Lytro and Stephen Goldblatt, Cinematographer

Posted on by Eric Cheng

One of the great things about being Director of Photography at Lytro is that is gives me the opportunity to discuss image making with a lot of interesting people.

Last week, I met with Stephen Goldblatt, A.S.C., who has been cinematographer / Director of Photography for over 30 movies, including The Help, Julie & Julia, Charlie Wilson’s War, Batman Forever, Lethal Weapon, and others.

We spent an hour chatting about the cameras and workflow used in Hollywood movies, and about how the potential of light field video might make its mark in movies in the long term. These are truly exciting times!

  • Jeremy

    This is VERY exciting technology! I’m fascinated by what it could do for motion pictures as well — especially for new media and documentary production. Keep at it guys, you might be changing photography as we know it!

    But I wonder if it would help solve or complicate this criticism of 3D feature films: http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2011/01/post_4.html

  • http://www.sputnikanimation.com James LaPlante

    As a visual FX camera this could have great potential. Can you extract the depth matte from the image data to use for compositing? When can I get my hands on an HD or 2k video version of this amazing tech :)

    This could be huge in the viz FX and CG worlds.

    • Jim Bowers

      Seconded. I work in the VFX industry, and if the depth could be extracted from a single shot with, as a bonus, the resulting image having high enough dynamic range, the VFX applications for this camera are many.

  • http://partsentools.nl snowleopard2rh

    we always look at the resolution of the ccd but we also have an optical resolution of the lenses
    meanwhile we take pictures whit blurry background so our target looks better
    so you only use your ccd resolution at your target
    i am sure software can produce edge toe edge sharpness whit the Lytro pictures
    and yes you can blur whit software
    but not missing the moment wile focusing is gold
    for me i am interested in the close up pictures wo using flash
    in special metal parts

  • Robert

    I like the idea of the picture quality and colors, but these pictures have blurry areas. I also have no clue if you take a picture, how big(pixel wise) can the picture be resized before its blurry.I mean a 12 megapixel camera can create photos 4000 X 4000 clear as rain. I dont see this doing that. Please prove me wrong. :)