Introduction and features
Like Lytro’s original Light Field Camera, the Illum is able to produce ‘living images’ which allow the user to shift the point of focus after the shot has been taken. It sounds incredible, but out of focus parts of the image really do become sharp before your eyes.
The finer details of the technology are obviously subject to much secrecy, but it involves a microlens array in front of the Illum’s sensor which scatters the light in different directions depending upon the angle at which it entered the array. The Illum’s processor uses the direction data gathered from the sensor to calculate how the light would have responded if the lens was focused at different points. This in turn enables the camera to generate different versions of the image with the focus at different distances.
Where regular cameras focus on a single plane and rely on depth of field to make objects nearer or further away look sharp, the Illum captures a zone of sharp focus which you can exploit later. The name, incidentally is pronounced ‘Illume’, as in a shortened version of ‘Illuminate’.
Features
While the original Lytro camera had an 11-megaray sensor, the Illum has a 1/1.2-inch 40-megaray device. However, many of these ‘megaray’ sites are used in the distance/angle calculations and two-dimensional renderings of the images have just 4 million pixels. Nevertheless the files, which are produced in Lytro’s raw format and stored on SDHC/SDXC media, are around 50-60MB in size.
All images are shot at an aperture of f/2.0 although shutter speed maybe varied within the range 1/4000-32 seconds and sensitivity can be varied from ISO 80 to 3200.
As aperture is fixed, there’s no aperture priority mode, but there’s a sensitivity priority (I) option in which you set the sensitivity value and the camera sets the shutter speed. Shutter priority, program and manual mode are also available.
The fixed lens has an 8x zoom range with a focal of 9.5-77.8mm, equivalent to 30-250mm in 35mm terms.
On the back of the camera is a 4-inch 384,000-dot capacitive touchscreen which, as there’s no viewfinder, is used for composing and reviewing images as well as making settings adjustments. This is mounted on a tilting bracket which enables it to be angled up though 90 degrees and down through 10 degrees for easier viewing.
The Illum looks much more like a conventional camera than the original Light Field camera, but it still has a futuristic air about it that attracts attention and raises interest in anyone who sees it.
Build and handling
At 86 x 145 x 166mm the Illum is quite bulky and not unlike a large, angular bridge camera. Its magnesium and aluminium shell, covered in a silky-feeling finish, gives it a high quality feel. There’s a good sized grip on the front, which is reasonably comfortable in the hand, but there’s no thumbgrip on the back which is a little unnerving. I found that my thumb regularly pressed the buttons on the rear of the camera when I picked the camera up or when I held it between shots. This can result in settings changes if the camera is turned on at the time, so you either need to turn it off or carry it by the supplied strap.
The large lens has broad zoom and focus rings with a textured latex coating. Neither offers much resistance when they are rotated and they don’t have end points, so it’s possible to keep rotating even once the maximum focal length or furthest focus point has been reached.
Lytro has given the Illum a pretty intuitive control system, with the majority of features being accessed via the touchscreen. On the far right of the screen is a menu bar, which can be scrolled up and down with an upward or downward swipe of a finger. Tapping on some icons such as the histogram activates that feature but others, like the exposure mode, are marked with a small arrow and tapping them reveals the options available for selection.
Key settings, including sensitivity, shutter speed, white balance and exposure compensation are shown along the bottom of the screen. By default, tapping on the shutter speed or sensitivity brings up a scrollable display at the centre of the screen. This can be navigated by swiping with your finger until you find the option that you want. Alternatively, the front dial at the top of the finger grip can be used to adjust shutter speed in sensitivity or manual exposure mode while the rear dial, within easy reach of the thumb, adjusts exposure compensation in the semi-automatic modes.
Alongside the menu bar is a coloured depth scale. This indicates areas that are within the refocus range of the camera, which is a depth roughly equivalent to shooting at f/16 with a normal camera. Areas that are in front of the focus point, but that can be made sharp in the living image are indicated in blue while those that are behind and also within the refocus zone are red/orange. These areas can be indicated using a depth map on the live view image by pressing the ‘Lytro’ button on the camera’s top-plate. When this is activated image elements that are with the refocus range are edged in blue or red depending upon which side of the focus point they are.
A histogram also shows the number of pixels that are at each distance. As the focus point is moved, the position of the refocus range shifts. The best living images are produced when the peaks of the distance histogram are spread out across the whole refocus range.
Helpfully, there’s a button marked with the infinity symbol which focuses the lens at the hyperfocal distance – the optimal point that ensures maximum depth of field.
Although it’s not a high-resolution device, the Illum’s screen provides a pretty good view in most situations and doesn’t suffer excessively from reflections. It’s also responsive to touch and the icons and menu screens are clear.
Living images, those that can be refocused, can be seen on the back of the camera. Tapping on any part of the image on the screen refocuses the image at that point. You tap again to refocus elsewhere. It’s also possible to view and refocus living images on a computer screen using the supplied Lytro Desktop software, which allows 4Mp two dimensional JPEG versions of the image to be saved.
The Illum has Wi-Fi connectivity built-in and it’s easy to connect the camera to a smart device like an iPhone. Once this connection has been made it possible to browse images that are stored on the camera’s SD card and upload them to your galleries on Lytro’s website. It’s also possible to share images from the website on Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and Pinterest or send links to them via email or SMS.
Lytro plans to allow the camera to be controlled remotely via the app at some point in the future, but this functionality is not currently available.
Living images may also be shared via a Lytro account and it’s possible to copy a string of code to embed files within a website. Alternatively, living images can be used to create videos that show the shift in focus and these can be saved in MP4 format for easy sharing.
Performance and Verdict
Lytro’s software can be used to create standard 4Mp JPEG images from the Illum’s raw files, which is useful if you want/need to focus on a subject post-capture. It’s particularly useful with moving subjects as the large aperture allows fast shutter speeds and you don’t need to worry about getting the focus bang-on. However, most compact cameras produce far bigger images, cost much less and are capable of delivering sharp images in a wide range of situations. Not only that, the sensor in an average compact camera is small enough to produce sufficient depth of field to get the subject sharp if the focus is a little off.
The real beauty of the Illum, however, is that you can generate ‘living images’ which have a sense of three dimensions and give you the ability to shift focus around the shot. This shifting focus can be saved in videos to share with family, friends or clients.
Click here to see the ‘living’ versions.
Click here to see the ‘living’ versions.
Click here to see the ‘living’ versions.
I found the camera generally produces well exposed images with vibrant colours. In most cases the images look very pleasant straight from the camera, but there’s quite dramatic chromatic aberration in some images with backlit subjects. This means that you need to take care when photographing trees or foliage against a bright sky.
The level of detail is reasonably good, rather than exceptional, and on par with what you would expect from a 4Mp camera.
As the files are large it takes quite a bit of time to transfer them to a hard drive. The Lytro Desktop software is also sometimes a little temperamental and I found that I had to restart in a couple of occasions to get edited animations to export and some images had to be reprocessed (an automatic option carried out by right clicking and selecting ‘Reprocess’) to make the adjustment options available.
Verdict
If you’re not familiar with how to control depth of field it may take you a little while to get your head around creating interesting living images. They work best when the ‘depth range’ is spread across your entire subject so that it’s possible to make any part of it sharp, but there’s separation between each part. It sounds complicated, but Lytro’s depth map actually makes it quite clear. It doesn’t take long before you get used to the idea of zooming in or stepping closer to reduce the refocus range to get separation between close subjects, or moving back and/or zooming out so that the refocus range covers a deeper scene.
Apart from the first Light Field camera, there’s nothing else like the Illum on the market and it generates unique images or animations. They could prove a popular alternative to standard profile images. We’re at the discovery stage when the camera and technology’s niche has yet to be found.
The Illum is also huge fun to use, but its price puts it beyond the reach of many so it is likely to be a toy of the well-heeled or professionals who want to offer a fairly small-scale but unique image of the world.
Overall 3.5/5
For
Huge fun to use; Produces unique ‘living images’; Intuitive controls
Against
Expensive; Rather awkward handling; Small image size
Verdict box
It’s great fun producing images that can be refocused, but there’s a high cost for this entertainment and the images can only be viewed at fairly small size, but it’s just possible that this is a taste of the future of photography.
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