The Lytro Camera is pretty awesome, no doubt about that. But as far as I can see, the single important USP that they point to is being able to focus individual parts of a picture. This is great, but I don’t see the point of bringing out a camera which does mostly this.

The modern camera market as far as I can see is broadly segmented into the ones on smart phones, which cater to most of the needs of a consumer market. The next set is DSLR cameras that start with enthusiasts and go professional based on features and price.

So I’m wondering why a consumer would buy a separate camera just for this feature. Ideally, this should be an iPhone app. They’ll sell millions. But this needs specialized hardware, so I’m guessing that’s out of the question for now. I think the other play is licensing the technology to the biggest - Nikon, Canon, Olympus etc - and let them figure out where to use it. Or, Lytro can get into enthusiast/professional space itself.

I think that’s how they’re going to have to play it. The consumers already have a camera, and that is their smartphone. It will be really hard to convince them to carry another brick in their pocket. So Lytro has to become a competitor to the biggies in the DSLR world. It’s not going to be easy to snatch customers from them, given how much investment semi-pro and pro grade photography equipment is. It will be interesting to see how this will play out.