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I’m not just a camera history nerd, I’m also a huge fan of weird things in general. Weird and unique technology is especially fascinating, and I’m sure many readers here share the same sentiment.

An industrious programmer managed to reverse-engineer the original Lytro light field camera firmware and opened it up to allow live streaming, full remote camera control, and custom code execution.

Back in 2014, the light field camera company Lytro unveiled the $1,600 Illum, a camera of the future that shoots 40 "Megaray" photos and lets you refocus photos after they're shot. The tech specs were fancy, but no one bought the camera, leading to massive price cuts and eventually a complete change of direction by the CEO. The 5-minute video above is a hands-on look at the Illum.

The digital revolution—and a revolution it was—enabled photographers to immediately start saving money after new equipment purchases. Sure, the quality sucked initially (and convenience was overstated) but after a few years, the whole thing really started to work properly, for the most part.

Want to see what Lytro’s light field camera technology is all about? You can now take the plunge for …

Earlier this month, we shared some sample photos showing how Lytro's Illum light field camera performed in capturing the NFC Championship game. Here's another look at the camera with a very different subject matter: wedding photographs.

When the Green Back Packers played the Seattle Seahawks this past weekend in the NFC Championship Game, Seattle-based photographer Mike Sternoff was there documenting the action from the sidelines with a Lytro Illum light field camera.

One of (if not the) main challenges Lytro faces as it attempts to bring light field photography into the mainstream is the fact that there aren't a lot of places you can actually experience the 'living' images where they're, to use Lytro's vernacular, alive.

Most places just don't support viewing of the interactive images, and while Lytro has taken some steps to remedy this in the past, the company just took what amounts to a giant leap.

Lytro came into the photography world not only to create a novelty product, but to fundamentally change how we approach image capture. Because despite light field photography being around for over a century, it’s only with the latest technology that the company is able to exploit what it is a camera is truly capable of doing.

We recently spoke with Lytro about its upcoming Illum camera a bit, diving into the technology behind the specs and revealing how Lytro's approach is allowing the company to not only step, but leap into the future.

A major drawback of Lytro's technology has been the closed ecosystem its files are trapped in. Unable to be edited in programs such as Lightroom or viewed on the Web without a proprietary image viewer, the experience is lacking the ubiquity needed to gain the acceptance of the masses.

Well aware of this problem, Lytro today takes the first of what we assume will be many steps in the right direction, by announcing that their images will now be viewable on the Internet via a new, open-source WebGL player.

Lytro recently created a fascinating documentary to show off the capabilities of its new Illum camera.

By teaming up with five different photographers, all from different styles of work, the company was able to capture how this new approach to photography can be used to turn a photograph into something more... an experience.

More than two years after the debut of the company's first camera, Lytro has come back with a vengeance. Well, actually, Lytro has come back with an 'Illum,' which is the name of a new camera that the company says, "advances the light field category from novelty to game-changing visual medium that could one day rival digital and film."