Lytro camera for mineral photography?

I was wondering anyone had any experience or thoughts on how the Lytro camera system would do in mineral photography? Basically it is a system that allows you to focus the picture after it has been taken. I remember a similar system being talked about a few years ago but nothing ever came to market then. The example pictures show shallow depth of field but it is probably intentional. I don't see why you couldn't do multiple focus stacking with one photo as you get to choose the focus after the picture is taken. The cameras are now available but currently for Mac OS only with a Windows version on the way. No mention is made of the actual file resolution of the camera just a 11 megaray number.

Anyway do a web search under Lytro camera and you will find the website.

When you look at the end results - if you were to combine it to a simple JPEG file, the resulting image would be only 0.3 megapixels (540x540 pixels, 1:1 ratio).

It's interesting, but not a replacement for a normal camera yet.

Jolyon

Use of the Lytro camera for photomacrography has been extensively discussed over in the photomacrography forum, see [www.photomacrography.net]

The opinion is that it is not sufficiently close-focusing, even for miniature to small cabinet sized specimens, nor has the screen resolution, for good quality macro photographs; nor are the images suitable for focus stacking due to changing perspective as the focus point is shifted. However, Lytro has hinted that they will be releasing software to allow for all of the view to be in focus; if this feature materializes, and if the camera can accept auxiliary lenses, then there is a chance it could be useful for mineral photography.

I my opinion, with the disclaimer that I have not handled one, it seems to be a gimmicky gadget.