Top Tips for Zooming with the Lytro Camera

Zoom is your friend.

In order to compose the most compelling “living pictures”, it is important to learn how to make best use of the Lytro camera’s optical zoom. The best way to understand the effects of zoom is by taking a look at some specific examples.

No Zoom:

In this case, the zoom slider should be to the far left. This type of shot is ideal when you are either very close to the subject you’d like to have in the foreground or when you are looking to capture a wider view in the background. As you’ll see from the picture below of our subjects, Mariana and Ankit, the shot is taken with the camera rather close to Mariana’s face. This allowed the photographer to capture a wider scene.

Zoom in Everyday Mode:

You’re probably thinking to yourself that as neat as some close-up shots can be, there are many situations in which you don’t want to be so close to your main subjects. (Especially if the subject is a friend or family member.) It’s for these times that we encourage you to embrace the zoom.

Let’s take another picture of Mariana and Ankit as we did above. When no zoom was used, Mariana and Ankit could be spaced a lesser distance apart and the result was a highly re-focusable picture. This was possible because of Mariana being so close to the camera. Now, assume Mariana wants us to give her some space rather than being so close to her as we take a shot. In this case, we would stand further back from her and zoom-in to frame her in a similar manner. The big difference is that if you want to achieve another highly re-focusable “living picture”, you will need to increase the spacing between the two subjects, to compensate for the zooming in.

What does this all mean?

The main takeaway is that zoom is helpful when you want to compose a living picture, but aren’t physically close to your subject. To get the best re-focusable “living picture” when zooming, your subjects should be further apart from each other than when you are at full wide with no zoom.

Experiment. Get Creative. Happy Shooting!

legacy

this is awesome, this is new technology, this is very early in its making, it is in its beta stage and sooooooooo cool to mess around with!!!!!
http://www.facebook.com/chris.lentsch Chris Lentsch

Not only is the camera limited in direct sunlight, it is not really a “camera” but an advertisement for Lytro.com.
Do you want to share photos’s via Facebook? Nope….. cannot do. What you can do is spam all of your friends with a Lytro ad on your timeline.
Want to print a photo? No can do.
Want to back up your photos? Nope, no can do. You MUST post them to Lytro.com
Wnat to share a photo with someone? Nope, no can do. You can dirent them to the Lytro website though.
This is, without a doubt, one of the worst investments I have made. Save yourself some trouble, and buy a top of the line point-and-shoot camera. You will spent a lot less, be able to do more, and spend a lot less time vs. screwing around with a technologically challanged bunch of punks who don’t understand photography, customer service, social media, or any computer operating system other than Apple.
- legacy
  
  you are a d..k maybe you should have read what you where buying before you bought the product, people like you are f..king gay, you buy something before you really find out what it is, that’s what an early buyer is, this is not a point and shoot camera. you should go back to being a picture take like most of the people that buy a digital camera and think they are a photographer. your dumb.
  - http://lytro.com/ Lytro
    
    We will edit or remove posts that use offensive language.
  - the boss of you
    
    Hey legacy, learn how to spell before you call someone else dumb. It’s you’re dumb legacy, not your dumb.
- http://lytro.com/ Lytro
  
  The Lytro camera is not for everyone, which is why we have a return policy that gives camera owners 30 days to evaluate the camera, and allows returns for any reason, or no reason. http://support.lytro.com/entries/21116533-how-do-i-return-my-camera
  You can share living pictures directly to Facebook, as well as Twitter, or embed them on websites that accept iframes. For now, the Lytro player does include Lytro branding when you post to Facebook, Twitter or share on a social channel. You can print living pictures by saving as jpg directly from the desktop software. http://lyt.ro/IjvXdg You can back up your pictures http://lyt.ro/SYrPkZ, but the current process is not ideal. For now, no other site supports hosting of LFP files, so we provide free, unlimited hosting on Lytro.com that allows you to share your pictures online and on mobile devices, much as you would with a video hosted on YouTube.
- Common Sense
  
  Stop complaining and return it or if you’re beyond the 30 day refund policy (clearly your own fault for not realizing you could do this and instead spending your time whining about it), resell it. Just because its not what you expected doesnt mean its an egregious product. Most people’s smartphones rival good point and shoot cameras, THIS IS NOT A POINT AND SHOOT. if the people who made this camera wanted to make a point and shoot they’d have done it. they wanted to make something new and cool. if YOU want a point and shoot, GO GET ONE instead of testing the waters with what is clearly NOT a point and shoot then complaining about it. Also this is a brand new product and company, you have to give them time to get their ecosystem going. this so-called complaint is nothing more than the rantings of an early adopter. why dont you go back a year to when windows phone first came out, get one, then complain about the lack of apps compared to the Apple app store? questionable intellect here, to say the least.
http://Lytro bwaggo

The camera is extremely limited in direct sunlight.
- Lytro
  
  Thanks for sharing your feedback. If you’re up for it, you may want to share more details on our user forums. There are a few people discussing this issue with some of our Lytro employees.
- http://twitter.com/cuneo13 Cuneo13
  
  What limitations have you encountered?
http://www.CampyOnly.com Eric N

Thanks for this … and for tormenting those of us who pre-ordered in October and haven’t been notified of shipping yet! Can’t wait to try it out!
Bevin

Thanks for the pointers. I’m reading up now so that I’ll be ready when I get the camera in my hands for the first time :-D
Lytro

Absolutely! Full directions for how to export to a .jpg file can be found here: http://bit.ly/zCnkJa. Once exported, you can edit the file any way you’d like, use it in a digital frame, or have it physically printed. Information on recommended printing sizes can be found here: http://bit.ly/IjvXdh.