By Graham K. Rogers

In a press release, it has been announced that the unusual Lytro camera which captures all the light traveling in every direction in a scene and gives creative photographers unique capabilities like refocusing a picture after it has been taken, is to be made available shortly in a number of US retail outlets and in international markets. It went on sale in the US a few months ago via the Lytro website.

Initially, in October, the Lytro light field camera will be available through Target, BestBuy, Amazon and at the new CityTarget stores in Chicago, downtown Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle and Westwood, CA.

Retail partners in Australia, Canada, Hong Kong and Singapore will also be supplied with the Lytro cameras at the same time.

The planned rollout is

• Online at Target, BestBuy, and Amazon starting 9 October;
• Online at Future Shop in Canada, starting 9 October;
• In-store through retail in Australia, starting 10 October;
• In-store through retail in Hong Kong and Singapore, starting mid-October;
• In-store at CityTarget, starting November.

The press release also reports:

Lytro is transforming the camera into a powerful computational photography platform, forever changing the way everyone takes and experiences pictures. The first Lytro light field camera offers photographic capabilities never before possible, such as focusing a picture after it's taken, and creates interactive living pictures that can be endlessly refocused and enjoyed by friends and family online. Founder and Executive Chairman Ren Ng, whose Ph.D. research on light field photography won Stanford University's prize for best thesis in computer science in 2006 as well as the internationally recognized ACM Dissertation award, founded the company in 2006.

Graham K. Rogers teaches at the Faculty of Engineering, Mahidol University in Thailand. He wrote in the Bangkok Post, Database supplement on IT subjects. For the last seven years of Database he wrote a column on Apple and Macs.