Lytro Camera or as I like to call it the 'indecisive camera' or 'camera-for-drunks' is a "photographic" device that captures the entire "light field" in a scene which essentially allows you to refocus after you've taken an image. See what I mean by indecisive here? It's like you can't make up your mind where to focus your image. I get that the whole purpose of the device is to allow you to refocus and all but honestly speaking it's shit. I mean why would you need such a device? It's innovative of course but do we really need something like it? Let's be honest here. Would you use it? Why would you spend a whopping $399-$499 on it?
Ok fine, maybe I'm bias against it as I'm studying photography so let's start over. I guess for some, it would be pretty cool to show off you're overpriced gadget to your friends at a party (such a cliché scenario) but they'll probably look at you one kind when you answer their question of "How much is it?". I supposed when you're drunk or high (depending on what you're doing) and you feel like capturing the moment but you're unable to operate the simple AUTO function on your point-and-shoot camera, you'd probably wanna use the Lytro. Just "shoot now, focus later" as their slogan says. I'm sure by now you can probably tell I'm not their biggest fan. Oh well.
Maybe because I am also studying photography (I'm your classmate! Duh!), I find this thing to be rather nonsensical. Very nonsensical actually. This just reminds me of that scene in Wall-E where all the humans are so lazy, they have to float around in moving chairs and have everything done for them. Digital technology is a double edged sword, in my opinion. It has its purpose and is magic but it shouldn't be used in every aspect of life. Might as well be a living shell then. Strongly against this!
ReplyDeleteBy the way, I remember Mark Galer mentioning that you can also now refocus photos in Photoshop... so who needs this now?! hahaha
I think Lytro is not about freeing you from the need to select the plane of focus, but allowing you to interactively examine various planes of focus after the fact of taking the photo. The importance of having the ability to refocus the image is not about avoiding responsibility over the technical decisions when making an image, but rather, offering your audiences one more way to engage with the image. In fact, selecting subjects that are suitable for this camera's unique capture data could be seen as just as challenging as utilizing depth of field from a conventional camera effectively.
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