the light-field camera

the unconventional lytro camera, the shoot now and focus later, light-field camera will be available in our shores from mid october. the light-field camera is a camera that places a microlens array in front of the sensor, to capture information about where the light is travelling. The captured information can then be turned into a series of pictures with different focus points.

– image credit to lytro

to take a picture, simply point the camera at the subject, and press the shutter. despite the size, it sports a 8x optical zoom on a fast f/2 lens (the new iphone 5 is f/2.4). it would be a convenient point-and-shoot camera, and i would be interested to know how it will fare on “moving” subjects.