Eric Cheng: How to take a good LightField Portrait [Video]

In Lytro’s newest Youtube upload (and first second Video Podcast?), Director of Photography Eric Cheng shows you what it takes for a good, refocusable portrait LightField photo.

We’ve embedded the video and sumemd it up for you after the break.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QcmEGmin8K0

Learn how to take refocusable portraits with Lytro’s light field camera. Lytro Director of Photography Eric Cheng, demonstrates shooting with the Lytro camera from the photographer’s perspective. The video features the artist couple, Kozyndan, and their cat, Amichan.

If you can’t watch the video, here are Eric’s tips:

In Everyday Mode, try to frame your photo subject and slowly zoom in until the foreground starts to get blurry.
When 3 feet (1 m) away from your photo subject, a good amount of zoom is about halfway (note the zoom indicator at the top of the screen). When 5-6 feet (1.5-1.8 m) or further away, you can zoom in all the way and the foreground will still be focusable.

The foreground blur in your live camera prewiew is an important indicator that your LightField picture will be refocusable.