Lytro Cinema camera comes as a 755 megapixel volumetric 3D camera, which allows filmmakers to capture a high-resolution Light Field. Most people have named it the “Light Field Master” possibly because it uses military-grade technology to offer Light Field to filmmakers in large quantity. Whether the camera is already on set or in the post-production, it provides the users with complete control over the perspective, focus, shutter angles and aperture.
The 300 FPS camera can capture scenes to a particular distance and leave the other parts of the shot transparent, therefore, allowing for the common post-production wizardry. And because every pixel offers directional properties and colour, a filmmaker can integrate real footage computer graphics seamlessly. Merger of real-world and CGI and footage can
Even though the capabilities of this Light Field Camera might be revolutionary, the regular specification is not exciting in comparison to the conventional cameras. For example, the 11-Megaray sensor produces images measuring around 1080×1080 pixels. The camera also features a 8x zoom lens with a focal length equal to 43-340mm but limited to 43-150mm range in the Everyday Mode.
The manufacturer fixes the aperture at f/2, but after selecting the Manual Control option, the user is able to set the camera’s shutter speed and the sensitivity or apply neutral density filters. Most users, however, are likely to expose the camera or tap on-screen in the Everyday mode as a way of locking the exposure.
The light field camera technology
The camera uses the same technology that helped Lytro stand out in the technology world when it comes to the capture of “light field” data through light rays in a frame. The information provides many details that help professional videographers to focus a video after the shooting and to change the depth of field. Previously, the Lytro cameras would only capture still images. With the light field camera, the manufacturer is targeting huge studios, particularly those in Hollywood.
Lytro is looking towards the CGI-filled future – this might be a wise move. Today, the films feature more CGI and the manufacturer claims that the new cameras will enable the movie directors to include green-screen elements when shooting videos without the need of a physical green screen.
Moreover, the Lytro Cinema will save effort and time, and that will translate to less reshoots because the CGI artists will work with the movie directors to include the missing details. There will be no need of adding a missing detail physically after shooting the video. The ability to change the depth of field and focus provides the directors with an infinite number of shooting methods.
Perhaps, you would want a Cinema camera that is powerful enough to capture every piece of information and the Lytro Cinema is likely to provide that. The high lytro camera resolution can capture 755 RAW megapixel 40K videos at 300fps with around 16 dynamic range stops. The camera can capture around 400 gigabytes of data per every second at the maximum setting. If the cinema camera shoots at over 120fps, the editors would temporarily sample and adjust the data for output at any shutter angle or frame rate.
The digital camera has a “negative” known as the Light Field Master, which allows rendering of the footage in various formats such as the traditional broadcast and cinema in addition to RealD, Imax, Dolby Vision and some other formats. During the shooting of videos, light-field metadata integrates into a file in OpenEXR standard. The camera then records this data to the server array through the PCle fibre connection for processing and storage – either in the cloud or on the site. Plugins & lytro camera app allow the existing third-part software programs to manipulate any light-field data.
Currently, The Foundry’s Nuke is that software. Directors can use the Standard Merge nodes to animate the light-field properties across various assets like live-action footage along with the 3D CG background or to decouple the assets in scenes and handle them individually. The camera is more like a virtual camera with many virtual properties for each element.
Video editors will require around 30 large external hard drives – not the 5. In other words, the camera will make their work hard. However, the Lytro footage will provide them with more freedom during the post-production phase. Some years ago, most people would not go for the Lytro cameras because of the high price, weak performance and because Lytro cameras went beyond photography.
Most individuals did not want to purchase a camera, which eliminated the challenges expected in the photography world. Moreover, even though some directors, such as the analog fanatics Christopher Nolan, Quentin Tarantino and J.J Abrams, might feel the same, most producers in Hollywood might embrace the camera with open hands.
The cinema camera will not be cheap. The producer will make it available per-day and per-production basis with the production packages start at around $125,000. This price has made it only suitable for the high-end broadcast and feature film customers.
Lytro immerge that it would be hard to manage the large amount of data associated with the light-field photography. Therefore, they chose cloud-based workflow, which allows storage of the data on the cloud solely, including the elements needed in a scene. With that, users can use their desktop computers to access the videos. They have plans of providing the cloud architecture, which includes the CPU and GPU computing. Such processing is important for post-processing content and interactive sessions.
The bottom line
When you heard about the Lytro Cinema Camera for the first time, you wanted it to be affordable. However, that is not the case. The cinema camera captures a lot of visual information, which it stores in a server. The users are able to edit and process the data on the cloud. The manufacturer has provided several hardware tools and software to harness the information and make it accessible during the production.
The camera is a jumbo beast that offers 755-megapixel raw video capturing capabilities at around 300 frames per second with 16 stops dynamic range. Those are impressive features and the manipulation of the Lytro cinema camera is impressive too. The camera creates 3D environment, which is easier to combine with 3D compositions
