Huh? Light field? What's that? And why is it in a camera?

I vaguely remember reading something about light field cameras awhile ago and passed it off as future tech that wouldn't see the market for some time.

But I was wrong.

A company called Lytro is bringing light field camera technology out of the lab and putting it in a little eight-ounce body starting at $399. They unveiled it yesterday.

The killer tech behind it is that the camera is able to capture the entire light field in your shot, and not just a single pane of light, according to the company. This effectively means that you can shoot out of focus and then re-focus the shot after it's been taken. Or you can choose to focus on a part of the photo that was previously out of focus.

No auto-focus and no shutter lag, the company touts. So you're presumably taking pictures faster. Here's a photo gallery of Lytro photos.

Killer possibilities for the photographers and photo editors of the world, for sure.

But some of us like zooming in and focusing, don't we? I mean, part of the fun of photography is making choices about what to shoot in the field. It's an exercise of the mind, not just the eye and the fingers. It's not about snapping away at everything and focusing later in post-production.

Or maybe that's what it will soon be about.

Once again, it seems photography is on the verge of changing all over again with light field technology.

Below is an embedded image of a Lytro camera shot. Click on the image with your mouse to re-focus it. Pretty cool stuff.