The Lytro Illum camera pioneered light-field photography.
"Instead of capturing it on a single plane, freezing an image in time and space, a light-field camera also captures the direction in which light was moving. Its processor then essentially renders a 3D scene, complete with the knowledge of distance between objects. A light-field photo represents not only everything in the scene, but a spatial understanding of the things in it." [1]
It's amazing from a technical perspective, but the image resolution was low (only 4 MP), and the price was high ($1600). [2]
I'd hoped that the technology would help the camera market find a new selling point to compete with phones, but apparently that hasn't happened. It's a pity that Lytro is disbanding instead of selling off to Canon or Nikon.
"Instead of capturing it on a single plane, freezing an image in time and space, a light-field camera also captures the direction in which light was moving. Its processor then essentially renders a 3D scene, complete with the knowledge of distance between objects. A light-field photo represents not only everything in the scene, but a spatial understanding of the things in it." [1]
It's amazing from a technical perspective, but the image resolution was low (only 4 MP), and the price was high ($1600). [2]
I'd hoped that the technology would help the camera market find a new selling point to compete with phones, but apparently that hasn't happened. It's a pity that Lytro is disbanding instead of selling off to Canon or Nikon.
[1] https://www.theverge.com/2014/7/30/5949913/lytro-illum-revie...
[2] https://petapixel.com/2017/01/12/look-lytro-illum-camera-fut...