At first glance the Lytro light field camera seems underwhelming.

It’s a tiny spyglass camera that takes square 1080 x 1080 photos. And costs $400 to $500. There’s limited control and no video….

But the technology behind it is kinda cool. It captures all the rays of light bouncing off of everything in front of the lens. Which means you can focus later. And change it forever, after freezing the moment in time. Lytro calls these ‘living pictures’.

Here’s how I envision using this camera:

• Interactive ‘stories’ composed of a series of living photos that tell a narrative. Each image would be carefully designed with two areas of interest and the viewer would ‘pull focus’ from the first to the second.

But four more ideas come to mind, when I push this tech forward:

1. Imagine when time and mono sound can be added to this mix. The viewer will be able to refocus different areas in the shot as it unfolds over time. This would be a ‘living movie’.
2. What if enough data could be recorded to allow the viewer to change their point of view within the shot? This would be the ‘living picturescape’.
3. Imagine a similar device to capture the ‘sound field’. A sound field recorder would work very similarly to the Lytro. It would capture all the sound waves bouncing off of objects in earshot. The user would then be able to navigate through the soundscape, in essence moving the microphone closer to the sound source they want to hear.
4. Now imagine a combination of both devices: a living movie with a soundscape microphone — what I’m calling the AVscape. Now that’s getting close to true virtual reality!

Play with Lytro images. Click on an out-of-focus area. Neat!