... and it really is (at this point) basically a toy.
I got a Lytro. It arrived today, and I've done a bit of monkeying with it.
So far, I really like it.
A lot.
No. Really really a lot.
I don't think it'll ever displace any of my other cameras, but I'm seeing potential for this little thing.
I have a few complaints with it, but nothing major - the image is awesome, but the quality is only so-so, for example (I think I read somewhere that it's the equivalent of a 5MP camera, which is not bad, but it's also nothing particularly special).
I can export the images to .jpg, but I don't know that I'd ever want to.
Honestly, at this point, it's a gimmick and not much more. It's a pretty neat gimmick, mind you, but ... I don't know how far it'll go.
The form factor is interesting - I have trouble hitting the shutter without bumping the zoom, for example. And I'd have put the shutter on the side and moved the touch screen to the top, personally. It would make the device a bit more flexible.
Transfer from the camera to the computer is also ridiculously slow. But that might be this particular computer - I'm not sure if it's connected to USB 2.0 or 1.0.
Some of the normal rules of photography need to be adjusted for this thing, too. Shooting through something like a fence is tacitly encouraged, because the fence will give you another plane of interest instead of just being a vaguely-blurry foreground thing. In fact, the more focal planes you have with interestingness, the better your photo will be overall - which is a change, because "normal" photography, you don't want blurry activity distracting from your intended focal point. In theory.
Either way, you'll be seeing occasional shots from the Lytro here. Enjoy.
Oh - and you can watch this space for more.
