Lytro Illum – Professional Light Field Camera

Illum is the second light field camera by Lytro. It’s a professional-grade light field camera and software platform announced on April 22, 2014. The camera is currently open to pre-orders for 1,499 USD, and scheduled to ship on July 31, 2014.

On this page, we’ve collected all the details and specs about Lytro Illum as they were made public.

General Info

Camera Type: Professional-grade, portable light field camera
Technology: Lytro Light Field Engine 2.0.
Image sensor: 40 Megaray CMOS image sensor¹
Code Name: Blitzen^18,32

Dimensions: 86 x 145 x 166 mm (3.39 x 5.71 x 6.53 in)
Weight: 940 g (33.15 oz, 2.07 lbs)
Materials: Magnesium and Aluminium (body), Silicone (grip and lens rings)
Power supply: Removable Li-Ion battery

Pricing and Availability

Pricing: 1,499 USD (introductory price for pre-orders), 1,599 USD MSRP (plus tax, where applicable) ⁴; 1,599 EUR at launch in Europe²⁷
Where to buy: Illum availability has been confirmed for the following countries/stores ⁵ (pre-orders since 04/2014¹):

• USA: Lytro Online Store
• Europe (Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Denmark, Germany, Estonia, Ireland, Spain, France, Croatia, Italy, Cyprus, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Hungary, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia, Slovakia, Switzerland, Finland, Sweden, and the United Kingdom)
• Australia
• Canada
• Hong Kong
• New Zealand
• Singapore

Release: Scheduled for July 31, 2014³⁰.

Camera Specs³

Image aspect ratio: 3:2²³
Focal length: 9.5 x 77.8 mm (30 – 250 mm equivalent)
Crop Factor: 3.19
Focus Range 0 mm from lens front, to infinity
Lens: constant f/2 lens, non-interchangeable, 72 mm filter mount⁶, (only) 13 optical elements²²
Zoom: 8x optical zoom
ISO range: not yet announced ⁷
Shutter speed range: 1/4000 sec – ? (not yet announced)¹⁶
Self timer: teased in product images, but details not yet announced
Storage: SD memory card slot (recommended: 32+ GB SDHC class 10, for about 500 Living Pictures)
Display: 4 in (10.16 cm) articulated, back-lit LCD touchscreen with 80° angle of view, dual-hinge tilting (-10° to 90°), resolution: 800 x 480 px ^26,28
Connectivity: external shutter release port (standard 2.5 mm jack), hot shoe (ISO compatible, pin sync manual and Lytro-TTL), 1/4″-20 tripod mount, micro USB 3.0, WiFi 802.11a/b/g/n/ac ²⁹, GPS^23,33
Power supply: Removable battery, presumably Li-Ion rechargeable

LightField Resolution: 40 Megarays (the number of light rays captured by the light field sensor.)
Effective Resolution: 4 Megapixel max. output resolution.

Hardware Controls:

• top: power button, shutter button, Lytro button (real-time depth feedback; see righthand image)
• backside: AEL (auto exposure lock), AF (autofocus?), Fn1 and Fn2 (customizable function buttons), customizable dial²⁴
• side/lens: zoom and focus rings
• front (on body): customizable dial²⁴

Exposure control: Scene evaluative (Program, ISO priority, Shutter priority, manual). Exposure compensation, AE lock, exposure bracketing, clipping warning. Histograms available in live view and playback.⁹
Autofocus modes: Region AF
Other camera features: custom white balance, single or continuous shooting, self timer

Software and such

File Format: Light Field Picture (lfp).
File Size: One RAW file is about 50 MB in size¹²

Camera OS: Android^21,25

Desktop Software⁸
Lytro Desktop Tools: According to the product website², “Lytro Desktop Tools will allow zooming, changing focus, modifying depth of field and moving the perspective.” The page also mentions creating dynamic animations for desktop, mobile devices and in 3D.
Lytro Desktop 4.0:

• “Full suite” of image adjustments, interactive depth feedback display, virtual camera controls, aperture adjustment, perspective adjustments, physically accurate tilt control.
• create animations like pan, zoom, focus, perspective shift
• create playlists of living pictures
• 3D display
• organize with albums
• System requirements: Mac OS 10.8.5, Windows 7 or 8 64-bit
• Import/Export: “Export and re-import functionality” to work with Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom, Aperture and other software¹¹. Images can be exported as JPG, JPS, TIFF, PNG; BMP and movie files (formats not released yet)¹⁵.
• Sharing: Living Pictures can be shared to the Lytro gallery, Facebook etc.
• Interacting: software refocus, perspective shift, depth of field

Lytro Desktop 4.0 will be released with Lytro Illum

Smartphone Apps: not yet announced.
Development: No open development or SDK tools at Illum launch¹⁴

Hardware Specs

Image Sensor: 1-inch^17,21 CMOS sensor, 40 Megaray.
Microlens Array: details not yet announced.
Processor: Quad-core Snapdragon 800 or 801 processor (Qualcomm)^17,25.
Battery: custom, removable, rechargeable Li-Ion battery (3.7 V, 3760 mAh, 13.9 W)³¹
Other Sensors: not yet announced.

Package contents and accessories

In the Box: Lytro Illum camera, lens cap, removable battery, battery charger, micro USB 3.0 cable, strap points for neck strap, neck strap, cleaning cloth¹⁰
Optional Accessories: List of officially supported Lytro Illum accessories

Lytro Illum Camera Reviews and Features

• The Verge: Lytro changed photography. Now can it get anyone to care?

More information: lytro.com