Post Capture Focus - the Future of Photography?

[nwoods]

Samsung introduced this in their Galaxy s5, and now there is a dedicated hand held camera with an F2, 30-300mm lens that solely emphasizes the ability to change your focal point after capturing the image. The Verge did a review of the Lytro Illum camera, and loved the potential of it, but not actually using it. The video review they did is pretty neat, and really gets the imagination going:

http://www.theverge.com/2014/7/30/5951967/lytro-illum-review-video

 

[AA1PR]

I guess that would appeal to those that have no real idea how to manipulate depth of field

 

[robgendreau]

I guess that would appeal to those that have no real idea how to manipulate depth of field

That's not really the point. The camera is designed to produce interactive photos where the user gets to select the focus, instead of the photographer. You might have a nearby flower and distant peak in focus, or only the former, or only the latter. The Lytro gives you either the flower or the peak in ONE picture instead of two.

Which doesn't seem very useful or interesting to me; that's not how we view things. If it was only a matter of customizing DoF that might actually be more useful. Like some sort of finger slide on a touch screen that would automate shutter, aperture, focus, etc to give you the effect you want (some digital cameras can approximate that already). But this produces rather gimmicky shots if the examples are representative. Sorta like cinemagraphs, or animated gifs or 3D. Sheesh, I think there are even filters in some slide show software that allows a sort of Ken Burns-like pan with softening that looks very much like what this camera does. And at $1500 you could get a coupla bodies and a couple of lenses and be able to replicate most everything it does with that combo and software, except for the user interaction. And, like the interactive panorama websites, perhaps someone will allow you to upload a series of shots with different focus and they'll animate them into a replica of what this does.

 

[jdlobb]

And at $1500 you could get a coupla bodies and a couple of lenses and be able to replicate most everything it does

turn that around. For $1500 you can replace several bodies and lenses with a single device that does it all automatically.

 

[photoman]

turn that around. For $1500 you can replace several bodies and lenses with a single device that does it all automatically.

Except for the fact that the images this camera produces are not print worthy. It is a user interaction camera not a replacement for dslr's for those looking to actually print and/or sell images.