Lytro: The future of bird photography?
Lytro has a new type of camera called a light field camera. The major advance is that it captures more information with each photo so that you can refocus the photos AFTER you take them. In the photos above, click on the closer blue jay, the farther one, and the railing to see the effects of refocusing.
While I post some fairly nice photos at times, I take many more blurry photos that I don't show anyone. Refocusing later gets around this problem.
Now, the camera isn't perfect. It only has a 8x zoom, which is too little for most bird photography. The resolution isn't very good. When saved as a jpg (rather than live image as above), they are only about 1000x1000 pixels which isn't ideal for printing enlargements. I'm sure future versions will get around these limitations, but Mike will continue to play with his new toy.
Do you know if you can transfer the file into Photoshop as according to an article I just read at http://www.talktechnews.co.uk/2012/03/04/inside-the-lytro/ you can't!
The lytro format cannot directly be imported into photoshop or other photo editing software. Lytro does not (yet) provide any editing tools, e.g., adjusting color or cropping. The best you can do is focus the picture and export to jpeg and then edit in photoshop, picasa, etc. Right now, the camera is for early adopters.
I shot some duck photos today that I'll post soon. Waterfowl are large enough that the the zoom is okay. While for most photos, there is no need to switch between several subjects in focus, it's nice not to have to think about focus when shooting.