Remember that crazy 4D camera that lets you refocus after the fact? After the initial teaser, the Lytro has now gone official, with a $399 list price ($499 model also on the way) and "early 2012" availability. A hands-on demo of the oddly-shaped consumer camera is after the jump, but as I asked in the original post, are there motion and professional applications of this technology? Well, turns out there are, and RED just dropped a hint that they've already got a prototype.

First, here's the Lytro in action:

RED's CEO Jim Jannard referenced this very camera, saying:

One thing I will say is that we are working on multiple focus and depth map (think Lytros) but with wicked high resolution... The prototype is incredible.

Jim goes on to say, "multiple focus and depth map in a high resolution camera is the least important of what we are working on," dropping the nugget about their other forthcoming products that "[the] good news is that everything is upgradeable." This would seem to indicate that RED's previous strategy of restricting future sensor upgrades (ala the M-X chip upgrade for the RED ONE) to the EPIC is no longer the case, and that SCARLET will be eligible for forthcoming sensor advances. We'll see in two weeks on November 3rd.

[via Engadget]

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Cinematography & Cameras