Lytro is a light field camera, which allegedly allows users to take pictures first and then focus.Alyson Shontell, an editor at the American tech blog BusinessInsider, recently went to London. She carried a borrowed Lytro light field camera and documented her experience using this camera.Below is her experience report:Last week I went to London, carrying a Lytro camera with me. The Lytro is a light field camera that reportedly lets users take pictures first and focus later. This technology is quite innovative; even before his death, Steve Jobs met with the founder of Lytro. Jobs had hoped to introduce this technology into the iPhone. Currently, investors have invested $50 million in Lytro.For photography novices like me, Lytro sounds great. You don't need too many skills to take good pictures because you can adjust the focus after the photo has been taken. When you take a Lytro picture, the photo comes alive. The focus can shift from one object to another, and users can arbitrarily adjust the depth of field and background blur. Through such adjustments, the information conveyed by the photo will be very different.The Lytro itself is a slim and slender product, looking like a kaleidoscope. The red version is the most expensive. This version has 16GB of storage capacity, capable of storing 750 photos, priced at $499. The $399 version can store 350 photos, available in colors such as electric blue, graphite black, vibrant pink, and glass blue.Carrying the Lytro is akin to wearing Google Glass: you immediately become the center of attention. I borrowed a 16GB red Lytro camera. Whenever I took out this camera, many people would pay attention to me. As I walked into London Heathrow Airport, a guy behind me asked me: how long have you been using the Lytro? He works in Houston, USA, and had learned about this camera on tech blogs.Some others would point and stare or stop to watch, some hoping to try the camera themselves. Currently, the camera is sold through the Lytro website, Amazon, Best Buy, and Target, but it's not yet available in London.I wandered around East London with the Lytro camera and visited some major attractions, such as Buckingham Palace, the London Eye, Westminster Abbey, Big Ben, and Tower Bridge. Compared to large and heavy DSLRs, the Lytro is more portable, and the retail price is similar.Taking pictures with the Lytro is also easy. There are two buttons on the Lytro camera: there's a power button next to the USB port at the bottom, and a shutter key on top. There's also a non-smooth operation area on top. Swiping from left to right zooms in, and swiping from right to left zooms out.The head of Lytro's photo business who lent us this camera admitted that the screen on the Lytro could be better. It's hard to see the photos you just took on this screen because it's too small, low resolution, and not bright enough in sunlight. However, it's a touchscreen, and users can zoom or delete photos by tapping, browse previous photos by swiping, and mark photos they want to keep. Users can also adjust default settings to support both distant and close-up shots.Uploading and Editing PhotosOnce you've uploaded all your photos, you can then edit them, such as applying filters. Processing the photos takes a very long time. During the upload of over 150 photos to my online album, the Lytro desktop application crashed multiple times.After uploading the photos to the online album, you can share them on social media sites. Some of these sites will retain the refocusing feature of Lytro photos. For example, Facebook supports this function. You can also embed Lytro photos into web pages via an embedded frame, allowing others to manipulate the photos.Most of the Lytro photos I took ended up being disappointing. Before going to London, someone advised me to practice taking pictures with the Lytro first, so not fully mastering the Lytro was my own fault. However, among the over 150 photos I took, less than five well demonstrated the technology of Lytro. Relatively speaking, I prefer photos taken with a DSLR; these photos are at least clear, unlike Lytro photos that are blurry or lack depth of field.After uploading to the online album and applying filters, Lytro photos became better. Therefore, there's no need to spend time editing photos on the desktop. Additionally, if these functions were provided in the form of a mobile app, it would be even better.I like this technology praised by Jobs, and it has a very promising future, but the current Lytro camera isn't worth its price. This camera still has some issues to resolve, at least for photography novices like me.This article is translated from BusinessInsider.