The Grand Prize Goes to Light Field Photographer Ken Trombatore

Posted on October 9, 2012 by Lytro

We have a winner in the first light field photography contest ever. Ken Trombatore has won the Grand Prize in our Share the Fun Photography Contest with this submission, “Regan on the hunt.”

Judges Vincent Laforet, Heather Champ, Richard Koci Hernandez, and Eric Cheng, along with over 18,000 fan votes over the course of 7 weeks, determined the winner. According to Eric, Ken’s picture stood out among over 750 submissions, and beat the other 34 Weekly Finalists because of the unique subject matter and storytelling within the picture. “It’s an unusual moment. You can see the focus on the hunt in Regan’s expression. Then, there is the unknown story of what comes next.”*

How did Ken get the shot? “There are about three or four groundhogs that live in the field near my home,” explained Ken, who does sports photography for a running club and frequently shoots with a DSLR camera. “Every afternoon, we find the groundhogs and she chases them. Regan is eleven years old, so she’s more about the hunt than she is about the kill. To get this picture, I got as close as I could to the groundhog and got down low to frame the shot. When shooting with the Lytro camera, I look for the unique perspective, the one that you’re not used to getting with your regular camera.”

Congratulations to Ken, who has won a Master Light Field Photography Lesson with Eric Cheng, plus five Lytro cameras to gift to his (very good) friends. Thank you to the hundreds Lytro camera owners who submitted their pictures and an additional congratulations to all of the Weekly Finalists, who have their pictures featured in the Lytro picture gallery.

* No animals were injured :)

Lytro Named POPULAR MECHANICS Breakthrough Award Recipient

Posted on October 1, 2012 by Lytro

We are thrilled to share that POPULAR MECHANICS has awarded the Lytro camera a 2012 Breakthrough Award for setting benchmarks in design and engineering. This is a huge honor!

For those of you who are not familiar, the 8th annual POPULAR MECHANICS Breakthrough Awards recognize innovators and products that have dramatically advanced the fields of technology, medicine, space exploration, automotive design, environmental engineering and more.

We are in good company along past recipients of the Breakthrough Awards including James Cameron, genomics pioneer J. Craig Venter, efficiency expert Amory Lovins, inventor and FIRST Robotics founder Dean Kamen, and humanitarian engineer Amy Smith.

Be sure to check out Lytro and other winners in the November issue of POPULAR MECHANICS, available on newsstands October 16. For now, you can watch Glenn Derene demonstrate the camera on the Today Show.

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Light Field Photography Contest Update

Posted on September 27, 2012 by Lytro

The world’s first light field photography contest will come to a conclusion in just a few more days, on Sunday, September 30.

No more dilly-dallying! Submit your light field pictures, or vote to be eligible to win a Lytro camera of your own.

Our newest Weekly Finalists in the Share the Fun Photography Contest include Ken Ezell, Kevin Gray, Juliet Fiss, Roger Hall, and Nancy Lundebjerg, who submitted this picture, “Fairy Wings.”

We’ve seen over 730 submissions that have been narrowed to 30 Weekly Finalists, with the help of our weekly guest judges:

Matt Buchanan, editor at Buzzfeed
Cliff Kuang, editor at Fast Company
Helen Cho, Social MediaManager with Anthony Bourdain
Coco Rocha, high fashion model
Josh Anon, former camera artist at Pixar and new Lytro PM
Jason Gilbert, writer for the Huffington Post

Just five more Finalists will be selected with the help of David Pierce from The Verge, before director/photographer Vincent Laforet helps our regular panel of judges, Eric Cheng, Heather Champ, and Koci Hernandez determine the Grand Prize winner.

You don’t need a camera to get involved. Your vote helps determine who becomes a Weekly Finalist, and gives you a chance to win a Lytro camera of your own.

Lytro’s Going Global! And Expanding in the U.S., too

Posted on September 25, 2012 by Lytro

We’re taking the picture revolution on the road, making the Lytro camera available to more creative photographers in the United States and around the world. Since our first shipments of the Lytro camera only six months ago, we’ve been inundated with requests to bring the Lytro camera to countries near and far and to stores near you.

In the United States, starting in October, retailers Target.com, BestBuy.com, and Amazon.com will sell the Lytro camera. Starting in November, the Lytro camera also will be sold in all of the new CityTarget stores, located in Chicago, downtown Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, and Westwood, California. Internationally, starting in October, the Lytro camera will be available in Australia, Canada, Hong Kong and Singapore.

Details about Where to Buy and the schedule for availability:

Online at Target.com, BestBuy.com and Amazon.com starting October 9
Online at Future Shop in Canada, starting October 9
In-store through retailers in Australia, starting October 10
In-store through retailers in Hong Kong and Singapore, starting mid-October
In-store at CityTarget, starting November
If you don’t see your country listed, please sign up on our international interest list.

The first Lytro camera owners have shared nearly 400,000 living pictures to Lytro.com since we began selling in the United States. Now, as we start selling around the world, we’re looking forward to seeing the continued expansion of creativity with light field photography. Happy shooting!

Congratulations Ren, TR35 Entrepreneur of the Year

Posted on August 21, 2012 by Lytro

We could not be more excited to announce that today, our founder and Executive Chairman Ren Ng has been recognized by MIT’s Technology Review as a TR35 Honoree for 2012 and as the first-ever recipient of the Entrepreneur of the Year award!

Selected from a TR35 panel of expert judges and the editorial staff of Technology Review (who evaluated more than 250 nominations!) TR35 recognizes the world’s top young innovators under the age of 35, spanning industries from biotechnology, computer and electronics hardware to software, energy, the Web, and nanotechnology, among other emerging fields.

Ren along with the other TR35 award winners will be profiled in Technology Review’s September/October issue of the magazine. In the meantime, be sure to also check out Tech Review’s feature video of Ren.

Ren will join other TR35 honorees in discussing their achievements at the EmTech MIT 2012 conference, taking place at the MIT Media Lab in Cambridge October 24-26, 2012.

Congrats Ren!

Win Lytro Cameras! Photography Contest and Sweepstakes

Posted on August 13, 2012 by Lytro

Today, we’re launching Lytro’s first light field photography contest, Share the Fun, which also happens to be THE first light field photography contest ever.

Each week through the end of September, five Finalists will get their pictures featured on the Lytro.com gallery and will win a Lytro accessories package worth $125. One of those Finalists will win the grand prize, a Master Light Field Photography Lesson with our Director of Photography, Eric Cheng, along with 5 Lytro cameras to share with their friends.

We have amazing judges who will help determine the winners:

Eric Cheng, world-renowned underwater photographer and Lytro’s Director of Photography
Heather Champ, currently at Findery and Flickr’s former Community Manager, never leaves home without a camera
Richard Koci Hernandez, Emmy award winning video and multimedia producer
Matt Buchanan, our first weekly guest judge, writes about technology, food and drink and is the editor for FWD, Buzzfeed’s tech site
You! (And, you could win your own Lytro camera just for voting.)

Vote for your favorite pictures, or add your own, here. You can increase your chances of winning by voting or adding a new picture every day.

Lytro for Windows is Here!

Posted on July 24, 2012 by Lytro

The wait is over. The Lytro Desktop Application is now available for Windows too. The Lytro Team has been hard at work on behalf of PC owners and can’t wait to introduce you to this new way of taking and experiencing pictures. To celebrate the new software, we’re offering free shipping on all camera orders placed this week. Check these minimum specs to make sure the Lytro desktop software will work with your PC:

OS: Windows 7 (64 bit) ONLY Home, Professional, or Ultimate
CPU: Intel® Core 2 Duo or better
RAM: 2 GB or more
Graphics: DirectX 10

Get more details on our Support site.

Continue reading →

Wanted: A Light Field CEO

Posted on June 29, 2012 by Ren

In 2006, I started this company with the goal of bringing my PhD on light field cameras out of the research lab and into the hands of everyday photographers. Lytro achieved that goal this year when we started shipping the Lytro camera to consumers. The last two years have been a very exciting and dramatic period of growth for Lytro. We launched the company out of stealth, raised approximately $50M, grew a team of over 80 people, and shipped a truly revolutionary product. The most rewarding part for me has been to finally see everyday people shooting their own light field pictures out in the world. It has been an honor and a privilege to serve and grow as CEO with this amazing team.

With these major milestones behind us, we have entered a new chapter for Lytro. I have decided to step aside as CEO and take on a new role that will let me concentrate on innovation as Executive Chairman. I will remain a full-time employee, 100% focused on Lytro. In my new role I will shift attention from day-to-day operations, to focus again on product vision, technology, and strategic direction for the company. I am very excited to have the opportunity to focus on these areas where I am most passionate.

Charles Chi will be taking over as interim CEO. Charles has been our Executive Chairman for the last two years, by my side every day, and he has perfect knowledge about the business. He is a close friend, and I am grateful to him for serving in this critical role of running day-to-day operations and giving me the opportunity to focus on my passions. I know that he will do an outstanding job.

And we are searching for a permanent CEO to take Lytro into the future! We are looking for a leader with the talent to amplify what we’ve started, the experience to lead our talented and ambitious team, and a desire to transform photography in profound and lasting ways.

Viva Lytro!

Ren Ng
Founder and Executive Chairman of Lytro

Now You Can Play with Living Pictures Directly in Twitter

Posted on June 13, 2012 by Lytro

We’ve always made it easy for you to share your Lytro living pictures on Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. And, you and your friends have always been able to play with living pictures directly in a Facebook Wall post, or when they’re embedded on a blog or website.

Today, we’re excited to announce we’ve partnered with Twitter to use expanded Tweets so that everyone can play with living pictures directly in their Twitter feed. Now your friends and followers can refocus and interact with living pictures on both web and mobile devices, without ever leaving Twitter.

Be sure to follow @lytro to check out some of our favorite living pictures, or share your favorite living pictures with us, and we’ll re-tweet a few of our favorites throughout the day.

Expanded Tweets begins rolling out to everyone on twitter.com and mobile.twitter.com starting today, and it’s coming soon to Twitter for iPhone and Twitter for Android. After it rolls out to you, you can click “View Media” to play with living pictures directly in your Twitter feed.

Pictured: Lytro engineering manager Tom Hanley worked with his web development team to bring living pictures to Twitter.

Meet Lytro’s Founder at the Apple Store in San Francisco

Posted on June 8, 2012 by Lytro

Meet Lytro’s founder, Ren Ng, and other members of the Lytro Team, at the Apple Store at San Francisco’s Union Square on Thursday, June 14.

During his 4:30pm presentation, Ren will share his thoughts on light field photography and the role it plays at the intersection of art, science and culture. Everyone is invited to this open event, including attendees from Apple’s World Wide Developer Conference and AIGA’s San Francisco Design Week.

After Ren’s presentation, you can get hands-on with the camera. Lytro Team members will demo Lytro cameras, living pictures and answer your questions about light field technology.

Driving directions and map.