Lytro launches next-gen light-field 'living-picture' camera Illum for $1599

Lytro Camera made quite a splash when it had launched couple of years back and introduced us to the concept of ‘shoot now, focus later’. On Tuesday, Lytro launched its latest innovation - the Lytro Illum - which looks more like a traditional camera (as opposed to Lytro’s cuboidal shape) although with an unconventional design.   Lytro Illum also captures information such as colour, intensity and direction of every light ray flowing into the camera. This enables you to manipulate the focus point and perspective after the image has been shot. [caption id=“attachment_222329” align=“aligncenter” width=“640”] Lytro Illum houses a 1-inch sensor and the lens has a constant f/2.0 aperture across the zoom range[/caption]  

One of the major upgrades that Illum brings in is the use of a 1-inch sensor. The Illum still offers a constant f/2.0 lens but it has added in a 30-250mm equivalent zoom range to the lens. The Illum offers a 40-megaray light field sensor, but the still images coming out will have an equivalent resolution of 4 megapixels. It has a high speed shutter of 1/4000th of a sec,  which is capable of freezing motion under a wide variety of conditions. Shooting modes such as Program, ISO priority, shutter priority and full manual are supported. It also comes with its proprietary software which allows photographers to manipulate the images by adjusting focus, tilt, perspective shift and depth of field.

  In addition to enabling post-capture image adjustments, Lytro Illum’s proprietary software platform enables users to view images in 3D, build custom animations, export images into common formats like JPEG and share to the Web or mobile devices. Lytro Illum’s workflow is also compatible with existing photo-editing suites like Adobe’s Photoshop and Lightroom software and Apple’s Aperture software [caption id=“attachment_222332” align=“aligncenter” width=“634”] Lytro Illum has 8x optical zoom with an equivalent focal length of 30-250 mm[/caption]  

The Lytro Illum will start selling in from July 2014 onwards for a retail price of $1,599 or approx Rs 97,600. To get an idea of how images coming out of the new Lytro Illum look, head here.