Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Short Version: This is an amazing device that opens a window into a new way to think about photographs. Due to "old dog/new tricks" issues, this window is still pretty hazy for me right now, but I can see wonderful things over on the other side. The equipment is well built, sturdy, has a great lens system, and absolutely works as advertised. The three bad things are: 1) The final, effective, what-you-end-up-with-in-the-end resolution of images in 2D is not anything like what I'm used to. On the other hand, for me to compare resolution from such a young technology like this to images taken with $20k worth of a equipment developed over 20 years that includes a 500 mm lens, instant autofocus, taking 12 frames a second with a 30 megapixel full frame sensor, seems a bit unfair. I'm told by Lytro that the camera has a "4MB max output resolution", which is probably about what the old exposed film images of yesteryear had. Since there are some really great images from the pre-digital age, this tells me that the problem is not the camera, but the skill of the photographer. 2) There are several small technical glitches in the camera, software, and website that are a tad annoying but don't affect the actual camera operation. When you think about the number of completely new areas this camera system had to pioneer, the number and level of problems seems small. In a twisted way for me this turns around into a plus because every time I ask a question or point out a problem, a nice young man named Adam at Lytro carefully studies what I say, reproduces the problem, speaks to some geeks in the back room, then comes back to me with the solution/resolution they have worked out and an estimate of when they will be able to implement the change. That is absolutely unprecedented in my experience in purchasing cutting edge photographic equipment over many years. 3) If you purchase this camera you may very well come to understand as I have that what you think you know about photography has been a drop in the bucket as to what can be done. I learned that for the DSLR equipment I am used to, there was an amount of money I could spend to make me a passable photographer. I need to pick up my game significantly in terms of composition and color to be able to use this camera instead of relying on fancy equipment to make my images look good. Full disclosure : This review replaces one I submitted last week that gave the camera 2 stars and whined about the resolution because my hobby is high resolution wildlife photography. I have since come to understand that this camera is not designed to compete in that arena. Since my initial review I have taken some amazing images that would not make any sense with normal 2D equipment. I set up a shower pointing towards the camera, flowing in the bright sunlight with the stream falling just in front of the lens. The images allow you to change the focus back and forth through the stream to see individual drops at different distances from the camera. Taking an image like that using a normal 2D camera would be silly because whatever focus point you chose when you released the shutter would be clear, but everything else would be a blur. If you set the F-Stop for the depth of field to include the entire range of the stream, you would lose the concept of volume. I also took some pictures of our dog swimming at the beach where you can change the F-Stop after the picture is taken change the depth of field to either include or blur out the waves behind him. In the past, I would have to take a picture, change the F-Stop to estimate a depth of field I might like later, then take another picture. The fact that I have never done that tells me that I've been too lazy to take the time to make those kinds of adjustments, then learn from the results later on. What I found with the Illum is that I like several different depth of field solutions for a single image, each for a different reason. I'm changing my rating all the way up to 4 stars because this camera is exactly what it claims to be. I can see that this is a brave new world I'm anxious to learn, and in my mind this camera is the start of a new direction for photography.