Light Field Technology

I made it a point to visit all of the booths at PhotoPlus Expo looking for new and interesting products.

At the Lytro booth, I learned a new term: Light Field Technology. With this camera, the direction, color and brightness of the light rays are captured by a specialized sensor array. Afterwards, this information can be “processed” to refocus and change perspective.

The Lytro Illum is a new, second generation camera to capture light field photographs. Lytro refers to these images as “living pictures”. The Illum is fitted with a 30-250mm zoom lens with f/2 constant aperture. It has a 4″ tiling LCD viewing screen and weighs just over 2 lbs.
The fast f/2 lens provides an 8X zoom range. Images are stored on an SD, SDXC or SDHC card. The specialized CMOS sensor has ISO range from 80 to 3200. The camera also has built-in WiFi for transferring images directly to a smart device.
You can preview the images on the LCD and immediately see these living pictures as the focus and perspective change. The LCD is touch sensitive – you can touch the part of the image to refocus. A “Lytro” button displays an overlay on the screen that displays the depth of field of objects, indicating the range of refocus.

Use the included Lytro Desktop software to upload to Lytro’s web (no charge) or to Facebook. Viewers can post comments about your pictures on the Lytro Gallery. When you upload, the software creates an animated gif file that animates the refocusing and change of perspective capabilities.

To see this interesting light field technology, visit the Lytro Gallery where you can experiment with these images by moving your mouse over the area to be refocused. I think it’s an amazing technology.

The Illum is available now at a list price of $1599 includes battery and ND filters (since aperture is fixed at f/2).

Written by: Arnie Lee
 
 

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When October comes around, I usually journey back to the stomping grounds of my youth, New York City. I’m always anxious to attend the PhotoPlus Expo at Jacob Javits Center. This year it was held from October 30th through November 1st.
More than 21,000 professional and enthusiasts flocked to Javits to see this year’s expo.
on floor seminar from Sony	on floor seminar from Canon
PhotoPlus combines photo education classes and a large exposition. There are about 80 classes and seminars covering diverse topics such as techniques for posing, lighting, composition, movie making, sound reproduction, marketing and business practices.
on floor seminar from Nikon	on floor seminar from Wescott
The large exposition had 225 exhibitors including 60 making their first appearance at PhotoPlus. I thoroughly enjoy walking the aisles and talking to the vendors and learning what’s new in photographic equipment and accessories.

 
 
This is one of my favorite shows for learning about new photographic equipment and accessories. I’m now preparing a series of articles that highlight some of the new products from the show. You’ll see them shortly.
 
 
Written by: Arnie Lee
 
 
 

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How does 11 frames per second sound?

At the Wedding and Portrait Photographers International Expo last month in Las Vegas, I got a chance to handle Nikon’s newly announced D4s camera.

Although it’s lighter than the D4, it has a remarkable 16MP sensor that’s superb at high ISO settings. In fact we saw a demonstration of the camera at an ISO setting of 25600 and there was virtually no noise. With many other DLSRs sporting higher pixel counts, the D4s sacrifices more pixels in exchange for very superior noise reduction.

But the feature that caught my eye (actually my ear) is its high speed, rapid fire capability. Rated at 11 frames per second with continuous autofocus and autoexposure, this camera is will garner the attention of sports and action photographers.

I made a short recording at Nikon’s booth. The shutter sounds like a miniature machine gun. To hear it, please press the play button below:
 
 
      
 
 
Pretty impressive, if you ask me.
 
 

Although it’s a better performer in several respects, the new D4s is lighter weight than the predecessors D4 and D3s.

Nikon’s rep Paul Van Allen told me that the the D4s is already available. Price for the D4s body is steep $6,500.
 
 
Written by: Arnie Lee
 
 
 

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