Although you’ll never be able to afford one, Lytro introduced its Lytro Cinema Camera at NAB on April 19, 2016.

This is a huge studio camera with a foot-and-a-half-wide lens tethered to its own server farm. It captures “755 RAW Megapixels” at 300 fps in up to 16 stops of dynamic range.

That’s about 15 times more resolution than a full-frame DSLR at 50MP.

It doesn’t actually record images though. It captures the “light field” — the lightscape of reflected light rays in front of the lens. Behind the front lens, an array of microlenses allows Lytro to “capture a light field, compute the ray angles and then replicate that light field in a virtual space.”

In other words, this camera captures a virtual hologram of the scene in front of it.

With this computational model, Lytro can, after capture, i.e. “in post”:

• refocus and change depth of field
• adjust frame rate and shutter angle
• pull a key based on depth and not green screen
• stabilize camera movement based on actual movement in space
• natively create 3D footage from one shot
• as a DI, output optimal deliverables for any format

Watch the No Film School interview and video.

My take: With its Cinema Camera, Lytro has displaced image capture with lightscape hologram capture. If I was a Hollywood producer, I’d use this camera on 3D shoots and to simplify keys for composite work. And — to fix those pesky out-of-focus shots. But wait! There’s more! They’re also promising a Light Field VR Camera called Lytro Immerge.