http://techcrunch.com/2011/07/22/doubts-about-lytros-focus-l...
I can't wait to actually use one, though. From what I've heard, it's something photographers who love the old methods (like myself) sort of "get" once they've used it for a while. And of course it can live in peace alongside the Canons and Sonys of the world.
You really seemed to miss the point here. The Lytro camera captures all possible focus settings, allowing the photographer to choose one later...or combine multiple settings together in a single image. This isn't the machine taking over the photographer's job, it's the machine increasing the choices available to the photographer. Similarly, you might not like images which have been heavily dodged/burned, but it certainly was a victory for artists when that technique was developed, allowing them to choose differing levels of exposure in the same image.
There's a reason photographers prefer certain lenses for sharpness, which can be measured in lp/mm and I wonder how the Lytro compares there. The f/2 glass is probably decent for portraits and exhibits high levels of diffraction when shooting landscape images at f/22. If light field photography solves these problems then that would be very interesting to me. For $399 and shooting at 3-4 megapixels now, it will be a few years before this reaches the 18+ megapixel pro-am level and deals with pro-am criticism.
My thought here is that the finished work would always be a picture, not the fancy widget, otherwise the comparison would not even stand.
At the end of every issue there was a thing called a fold in - it was one image with one caption which, when folded in a certain way, created a new image with an entirely contrasting message.
Imagine an image which, depending on the focus, changes the mood and message completely. I'm sure they will emerge.
Right now the images on the site are mainly tech demos but in the hands of someone able to think outside the box I'm sure we will see some striking new art.
The microlens array bins several sensor pixels into single image pixels. Depending on the incident angle of the light on the microlens, the light will go to a different sensor pixel. This means you can adjust the aperture, as well as focus in post-processing, since a narrower aperture just means a pixel is illuminated by light from a narrower possible number of incident angles.
If I had a whiteboard, I'd draw you a diagram, but you sound like a knowledgeable photographer so you probably "get it" if not, just look at the ray-diagrams in the depth of field section of a photography book.
This:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/devindotcom/5076642726/sizes/l/...
Was taken at f/3.2 so there is no reason you couldn't get this shot with a f/2 shot from a plenoptic camera with a 35mm lens and a APS-C sized sensor (you would actually have to use some of their software to increase the depth of field to get that picture).
Lytro doesn't give specs on the focal length or sensor size; I think we can assume it's probably closer to a point-and-shoot than an SLR, and everybody already knows it's hard to do shallow depth of field with a point-and-shoot, it's not anything specific to Lytro's camera. The majority of point-and-shoots have a fixed aperture (if you "stop-down" for outdoors shooting they just use an NDF filter).
If they come out with an pro-quality exchangable lens large-sensor plenoptic, you ought to be able to do the same sorts of things you can do with a pro-quality non-plenoptic camera, only you'll be able to do it e.g. with moving subjects that you otherwise would not be able to focus on with such a narrow depth of field (and as a sacrifice you would have many fewer pixels).