This article was taken from the July 2012 issue of Wired magazine. Be the first to read Wired's articles in print before they're posted online, and get your hands on loads of additional content by subscribing online.
The Lytro camera lets you focus photos after you've taken them. With no need to auto-focus, images can be captured instantly and later sharpened up, shifted in perspective or manipulated in 3D space. Born out of inventor Ren Ng's PhD from the University of Stanford, the Lytro condenses the principles of light-field photography into a handheld consumer device. It could be the first step in a potentially major shake-up in photography. Here's a deeper look inside.
How it works
Rays of light entering the camera refract through the series of curved lenses and are captured on the light-field sensor. The micro-lens array in front of the sensor surface preserves each ray's direction. The light-field engine uses this information to process the image in 3D space, and determine the equivalent fixed physical lens-sensor distance for the chosen focal point.
1. LED display
A 3.7cm2 touchscreen at the rear of the camera controls the functions. The user can click on the image to refocus to the selected area. A sensor across the top adjusts the zoom.
2. Light-field engine
The Lytro uses directional data to determine equivalent physical lens-sensor distance for any focal point. The light-field engine does this processing in the camera itself.
3. Light-field sensor
The light-field sensor captures the direction, colour and intensity of each light ray. The sensor records 11 million "megarays" of photo data to send to the light-field engine.
4. Microlens array
The micro-lens array consists of thousands of tiny lenses that fracture the light into thousands of distinct light-paths. The sensor preserves each path's vector direction.
5. Lens assembly
The Lytro uses an f/2 lens with an 8x optical zoom. Its large aperture remains constant across the range of the zoom, resulting in a long lens -- and a tubular device.
6. Software
Files are saved in .lfp (light-field picture file) format.
This retains the directional data, for editing with Lytro's desktop software. Images can be focused and exported as flat .jpegs or as "living pictures".
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
