Lytro Light Field Camera Digital Camera Review

Speed and Timing

The Lytro doesn't have any of the drive modes that we normally address in the section: no timer, no interval shooting, no continuous or burst shoot either. Not even a smile detector. It's single-shot mode only.

We ran the Lytro through our typical shot-to-shot test even though it doesn't have a continuous shooting mode; we just tried to take five successive single shots as quickly as possible.

The results were actually pretty decent. We clocked just under one frame per second, which is comparable to several cheap point-and-shoots built around CCD-type sensors. It isn't an impressive result, since plenty of affordable cameras are built around speedier CMOS sensors, and 3fps continuous shooting is almost expected. But for a specialty camera, it's not bad.

The Lytro doesn't suffer from any shutter lag (it doesn't need to focus, after all), which helps matters; we imagine that the results would be even faster if it didn't have to record a 22MB file for each photo.

Focus Speed

Since the Lytro is a light field camera, users can focus its shots after they're taken, using the Light Field Engine. There's no need for any autofocus or manual focus system, so shots are pretty much instantaneous in any kind of lighting, and accuracy is irrelevant.