After releasing the Lytro Immerge towards the end of last
year, now this light field cameras manufacturer is targeting professional filmmakers
through its latest innovation: Lytro Cinema.
Lytro Cinema is basically a camera with extraordinarily
sophisticated specification that's supported by the light field technology.
It's able to take RAW format photos in 755 megapixel
resolution and 40K resolution videos at speeds up to 300 fps. So extraordinary,
one second of its recording can take a capacity of 400 gigabytes.
But thanks to the light field technology, the enormous
amount of data can be maximized by the filmmakers after the recording. If
changing the focus after shooting can be done by the camera or smartphone
today, Lytro Cinema allows users to change other variables such as shutter
speed, depth of field, and even the dynamic range.
This is possible thanks to the capability of Lytro Cinema in
collecting complete information from the gleam captured. Each captured pixel
has color property and its own movement direction to the exact location at the
room in three-dimensional.
Thus, the filmmakers don't need to bother about the
complicated parameters while filming takes place. Everything can be customized
after recording; even its frame rate can be changed when editing the recording
result.
Interestingly, Lytro Cinema is equipped with a feature
called Depth Screen. This feature allows the filmmakers to create a scene with
special effects without the use of green screen at all.
As we know, so far Hollywood studios rely on the green
screens to replace the background with computer's graphics. With Lytro Cinema,
the recorded background can be easily removed and replaced in the editing
process, while still maintaining the appearance of the actors in full.
Certainly the users need a really powerful computer and
special server to be able to store and process all the massive data. To that
end, Lytro will also bundle the supporting equipments, ranging from software to
the cloud network.
So far Lytro doesn't have plans to sell the Lytro Cinema
directly. Initially Lytro will only rent the Lytro Cinema to the filmmakers who
need it. The rent will start at $ 125 thousand, has been including hardware and
software.