technology is cool. - The packaging is nice and makes you feel like you’ve received something substantial. Cons: - The form-factor is a bit weird. It’s basically like a big cigar. So, if you don’t carry a purse, backpack, etc., it’s a bit awkward to tote around. - The use case. I don’t really have a use case for this product. In theory, playing with photos after the fact is cool. In practice, I don’t need to do this. Every once in a while one of the shots is blurry, but for the most part it’s so easy to take multiple photos that this isn’t an issue. - The processing of images after the fact. I have a pretty powerful computer and my machine had a tough time processing images using the Lytro software. I was surprised that I couldn’t just take a photo and then pop it on my machine and play around with refocusing. I didn’t give this a full thumbs down because there may be a use case for this product that I just don’t fit. However, I’m not a fan. I don’t have a need for this and am disappointed with the execution of the consumer product.

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Review added on April 26, 2013 by Christopher Stumph

Great tech, device not very useful.

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It's hard to say it better than the title. given the functionality it offers, I can't really imagine justifying the purchase. The refocusing is cool, but the pictures do not compare in quality to my DSLR. The pictures can be shared on social media via an embeddable widget, which is cool, but kind of unfortunate since it limits where/how you can share the images. Understandable, though still a downside. You also have to process the images, which takes up time and more hard drive space. All that said, the camera does work well and is easy to use. The tiny touchscreen was really novel when I discovered it was in fact a functional touchscreen. All in all, I'd *REALLY* love to see this tech as a feature in DSLR cameras, but I would not recommend buying this unless you are very interested in the lightfield technology.