Happy birthday to me. I just got the new Lytro camera and I can’t wait to start experimenting. It’s the first consumer camera that records the entire light field — all the rays of light traveling in every direction through a scene — instead of a flat 2D image. And that changes everything. By capturing the light field, you can do incredible things: like refocus pictures after you take them. Tap the touchscreen viewfinder on whatever part of the picture you want to bring into focus or, once the picture is imported into a computer, click to refocus. For example, check out the two versions of the same rudimentary photo below. Even on an overcast, light-less morning – and without bothering to read the instructions, natch – the premise behind the Lytro camera is clear: in the first photo the focus is on the foreground; in the second it shifts to the building in the rear. It’s the same digital file but the amount of light the camera absorbs from the field of vision allows me to essentially re-conceptualize the image after I take it. This is going to be fun – especially after I read the manual.
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