When unpacking the Lytro Illum reveals that she is very special. In the hinged black cube camera and accessories are perfectly packaged. The camera itself weighs about a kilo of unusual, but not unmanageable. The foldable 4-inch display is quite sharp and clear. The 8x optical zoom is relatively bulky, but offers a focal length of 30 to 250 mm. The Illum has no built-in flash, but is equipped with a standard ISO accessory shoe for a flash exteren.
The startup takes a little longer than a normal camera. The menu is available in several languages, including German. Step by step, the settings, from the manufacturer's Web site will be downloaded to the so-called Lytro Desktop. With this, the images can then be edited. Subsequent change focus, sharpness and perspective, 3-D effects, and, and, and I must say that I totally makes it a lot of fun! Since the statement is gaining vivid images shoot a whole new meaning! The service I find quite intuitive, but I work professionally and personally with a variety of image editing and layout programs, so I'm a bit biased in this sector.
Very useful to get you started, I found the Lytro website with explanations and video tutorials (the latter in English). Otherwise, at the Illum pudding is in the eating but clearly. I tested the camera with a 16-gigabyte memory card (not included, Transcend Extreme Speed SDHC 16GB Class 10). Who wants to use the camera professionally is certainly better off with a larger memory card, for private use ranges a 16 GB card but completely out.
Operation of the light field camera is mainly via touchscreen and a few, clearly arranged controls as focus and zoom ring, trigger, AE lock, FN, AF and Hyperfokaltaste. Although the camera is quite difficult, it is very comfortable to hold. I deliberately made too lousy pictures, if only to see how much can be saved via Lytro Desktop. Wow shoot sharp images was yesterday, sharpen images no problem. Unfortunately, I can here at Amazon adjust any images associated with 3-D effects, but I hope the photos can at least convey an impression of what is possible with this camera.
Uploading the images is of course very time consuming very clear in the amount of stored data. Here I come again to my notice at the beginning back: Without modern, powerful computer you will despair of this camera probably.
Who is looking for new creative photo ideas that will have a lot of fun with the Lytro Illum. For online applications, such as product images, the camera offers numerous applications. I can see the area of application therefore more professional than in the private sector. I had read z. T. that the print quality of the images was not very outstanding. This may be true in a poster format, but normal Photo and smaller calendar formats have a good quality.
Conclusion: Fans of innovative camera technology and creative advertising photographers, the Lytro Illum and future generations of light field cameras love, for the average consumer, this high-tech camera, depending on the demands too much or too little of a good thing. The possibilities of image creations are infinite, it makes just as much fun on the other hand but also very time consuming. The Illum is a special camera through and through and therefore can not replace a normal camera. The purchase of a Illum is (still) quite expensive, but I'm pretty sure that this technology is the future of photography.
