Lytro to get Perspective Shift and Living Filters for more focus-shifting fun (video)
Lytro has just announced a software update that expands upon the multidimensional elements of the little light-field point-and-shoot. The Lytro Desktop software will get two new features …
Context & Ripple Effects
Lytro's light-field camera has always been as much a software story as a hardware one: the refocusable files only become interesting after they leave the camera. That dependency was exposed in July 2012, when the company finally rolled out Windows desktop software months after the Mac-only launch, and critics flagged the long gap as a shortcoming.
Today's update doubles down on that software layer with two free additions to Lytro Desktop — Perspective Shift and Living Filters — and the pickup was unusually broad for a point-release: The Verge, CNET, Gizmodo, TechCrunch, AllThingsD, Mashable and ABC News all carried it, a sign of how much attention the young light-field category still commands.
First-order effects
- Existing Lytro owners get two new post-capture editing capabilities at no cost through Lytro Desktop, extending what the camera's files can do without any hardware change.
Second-order effects
- By shipping feature updates rather than a new camera, Lytro is making its Desktop software the retention mechanism for early adopters — the company now has to sustain a regular update cadence to justify the original purchase.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, light-field cameras will be judged on their post-capture software ecosystems rather than their optics, pushing value in this category toward the editing layer and whoever controls the file format.
The trend: Light-field photography is becoming a software-defined category, with a camera's value accruing to post-capture editing tools rather than the lens.