Lytro's new Cinema camera could mean the end of green screen
Lytro has only just begun its mission to become a leader in professional VR cameras, but it's already looking to disrupt regular film production, too.
The Lytro Cinema camera puts the company's fancy light-field technology into a normal film camera. To call the camera "normal" is really a misnomer, though, since the specs on this thing are anything but: It can capture footage at a ridiculous 755 megapixels per frame, at 300 frames per second.
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But that's not what makes the Lytro Cinema special. By capturing detailed depth and direction information of all incoming light, the camera unlocks a host of abilities that can usually only be done with expensive post-production, if at all.
Since Lytro's tech basically captures all the 3D information in a scene, the imagery is unusually friendly to CGI. Placing virtual objects at exactly the right depth in a scene is essentially taking advantage of a native ability of the footage.
The camera basically turns any scene into a green screen.
Even better, the Lytro Cinema could mean the end of green screen. Normally, to make it look like actors are in faraway places or staring down virtual monsters, productions put live actors in front of big green screens that the replace with special effects. When done well, it can look pretty good, but green screen can often be inconvenient for the production and the actors.
With the Lytro, the need for green screen goes away. Since the Lytro footage has very specific depth information for all objects in the scene, it's child's play to ditch and replace any part of it. The camera basically turns any scene into a green screen, making it possible to shoot effects-demanding shots on location if need be.
Perhaps best of all, the Lytro Cinema lets the filmmakers alter fundamental aspects of the shot in post production. Of course, the point of focus is completely alterable (it's Lytro's signature move), but so is the overall depth of field. Even the frame rate can be changed -- for the Lytro, it's all just math.
Like with its Immerge VR system, Lytro isn't just selling a camera, but a whole production system, complete with servers and software. If you have to ask how much it is, it's probably too much for you -- only serious studios need apply.
Although it's less sexy than the Death Star-like Immerge camera, Lytro Cinema probably represents the company's best shot at success since its big pivot last year. Sure, virtual reality has incredible potential, but the tools Lytro Cinema brings to the table would be a big help to filmmaking right now. For all its lofty VR dreams, Lytro's future may be more grounded than it ever thought.
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Pete Pachal was Mashable’s Tech Editor and had been at the company from 2011 to 2019. He covered the technology industry, from self-driving cars to self-destructing smartphones.Pete has covered consumer technology in print and online for more than a decade. Originally from Edmonton, Canada, Pete first uploaded himself into technology journalism at Sound & Vision magazine in 1999. Pete also served as Technology Editor at Syfy, creating the channel's technology site, DVICE (now Blastr), out of some rusty HTML code and a decompiled coat hanger. He then moved on to PCMag, where he served as the site's News Director.Pete has been featured on Fox News, the Today Show, Bloomberg, CNN, CNBC and CBC.Pete holds degrees in journalism from the University of King's College in Halifax and engineering from the University of Alberta in Edmonton. His favorite Doctor Who monsters are the Cybermen.
