Road-testing the Lytro camera Video

Road-testing the Lytro camera Video Transcript

-This is our road test of the Lytro camera. I'm gonna go meet Frederick, Lindsey, and Ali Sohn. They'll go on a little photo walk around San Francisco and then download and process their pictures so we can see how the Lytro fares in the real world. -Hi, I'm Frederick. I'm a professional photograph, host of this Weekend Photo. And I'm looking forward to playing with the Lytro. -Hi, I'm Lindsey. I work as an environmental consultant and I am a recreational photographer. Point and shoot is my thing. -Hi, I'm Ali Sohn. I'm a tech lover and I'm a newbie. -Okay guys. Frederick, Lindsey, Ali Sohn, it's your Lytro photo walk day. I have here 3 Lytro cameras. Have any of you use these before? -Never. -No. -So, the deal with these cameras is that in theory you do not need to focus because they get all the available light and they create an image that you can manipulate later. So, here's one for you. -Thank you. -One for you. -Thank you. -And basically all you're gonna do today is take a walk down the beautiful San Francisco Embarcadero. Take some photos and then meet me back at CNET to download your photos and play with the software. -Very cool. -Okay. -I'm on it. -Enjoy the day. -Great. -Have a great afternoon guys. -Alright, thanks. -Bye! -Okay. -Shoulder bags. -This is actually-- It's kind of cool. It's got a good weight to it. -Yeah. -Here is the power button on the bottom. There is a power button. -Oh no. -There is a power button. Okay. I'm on. I have a screen. -Oh, there you're in. -Oh. -This is the zoom right here. -Oh, look at that. -which is kind of poor. -Okay. I think I got it. Let's go guys. -Oh. -Okay. Don't let me lose the lens cap. -I know. I'm gonna lose this. -I just keep it in my pocket. -Let's see if I can get the bridge. Right here. -I'm having trouble navigating around the screen. I like the idea of the simplicity of this thing. -Yeah. -But I-- I just feel like if my hands were even a little bit bigger than-- like if you're like-- you're here like, you know-- -I also kind of don't like the fact that if you go back to a photo that you just took, it's all blurry at first so it's-- that's how it's showing me-- -Yeah. -until you tap on something to focus it. -Uh-huh. -I didn't know that. -But how do you know-- -Yeah. -But then like-- -I just thought it was a blurry photo. -Exactly. -So, I deleted one because I thought it was blurry. -Oh. -Exactly. -I-- -Let's go take more. -Yeah, let's go take more. -Okay, got it. Thank you. -How I know that that's what's in focus and not? -Let's stop around. -Like before or something. -It was really blurry and then I-- I'm gonna tap on the F terrain to try to focus on that, but the screen is so small that I can't really know if it's focusing on the terrain itself or anything around it. And if I zoom in, it's just all pixelated. -I don't know. I guess we just have to wait until we-- -See it on the computer. -upload it, yeah. -Yeah. -Welcome back! -Hello, hello. -How was the walk? -It was good. -Fun. -Cool. Well, I can't wait to see what you got. Let's go. Let's get to the fun part now, the-- the downloading. -Yes. -Yeah. -Let's do it. -Okay, let's do it. Come on in. Have a seat. You'll see that we have computers setup with USB cable. So basically, just do as you would normally do if you just got done taking a bunch of photos. -Excellent. -Okay? -Okay. -Great! -You put that in here. This is here. -I like that. I don't have to do anything. -Yeah. -Just plug it in. -Points for that. -Yes! -I wonder if this would work if you are-- let's say if I'm on Facebook on my iPad. -It's a good thing that they have so much stuff to gig out about because from my experience, this whole sinking and downloading thing can take a while. -Okay. It says backup complete and clicking done. -I'm not there yet. Yeah. -I guess I took less than you guys. -Not for a long-- like-- -Almost there. You'll be able to with faster computer. Now, it's importing. So, we've backed up. Now, it's importing. -Okay. 2.3 gigahertz, Intel Core i7 with 8 gigs of RAM. -Yeah. -And it still set the fans off. -And the fan is running and there's nothing else running on this machine. -Yeah. -It's doing some math in here. -I only have 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 pictures out of 40 that are available to saved here. -I have 2. -If something really cool is happening in front of you and you take pictures, it's too tiny of a screen for you to figure out if you took the picture on to capture that moment. -This is the first time I'm seeing my picture. -Great. -Exactly yeah. -It's not about taking, you know, a picture with your eyes closed and-- -And then going back-- -Yeah. -I wouldn't even say this is a point shoot. This is-- Right now, it's kind of like point and pray. -Exactly. -Personally, the software is too slow for me. -Yeah. Are you still-- -I'm still importing. Oh yeah. It's ridiculous. -Yeah. -[unk] this me again forcing the issue so at this range there, so the front is sharp. Let's see if this thing can get to 20 m. Look at it. -Oh yeah, you can-- -It's [unk] is in sharp. If I go away back here, that's a sharp so that is dramatic. So, that's in focus. Now, when I click on the guy on the background-- -Yeah. -he's in focus. So, for macro photographers, this would be killer. -There's no flash on this thing. -No. So, if you have it inside-- -That's true. -then you won't be able to-- -That's-- That's a good point. I don't know what the speed is of it like how is it on low light. -Yeah. -This is becoming a little bit of a photography clinic, so I think I'm gonna go ahead and rescue them and get their thoughts on the software and the downloading process. -Hey. -Hey everyone. -Hey. -Hi. -How's it going? -Slow. -Oh, that was unanimous. What part is going slowly? The-- The downloading? The processing? -Processing the picture has been very slow. -Are you happy with the images that you can see so far? -No. But let-- let me clarify, I'm not-- I'm not happy with the images because it seems clear that this would perform better when you're doing close-up type shots. Not everyone is gonna be shooting pictures of grains of rice and want to get the bowl in the background, you know. So, most of the pictures I took are pretty wide, you know, like landscapes. -Uh-huh. -And everything's really grainy. -Uh-huh. -And when I go in and I try to focus on it and let's say a span of the bridge or a seagull or something, it's not dramatic enough to notice. -Speaking of someone who would like to take a picture of a grain of rice and a bowl in the background, that's generally inside and it doesn't have a flash on it. So, I don't know if the quality would be good. -Well, design wise, I had-- I had a comment on the-- the lens cap. I expected it to turn on. When I took the lens cap-- -Oh. -you know, like it's-- -Interesting. -just a switch. I mean, how come-- how come-- why is there a physical button on here if you have a magnetic lens cap. -Uh-huh. Every time I put that thing in my bag, the lens cap falls off and then it's at the bottom of the purse and it, you know, it's not-- the magnet is not very strong. -Yeah. -Yeah. -It fell off 3 times while we walked back to CNET and I have to go back and pick it up while we were waiting. Yeah. -Oops. -And yours fell off on the way in the door? -It did. Like, oh, it fell off on the floor though. -Alright. So now, we've been talking for what, like 10, 15 minutes. -Yeah. -How far have we gotten from-- you were at 10 photos before. -I have 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, and 14 now. -That's 74. -You only had 4 photos at the time we were talking. -Yes. -So, none of you feel like you would buy this camera at all? -I wouldn't. -Okay. -I don't think I would either. -No. -I wouldn't know. -So-- So, it's $399. -Yeah. -Yeah. -It's alright. -It's kind of a high price threshold for something that does something very specific. -Uh-huh. -Exactly. -And it doesn't do it as well as I would have liked it to perform. -Yeah. Personally, I wouldn't spend $400 on it. It seems more of like a-- an expensive toy that a photographer would have around or a geeky person is like, you know, excited for it. Other than that, my favorite thing about it was the color. -It is really [unk]. -Yeah. -Okay. Well, sounds like we have a pretty good verdict on the Lytro. Thanks guys. -Thank you. -Thanks for all your thoughts-- -Thank you. -You're welcome. -with the Lytro photo walk. -Yeah. -You're welcome. Thank you. -Thank you.