The funniest thing about the new Lytro Light Field Camera is the obsession with megapixels. Despite the fact that the megapixel myth has long been shattered, people still want to know many pixels the Lytro's sensor contains.
This seems absurd. The Lytro — which lets you refocus photos after you have snapped them — may use a standard sensor underneath its fancy micro-lens array, but it uses this information to feed the “Light Field Engine” that actually creates the image. Counting pixels in this case is like counting the bristles on an artist's paint brush.
Which brings us to this cool cutaway picture of the Lytro's insides, which shows us the ƒ2 lens, the sensor itself and the mystery-meat Light Field Engine. It looks a lot like a standard camera design on the inside, with only the outside sporting an unusual, flashlight-like design.
We can also guess at the physical size of the sensor. Michael Zhang of PetaPixel did the math, measuring the image and comparing it to the size of the camera as listed in Lytro's specs. He puts the sensor at between 7.5 and 10.5mm on a side, similar to those used in high-end compacts.
There is one spec for the number weenies, though. Lytro's blurb lists the resolution of the camera as “11 megarays.” That makes it sound like something Ming the Merciless would unleash on the world. Awesome.
The Science Inside Lytro [Lytro via PetaPixel]
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