Lytro Light Field Camera Digital Camera Review

Automatic Features

The Lytro is pretty much an entirely automatic camera. In the standard (Everyday) shooting mode, the only controls are zoom, a tap-to-expose function, and the shutter. In Creative Mode, which is a very slight variation on standard mode, tap-to-expose goes away, but the user can self-select the mid-point of the refocusing field (a tough concept to explain, but we try in the Controls section).

Buttons & Dials

The control scheme is minimal, but still gets in its own way. The power button and shutter button are both fine—responsive, well-placed, and straightforward. But the crummy LCD and too-clever zoom slider muck things up. The screen is just too small support a touch-based interface, as stripped-down as it is.

Menu

The menu is about as stripped-down as they come. Swiping up on the screen in shooting or playback modes brings up a few symbols—no text. There's a battery indicator, a memory indicator, and depending on the mode, either a trash can (for deleting shots) or a square symbol for switching between standard and Creative shooting modes. A cog symbol in the upper-right corner brings up the setup menu, which offers up an About page as well as Delete All and Reset options. In playback mode, there's a star symbol in the upper-left corner, which gives photos priority during uploading.

Instruction Manual

Taking more cues from Apple, the Lytro ships with only a very simple multi-panel fold-out quick start guide. This camera doesn't have too many functions or features, so the small brochure manages to cover just about all of them.

Lytro also produced a handful of helpful how-to videos, posted on their website. When we installed the Lytro software (by connecting the Lytro via USB for the first time), it took us to a tutorial page with a bunch of those videos.