This article was published on December 10, 2014

Lytro Illum software update debuts Focus Spread feature


Lytro Illum software update debuts Focus Spread feature

Lytro has launched a software update for its Illum camera that features Focus Spread, a technology that allows photographers to pinpoint exactly where focus depth begins and ends in an image.

With traditional cameras, photographers looking to achieve a background blur effect resort to a very shallow depth of field, severely limiting the focusable range to a narrow slice.

A photo of two people might keep the person in the foreground in focus but blur the second person into the background when what the photographer wants is for both people to be in focus. Workarounds to this problem are hard to reproduce.

lytro

With Focus Spread, a photographer can capture both subjects at different depths without sacrificing the background blur effect — all with a single exposure — “like having two apertures in a single picture,” says Lytro.

W​ith Focus Spread, photographers can produce the camera’s signature living pictures with f/1.0 bokeh in the foreground and background while maintaining f/16 sharpness on the primary subjects with a single exposure.

Focus Spread comes as part of the new version 4.1 upgrade, which also includes an enhanced histogram, white balance dropper, sharing to Facebook and export of the camera’s XRAW raw format.

➤ Lytro Desktop 4.1

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