Every new gadget has a wager to make: How far can you push consumers and still get them to buy your product? It’s a delicate see-saw; introduce too much or too little change, and you’ll hit the ground with a thud. When Lytro presented the Illum, its newest light field photography camera, last week, it faced a particularly tough challenge.

The device’s tech chops are undeniable. The camera was heralded by tech bloggers (we called it "magical"). Unlike other cameras, which essentially capture a 2-D approximation of a scene, the Illum’s lens takes in the 4-D light field and renders that data into a manipulatable, interactive image. This means you can take a picture, and then refocus or shift the perspective slightly. Pretty cool stuff in terms of digital photography, but it takes more than great specs to make a successful project. For new technology to really take off, it needs good design.

So Lytro tapped Artefact, a Seattle design firm, to work with its in-house design team to translate this forward-thinking high-tech into something the photography world would want to embrace. Here’s how they did it.

Return to Form

The biggest question Lytro and Artefact faced with the Illum was how far to push the design. Lytro wanted to challenge the norms of what a camera could look like, but not so much it would turn off photographers. "We wanted to push the boundaries of people’s notions of what photography is but we also understand that photographers are steeped in quite a bit of history and traditions,” explains Dave Evans, Lytro's director of design. "We wanted to make sure we built a bridge between those two things.”

It was a matter of balancing the familiar with the new, making sure the physical representation of Lytro's technology gave photographers enough control over the camera.

>“It’s almost like food for your finger,” Wierzoch explains.

Lytro first introduced its light field photography concept with an eponymous camera that looked like a tiny, rectangular telescope. It was a radical departure from typical camera architecture and did a great job of highlighting the groundbreaking lens technology Lytro was producing. It also was a little alienating.

“It was a very bold move to introduce their new technology,” says Markus Wierzoch, a design director at Artefact. “The photography crowd is incredibly opinionated.” To reach the photographer the Illum was targeting, the designers knew they had to embrace a more traditional form. And like Lytro’s first camera, the Illum’s technology dictated what that meant.

Explained most simply, Lytro’s light field camera make use makes use of a totally different kind of sensor. This Megaraysensor captures color, intensity and, most importantly, the direction of the light flowing through the thousands of lenses housed in the camera’s body.

Using algorithms, the camera can plot how light is moving around an entire space, which means it’s able to construct a 3-D image of a scene. This allows the photographer to manipulate the image post-shot, as opposed to working with a static, 2-D representation. “We were looking for, how can we illustrate light field technology in a physical form?” says Wierzoch.

Correcting Your Posture

As technology has evolved, so has the act of taking a photograph. Traditionally, cameras have had an optical viewfinder, the little lens at the top corner you peer through to frame a shot. Even today, cameras are designed with that in mind. Mobile technology has totally changed how we take photos. Think about how you hold your phone before snapping a pic. It’s nowhere near your eye, right? In fact, the phone probably about a foot away from your face, held in a zombie-like arm position.

The original Lytro camera, released in 2011. Image: Lytro

Using the Illum requires a modification of this stance. Lytro and Artefact observed and talked to dozens of photographers to understand what was most comfortable for them. The designers realized that light field photography, and digital photography in general, calls for a new kind of posture. "We knew to carry the camera elegantly it needed to be lower and closer to your body rather than holding it out at arms length," says Evans. This insight—that the Illum is meant to be held right below eye-level—informed much of the camera’s design. The most obvious result is the angled touchscreen on the back of the camera’s body.

“This is light field photography at its essence,” says Wierzoch. The angle is a nod to the fact that in order to capture as much information as possible in the re-focusable range, you often want to shoot from a lower angle. Artefact says the natural angle of the screen is optimized for 60 percent of all photos taken in landscape orientation.

The tilt also is a way to account for the heft of digital cameras. Though the Illum is light (around 1.5 pounds) considering the technology inside of it, the bulk of the device’s weight is still in the optical components—the lens. This lower holding posture coupled with the center of gravity right where the left hand supports the lens allows the photographer to comfortably use the camera for longer stints at a time. A push from a thumb adjusts the screen’s angle, which can also be turned vertical for portrait shots. “We believe this is the first in long line of products that will use this idea,” Wierzoch says of the angled screen. “It just makes sense, it wants to be this way.”

The Illum is designed to accommodate a new type of picture-taking posture. The Illum is designed to accommodate a new type of picture-taking posture.

Making a Complex Thing Simple

The Illum isn’t boxy. “If you look at current products in the photography market there are two camps,” Wierzoch explains. “One is going very minimal, machined appeal then there’s the overly-ergonomic ones that might feel good in your hand but you can’t really describe the product in a simple way.” Artefact designed the Illum to straddle these extremes.

The grip is streamlined, but features a little scoop perfectly positioned for the right hand middle finger. This gives the photographer a sturdy hold on the camera without being prescribed a hand position. “It’s almost like food for your finger,” says Wierzoch.

After going through more than a hundred iterations in-house, Artefact and Lytro realized they could simplify the device without sacrificing usability. This meant visual clutter, like the aperture dial, could be eliminated (the Illum has a constant f/2.0 aperture, so a dial is unnecessary). They also made the remaining two dials and the four buttons beneath on the back of the camera reprogrammable from the touch screen. The user interface was streamlined, so buttons were positioned for use without having to look away from the screen. The zoom and focus rings have a subtle, grippy texture to make handling them more intuitive. And the Lytro button, which helps assess the various depths of a composition in real time, was placed right next to the shutter release so it became an integral action during the photo-taking process. "The Lytro button is a perfect example of the subtle interplay between the camera’s industrial design and Lytro’s breakthrough light field software capabilities," says Evans.

Giving those standard camera features a physical presence is the balance between harnessing the Illum's technological prowess and acknowledging the photographer's skills. "The Illum allows me to take over the capturing process," says Wierzoch. "It puts me, the photographer, in charge." That's a great point, and one the original Lytro might have missed. Because no one wants a device to tell them out to do their job. Especially not an artist.