Last week we shipped our first Lytro cameras, and this week we got to meet some of our first owners who brought their own cameras to San Francisco’s Ferry Plaza Building. “It was an arrival point to look out at all these people with a Lytro camera in their hands…complete with wrist staps,” said Eric Cheng, our director of photography.

Members of the Lytro Team, including “original believers” Alex, Tim and Colvin, joined Eric and Ren, as we led our first camera owners through some hands on lessons and challenges to help encourage experimentation. For Ren, “Their enthusiasm was the most special part of the event. I got to share some of my favorite aspects of the creativity that is possible from just a single lens with the Lytro camera. It was exciting to see them start to discover the depth of possibilities.” For our engineers and product managers, the event offered a chance to get direct feedback on the end-to-end camera experience. “For one, we can never say ‘get close’ enough,” said product manager Kristen Berman, in order to get a strong refocus effect in your pictures. (You don’t have to come to a photowalk to share your feedback with us. You can have your say in the forums on our Support site.)

Andy B. took this shot, which matches one of the concepts featured in the Inspiration Gallery on our “Learn Page.”

Alexander Winter, managing editor of asterisk San Francisco joined in on one of our photowalks and experimented with Creative Mode to take this macro shot of his watch.

Besides creativity with living pictures, we also saw creativity with the cameras themselves:

Mike James caught our attention right away with his camera that was tricked out with flames designed by his friend Steve Hosmer, who owns Stokes Signs in Santa Cruz, CA.

Ben Wong designed a unique sleeve for his Lytro camera so that he could attach a custom neck sling, made by his company Custom SLR).