The Lytro camera that takes ‘living pictures’ will be available in the UK this month.
The camera offers 8x optical zoom and comes with a constant f/2 lens but the real appeal of the device comes from its ability to take ‘living pictures’ which viewers can interact with by changing the focus of the picture after it has been taken. An image in the background of the picture can be focused on by the user, bringing blurry content into striking clarity. The camera is able to capture these images with an adjustable depth of field using a ‘light field sensor’ and the images are stored as unique Light Field Picture (.lfp) files.
The Lytro is designed for sharing, coming equipped with the ability to connect to wifi. Users will be able to share their shots with other Lytro users with an iOS app and it’s also possible to embed the images on websites allowing non-Lytro users to experience the amazing shots. The camera also includes a program for importing and processing images, applying filters, and interacting with the pictures, that will run on Mac OS 10.6.6 and Windows 7.
For all the innovation in terms of the images you can capture, Lytro have kept the controls simple. A small touch screen on the rear of the device and separate controls for the shutter and zoom on the body make up the entire interface.
While this technology has been available for some time the Lytro is the first commercially available camera that includes the ability to capture these images.
The camera will retail at £469 for the 16GB model and £399 for the smaller 8GB.
