'A revolution in photography': New £300 camera lets you focus AFTER taking the …

Last updated at 12:39 PM on 1st March 2012

The world’s first ‘shoot first, focus later’ camera has gone on sale – an entirely new technology that early reviewers have described as ‘a revolution in photography.’

The little $400 ‘light field’ Lytro camera offers effectively takes every possible picture atonce, ‘focusing’ on everything in a picture in one shutter-click.

The technology inside is so revolutionary that Apple CEO Steve Jobs reportedly met with Lytro to discuss building the technology into future models of iPhone.

Scroll down to see a Lytro pic in action

The little $399 camera is a 'light field' camera - the first pocket-sized, consumer version. It effectively takes every possible image at once, and you sift through afterward for the perfect shot

The little $399 camera is a ‘light field’ camera – the first pocket-sized, consumer version. It effectively takes every possible image at once, and you sift through afterward for the perfect shot

Whenyou look at Lytro photos via a PC, mobile phone or tablet, the photos aren’t stored as still photographs, they are stored as animations – you can simply touch on anything in the pic to focus on it.

The Wall Street Journal’s Walt Mossberg stated that the camera was ‘a revolution in consumer photography, with more benefits to come.’

Other reviewers were more reserved, saying the camera’s lack of flash held it back – but most concurred that the new technology was one to watch.

The camera’s makers are a SiliconValley start-up that secured $50 million in funding.

The idea isn’t new – but early ‘plenoptic’ or ‘light field’ cameras were room-sized lens arrays attached to high-powered computers. The Lytro is pocket-sized – and could turn the world of photography upside down.

The‘focused’ images have all already been taken – the camera ‘sucks in’ all available light in front of it, and stores all the information readyto digest.

You can trade Lytro’s image files as Flash animations via email or Facebook – and once you or your friend hasdecided on the focus you want, you can save the image as a JPEG.

The Lytro camera includes an array of little lenses that 'suck in' all the light in front of the camera, capturing images at every focal length simultaneously

The Lytro camera includes an array of little lenses that ‘suck in’ all the light in front of the camera, capturing images at every focal length simultaneously

Instead of one or two lenses, it’s an array of little lenses that absorbs all the available light in front of the camera, to create what its makers describe as a ‘living picture’.

Lytro’s sensor captures a large amount of information – not just colour and location, but the direction of every light ray flowing into the camera.

Softwareinside the camera reconstructs this into a ‘3D’ picture where you can choose what to focus on. Lytro images can also be viewed in 3D, withoutany conversion.

The camera captures every ray of light coming towards it in a '3D' image file that grants viewers to pick the individual image they want

The camera captures every ray of light coming towards it in a ’3D’ image file that grants viewers to pick the individual image they want

Lytro are coy about exactly what technology is inside their cameras - saying only that it condenses images that would previously have required a roomful of cameras into one little unit

Lytro are coy about exactly what technology is inside their cameras – saying only that it condenses images that would previously have required a roomful of cameras into one little unit