Lytro Camera: Shoot First, Focus Later

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I'm not a photographer, but that doesn't mean I do not love using cameras, specially something as amazing as this one. Yet, I don't use DSLR cameras or such just because they have too many settings and I'm a lazy guy. For times like those, the Lytro Camera is a dream come true. This is the first camera in the world that doesn't need any kind of settings or focusing or fiddling with buttons and knobs.

The Lytro Camera, unveiled by Lytro, has an anodized aluminum frame, an f/2 lens with 8x optical zoom, two buttons, a 11 mega ray light-field and is all fit into a nice to hold rectangular body. What's so special about this camera? The Lytro camera can take living photos, that means, you can click a picture and then focus afterwards. This is a new way of taking and sharing pictures and is definitely going to cause a stir in the photography communities.

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You wouldn't ever need to focus while taking a picture, and because of that, this camera is amazingly fast and has no shutter lag. The two buttons on the camera will Turn it on and Take pictures. It turns on instantly and takes photos just as you click the second button, no waiting. This means that you'll never miss a moment, it's that fast and there is a video demonstration to prove that.

The Lytro is the only consumer camera that lets people instantly capture a scene just as they see it by recording a fundamentally richer set of data than ever before. Lytro cameras feature a light field sensor that collects the color, intensity, and the direction of every light ray flowing into the camera, capturing a scene in four dimensions. To process this additional information, Lytro cameras contain a light field engine that allows camera owners to refocus pictures directly on the camera. When the Lytro's living pictures are shared online, the light field engine travels with each picture so anyone can interact with them on nearly any device, including web browsers, mobile phones, and tablets-without having to download special software.

That's it. Photography is not going to be like before. The Lytro Camera comes in three colors and with 2 storage options, 8GB and 16GB.  Prices start from $399 and go up to $499. That's really cheap for a camera that can take living photos. You can pre-order the Lytro camera on their official website and it will be shipped to you in early 2012. The software is currently only available for the Mac, but it'll be soon available for Windows. Ren Ng, the founder of Lytro states;

Light field photography was once only possible with 100 cameras tethered to a supercomputer in a lab. Today it's accessible to everyone in a camera that's small and powerful, but incredibly easy to use. Our goal is to forever change the way people take and experience pictures, and today marks our first major step.

Watch the demo video from CNET after the break. Are you shocked right now? Amazing technology isn't it? I bet you want to own one right now.