Lytro - The Impossible Camera

We are intrigued by the new Lytro Camera. Lytro suggests a radical change to the way we will take pictures from now on. No longer will we need to assure our pictures are in focus before we snap the shutter. Lytro allows you to adjust the focus afterwards. The idea of never having blurry photos again is tempting but at the same time will this take away an essential element from photography. Will this change the art in a way that it truly won't matter what you capture at the time, you can just fix it later? Despite the sleek design we are dubious about this new direction for digital photography. We love photography at Curve and although this is an incredible advancement in photography tech we don't really hope that it catches on too much. This kind of technology will probably be great in your mobile phone for snapping pictures of friends or on a night out when you don't want to spend time focusing and making sure the picture worked, but for pros we're not sure if this will be desirable in cameras. The idea of having a level of control that means you can refocus your shots afterwards does seem like it would be super useful, kind of like the level of control brought about by the introduction of shooting in RAW, however...

NIKON 1

Last week Nikon launched a new camera. The Nikon v1 in their Nikon 1 range. The first of their mirrorless range of cameras.






























When the camera was announced at a Nikon press release last week I initially didn't pay it much heed as I was hoping for a refresh of their Pro DSLR range and I considered this a let down as I wasn't interested in their new consumer cameras or "gimmicky" new mirrorless technology.

A week later whilst reading a review of the Nikon V1 and J1 on DPREVIEW here I realise what I had missed before. Forget about the technology and the specs and mirrorless system. Look at the camera. Nikon has created the most beautiful cameras I have seen in a long long time. For years, the market has been flooded year upon year with countless compact and mini cameras. ALL THE SAME. Every camera maybe a different shade, but all released in a rainbows worth of colours. Who wants that? I used to make a point of knowing everything there was to know about all the new cameras that came out. All the new cybershots, the newest IXUS on the block or the latest Olympus tough camera, even owned a few of them. Don't get me wrong though, modern compact cameras are amazing. I was blown away with one of the latest sony's when playing with one recently in a sony centre. The spec list was unbelievable. It made me think, why didn't my Nikon Dslr have some of those features, but then thought that they were really gimmicks appealing to consumers who really don't know anything about cameras anyway and would be sold by their new shiny having WIFI or BLUETOOTH or GPS..... anyway, I'm just ranting at this point.

Where was I? Oh, the Nikon V1.