Lytro's new camera wants to be taken seriously

Lytro Illum
The 4-inch touchscreen gives control over the camera

Lytro has announced the Illum, its second camera to use a light field sensor that allows the focus point to be shifted after the image has been captured.

The Illum looks more conventional than the original Lytro Light Field Camera and has a fixed lens with a focal length range equivalent to 30-250mm. The lens also has a constant maximum aperture of f/2, which should make it suitable for shooting hand-held in quite low light. Conversely, shutter speed can be set to a maximum of 1/4000 sec to freeze movement.

Whereas the original Lytro camera has an 11-megaray sensor and produces images with 1080x1080 pixels, the Illum has a 40-megaray device. As yet we don't know how large its images are.

Weighing in at a hefty 940g, the new camera has a tilting 4-inch, 480x800-dot 'smartphone-class' touchscreen on its rear to allow control over settings. Exposure control may be set to program, sensitivity priority, shutter priority and manual.

Take a look

According to Lytro, the Illum will be supplied with software that integrates with Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop as well as Apple's Aperture.

The software also makes it possible to use virtual camera controls in post-processing to adjust aperture (depth of field), focus and perspective as well as tilt.

Images can also be shared on social media sites including Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Google+.

The Lytro Illum is set to retail for $1,599 (about £950 Au$1,708) from July.