On Lightfield photography and Lytro

  • By Daniel
  • 2012-04-18 13:04:00-0700

Benjamin Warde commenting on Lytro:

Viewers will find clicking on photos to refocus them to be fun for exactly 17 seconds, after which theyll be bored, not to mention annoyed that they're being made to do work the photographer should have done already. As for the folks behind the camera, placing the focus is a creative decision, and in general, photographers aren't going to want the end viewer making their creative decisions for them.

...

Let me be clear, I'm not skeptical about the value of being able to set focus after the fact, I'm only skeptical about the value of letting the viewer set focus after the fact. Letting the photographer set focus after the fact is fantastic.

via Camera Curiosities: Lytro - Its Aliiiiiive!.

I agree with this completely. I was really excited about the technology behind the Lytro camera, but I had never thought of letting the viewer be the one to set focus. I had envisioned it to enable more creative control in post-production. I canceled my Lytro order without a solid reason why, but this article put into words what I had felt.

tags: technology