Lytro Light Field Camera, First Impressions

These are my very first impressions based on about fifteen minutes with my new Lytro light field camera. I have thirty minutes to type them before I have to get back to work.

I knew the camera was supposed to show up today so on a whim I decided to go home for lunch. It's a five minute commute for me so it wasn't a big deal. When I arrived home a brown UPS truck was just down the street. When I looked on the porch, sure enough there it was.

To the left is the box. I love the warning label. Ideally I would have rotated this image before importing.

 Here is the box opened. The packaging seems reasonable. I do run into a slight issue later that I'll describe below.

 And there it is, another very cool tech toy to explore and play around with. The size of the shipping box seems a bit excessive but that is kind of nit picky.

 And now we begin a series of pictures that show ever side of the box. I'm nothing if not thorough.

I have a confession, the picture to the left is faked in the sense that the camera had already been out of its slot in the shipping box. In fact, it fell out when I removed the top of the box. Luckily it fell onto a nice soft chair and bounced onto a carpeted floor so no damage was done.

I don't believe I did anything wrong when I opened the box. The slot in the lower part of the box is just very shallow. I suspect I'm not the first nor will I be the last person that drops the camera when opening the box. I recommend being cautious opening the box if you ever have the opportunity.

 Technically I should have let it fully charge first but I couldn't resist turning it on. I took my First picture with the Lytro right after this.

 In addition to the camera there is a small amount of documentation, a strap, a mini USB cable and a square thing about the same shape and size as the camera at its smallest dimension.

 The software is on the camera, just plug it in and follow the instructions. You'll need a Mac at this point if you want to use your Camera. Windows support should be coming later this year.

Oddly the Lytro software couldn't see the camera when I ran it at first. I unplugged it and plugged it back in and all was well.

I had three pictures on the camera when I plugged it in. The import process was painless but slow. Given the size of the raw image files and the newness of the technology this wasn't a surprise. You do have the option of starring certain pictures on the camera which gives them priority on import.

If you want to share pictures you have to create an account. You have the choice of linking to your Facebook account if you want. I went that route since it was quick. After that I was able to easily share the picture I linked above.

That's it for now, time to get back to work. I have some more thoughts I want to share later after I've had more time to work with the camera.