Lytro is here!

The first two Lytro light field cameras in Singapore

Just a few days before the Chinese NY festival Scubacam had a surprise visitor by the name of Eric Cheng, DP at Lytro and Founder of Wetpixel.  Eric was on route to PNG/ Eastern Fields dive trip to get on board the MV Golden Dawn to meet up with Craig De Wit (the Captain) and Tony Wu.

Eric with Red (16 GB) & Blue (8GB) Lytros

Well he brought with him a couple of Lytro cameras. These are “light field” cameras which allow you to refocus your picture after you have taken them. Yes you heard right….it could be refocused and on any part of the picture after. I believe this is the first two Lytros  in SE Asia which makes this a historic moment. This camera uses a very sophisticated light capturing technology which is a wee bit long and difficult for me to explain correctly. In essence it captures all the light beams (photons with vector information) from the environment and records that information and then uses computational processing (software) to reconstruct the image on the screen. Huhh? I told you it was complicated. It needs a lot of micro-processor power and memory. Lets just say a few years ago a camera like this would be the size of a small room. Lytro is tiny and has all that built in plus the software to make it work. Since it is processed by software who knows what this technology will lead? A holographic picture one could interact with it in the future maybe – exciting times indeed.

'Beam me up Scotty" Dave getting carried away....

It’s only available at the USA at the moment but I am sure it will be launched to the rest of the world soon. More info on the camera and how it all works could be found here https://www.lytro.com/camera

We at Scubacam will definitely be trying out this amazing camera and possibly with a housing. No more out-of-focus fishy photos.

Sanah’s just realized the Lytro is perfect at parties.

The Lytro camera come in a variety of colours – even colour coordinated with Sanah and Eric’s clothes.

Too Hot To Handle

Apart from the 3 day social visit in Singapore, Eric also brought along his L&M Bluefin housing for his Canon HF G10. I had a custom flip macro and an +8 achromatic dioptre (internal) made for Eric to test with his camcorder setup. These were not available from L&M and I get many request to make them so I thought Eric should test them for good measure. What he  also really wanted was a top hung carry handle for the housing. I had a day to think about it and decided to make one. The difficulty is the two screw mounts on top of the housing and these are blocked by the housing float which sits over them.  So like a trained surgeon I fashioned a handle out of a scrap of aluminum and cut a few holes in the foam. I even managed to add a ball adapter for a small LED light or a GoPro Hero.

Well I was rather please with my handy work and judging fromEric’s reaction he was rather pleased too.

As usual Eric visit is always fun and it was great to catch up with him on stories of his travels and work. More on Wetpixel could be found here http://wetpixel.com/

Ciao

Oh Gong Xi Fay Choy  BTW…..

DEEP EPIC is here !

Hello there !

Happy 2012 to you all.

The new year kicks off with an exciting addition to  Scubacam’s equipment rental family.

We now shoot with the RED EPIC and Gates DEEP EPIC housing plus a few Cine lenses. More detail on “what’s New” later. Now I am itching to go diving and have a play with this baby. Shooting 5K video footage is not without problems. Everything to do with the computer needs upgrading in particular memory storage…..RED just sucks the memory like a hungry gas -guzzler hot rod. Enough of my babbling here are just couple of teasers.

Gates Deep Epic & RED Epic M with PL mount

David & Bert with eyes closed and prayed to RED that it all fits and working

Stay tuned for full test report soon.    Wishing all a great year to come.  See you at the shop. Ciao!