With an innovative camera due out later this year from a company called Lytro, photographers will have one less excuse for having missed that perfect shot.

The company’s technology allows a picture’s focus to be adjusted after it is taken. While viewing a picture taken with a Lytro camera on a computer screen, you can, for example, click to bring people in the foreground into sharp relief, or switch the focus to the mountains behind them.

But is Lytro’s technology just a neat feature, or is it the next big thing in cameras?

The founding team of the Silicon Valley start-up and investors who have put in $50 million are betting on the latter. The technology has won praise from computer scientists and raves from early users of its prototype camera.

“We see technology companies all the time, but it’s rare that someone comes along with something that is this much of a breakthrough,” said Ben Horowitz, co-founder of Andreessen Horowitz, a major investor in Lytro. “It’s superexciting.”