Prototyping the Future? The Light Camera

[cgw]

Very strange...

The Light Camera (Almost) Arrives | byThom | Thom Hogan

 

[vintagesnaps]

I bet focus is interesting! (as the article says) The expected results from this review don't sound that impressive. Seems like quite an expense for a camera that isn't in use yet to know how well it will work. I guess people will be able to do some fancy schmancy selfies!

 

[vintagesnaps]

So I tend to be skeptical, but after watching these short videos I don't know, maybe it could be good, I feel like I'd want to see more end results. They only showed one larger sized print which I found hard to tell how good it actually looked. For example to me fake blur doesn't look that great, whether it's done with this cell-phone-looking camera or in post in an editing program on a computer. Would want to see more I guess.

 

[jcdeboever]

There's another thread on here about this. I like your link better

Sent from my XT1254 using Tapatalk

 

[Designer]

Yes, strange that it apparently does not also make phone calls, text, internet, Wi-Fi, or have thousands of post-production apps.

 

[KmH]

It reminds me of a camera that was going to totally revolutionize photography - The Lytro - that apparently hasn't lived up to it's hype.
You can buy a 2nd generation Lytro for only $1299.
I wonder how many, if any, they sell.

 

[Derrel]

It reminds me of a camera that was going to totally revolutionize photography - The Lytro - that apparently hasn't lived up to it's hype.
You can buy a 2nd generation Lytro for only $1299.
I wonder how many, if any, they sell.

I ran into a man in a McDonald's this summer, just off of Highway 101, and he had JUST received a Lytro the day before, and he payed $299 for it from some online e-Tech type retail outfit. It was the first generation model. He tried to demo it for me, but he could not get the thing to work right for some reason. The very low price he payed for it gave me the idea that these things are kind of like $3 bills...not much acceptance by the buying public at all.

As for the Light16 camera, I watched their videos last night, and commented in the other thread based solely upon the photos I saw at the company's web site. Hard to tell...web display images of 1,200 pixels wide are easy to make look fantastic, and the images they show are quite good, and a couple are awesome--very,very good. But...again...advertising images are often heavily processed by Photoshop/retouching experts, often for hours and hours.

My concern was with 16 different cameras in one case: how prone to failure might this device be?

As my son said, "It's too bad it's not a phone, and it can't do e-mail, Skype, and play games. People will just keep using their phones."

 

[ak_]

My concern was with 16 different cameras in one case: how prone to failure might this device be?

That and fragility - definitely a concern I'd say. I think this tech will find its way into the mainstream - licensed - into phones and the Sony/Nikon/Canon cameras eventually. This looks like the kind of thing Sigma (especially) or Ricoh like to make, if they haven't already had a sit down with these guys.

I like that it's bigger than a typical smartphone or compact camera. No flash shoe - but the little xenon could optically slave off-camera flash.

 

[Derrel]

As I watched the two videos the maker has up, I thought to myself, "That thing NEEDS some kind of strap!". Wrist strap, neck strap, whatever...it looks large enough that it will need some way to be carried besides being pocketed like a phone, but instead, carried like a camera. I would think that the hangs-from-the-right-hand-grip-side type of vertical carry would work. But a $1,699 camera that has no way to carry it like a camera? The people making this are inexperienced noobs to the camera market...this is priced wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyy above the smart phone crowd, and is being touted as a camera. A camera that has utterly no way to be carried, ready for use, or even allowed to hang down on its strap for a minute or two while arranging people or the set or whatever? Idiotic. This thing has 16 fricking lenses and cameras in it...it desperately NEEDS some way to be made secure against accidental drops and slips! The people who will buy this will be, in many cases, very avid camera users...so it needs to have a basic camera prerequisite: some way to hang it,sling it, strap it, tote it, leaving BOTH hands free.

 

[ak_]

Yep, it needs a strap. I recall that it has a notch in one of the corners for a wrist strap to loop through.