Can you tell us about starting Lytro?
Light field science and computational photography was the subject of CEO Ren Ng’s dissertation in computer science at Stanford. He had been researching light field technology for over 6 years and Lytro came out of a vision of his to miniaturized the technology – which traditionally consisted of a roomful of cameras and computers in a lab environment – to create an affordable, portable, easy-to-use camera.
How did you get the idea ?
Ren bought his first digitial camera at the time he was studying light field technology within computer graphics. When using his DSLR to take photos of a friend’s five-year-old daughter, he quickly became acutely aware of the pain points of today’s cameras – a shutter that’s too slow to capture a moment, a lens that focuses on the wrong point in a scene, etc. Ren decided to apply what he knew about the light field to attempt to miniaturize light field photography technology into something that would no longer require 100 computers in a room tethered to a supercomputer but rather a camera that could fit into your pocket and was fast, simple and magical to use..
Is that this can be quickly loaded on a mobile, an iPhone?
Potentially down the line, but for now our focus will be to provide a Lytro-branded camera that is fast, simple and magical to use.
Do you think your mobile innovation and can help transform the market of the photo?
Yes, Lytro is creating an entireley new camera category that will forever change how people take and experience pictures.