Light-field photography startup Lytro is teaming up with photography website 500px in a bid to increase adoption of the company's "living pictures."
Just in its first couple of years, Lytro has introduced a new branch of photography that captures the entire field of light that hits the camera's sensor, as opposed to the traditional way of most cameras that capture only certain points of that field of light. This results in images that have Lytro's signature benefit of being able to adjust a photo's focus and perspective even after the picture has been taken. Photos taken with Lytro cameras also include enough data to be displayed in 3D.
While the benefits of Lytro's images are noted, the closed ecosystem where Lytro images can be stored in has made for a slow adoption of the company's brand of "living pictures." Because the images can't be edited in programs such as Adobe's Lightroom and can only be viewed online through a proprietary image viewer, the general public has been slow to accept Lytro's new kind of photos.
"One barrier to [adoption] is we are not as widely deployed and accepted as JPEG," said Lytro CEO Jason Rosenthal in an interview. "We want to start changing that."
Lytro takes the first step to address this problem by releasing a new, open-source WebGL player that will allow easy viewing of its images on the Internet.
Lytro tapped 500px as the company's flagship partner, being the first to host the WebGL player and integrate it into the website's platform. Through 500px, Lytro images can now be embedded into other websites such as CMSs and social media networks.
Lytro's announcement of an open-source WebGL player for its images and partnership with 500px comes in advance of the company's release of its high-end Lytro Illum camera, which will be launched next month and sold for $1,599.
"With Llytro Illum, creative pioneers — ranging from artistic amateurs to experienced professionals — will tap into a new wave of graphical storytelling. Now artist and audience alike can share an equally intimate connection with the imagery, and, in a sense, jointly participate in the magic of its creation," said Rosenthal in a statement.
Rosenthal continues by saying that the Illum will open up unprecedented possibilities for photography, as the boundaries of creativity in the medium are pushed over its limit.
Last November, Lytro received funding of $40 million for the development of new products. The funding most probably went into the development of the Illum.
