texasdan78070 Loc: Texas Hill Country

Anyone have one or shot with one? Found one on sale for $299.99. I'm tempted, but??? Thx much.
Dan

rmalarz Loc: Tempe, Arizona

Thought about it, for about .1 seconds. It's an over priced toy that can't produce sharp images. The obvious and simplest approach it to see how many photographs are being posted using one of those.
--Bob

ggttc Loc: TN

If it were $19.95 and the offer said "but wait...order now and you'll get a second one free"...I'd think about it.

texasdan78070 Loc: Texas Hill Country

I believe you're right. I just had never heard of it and the only info I had was the company's. Just. curious.

Dan

TommiRulz Loc: Corpus Christi, TX

My niece -in-law is a pretty good photographer with nice little business (so not a dummy with cameras or software) She was given the top of the line model by a relative that works for lytro to try out and she hates it! She says that it only works with some pretty extensive software that is impossible to figure out. She still has the camera - she just rolls her eyes when I ask her about it.
Unless your a super wiz with technical software - That money might be better spent on a good bottle of wine!!!!

turp77 Loc: Connecticut, Plainfield

It is just a toy I bought mine brand new from B&H for $100. It's the older model long rectangle. It was fun for 30 min and you have to use their program. Now it sits with my novelty cameras in my collection next to the Lego camera and the Kraft Macaroni and Cheese camera.

JWP

I bought the first version of the camera for about $400. The latest version sold for about $1500. I don't know which version you are looking at. Anyways, it does seem like a toy or novelty, but it uses some very sophisticated technology that allows you to focus different parts of the image after the photo has been taken. It does require special software which didn't seem too difficult to master. I am surprised that Canon or Nikon haven't adopted the technology for some of their cameras. Unless you are a real tech geek, I recommend that you stick with a more traditional camera. For your information, my Lytro just sits on a shelf and collects dust. To take photos, I use Canon and Sony cameras.

Dond

I bought the Lytro Illum about a year ago. The camera is not a piece of junk, it seems to be very well made. It is more of a computer with a lens than a camera. Occasionally the firmware has a hiccup and the camera locks up. It is pretty complicated technology that is looking for a market. It has a sensor that has about 40 megapixels. As I understand it, each photo pixel is really made up of an array of sensor pixels, each with a different microprism in front of it. Each prism gives a different focus point. When you snap the shutter, you get several differently focused pixels for each photo pixel. The software allows you to post-process each image such that you can decide what you want to be in focus and what depth of field you want. The end result is a 4 megapixel resolution photo. The software does a lot of things that are unique to this camera (like letting you decide if you want your depth of field to simulate anything between f 2.0 and f 16) and the normal lighting adjustments. I use the Lytro software for its special functions then save the final image as a .tif file so that I can do the final edits with Photoshop.
The camera has tools in the firmware that help you adjust the focus and zoom to compose the photo that you want. All of your exposures will be at f2.0 but you can vary the ISO and shutter speeds. There are good training videos on a Lytro website. Taking a photo with the Illum is almost nothing like using a conventional camera. I bought it because the concept fascinated me and I had the time to play with something new. There is quite a learning curve to getting good results.
The camera system output can be a so-called living photo, a 3D photo, a still photo, and a video of an image where the focus point changes. There isn't much of a market for what comes out of the camera, as I see it. A small photo for a web page that has a lot of depth of field and was taken hand-held under low lighting conditions is one possible use. Like JWP I keep my Illum on the shelf and use Canon cameras to take photos, but I keep the Illum battery charged "just in case".

texasdan78070 Loc: Texas Hill Country

Since I can't seem to learn to work with layers, and the software for it is sophisticated, y'all just saved me $300. Thanks for the input and the extra money in my pocket. Many thanks.

Dan