Lytro officially kills off their online sharing platform

It’s been a while since Lytro decided to abandon the world of photography and focus on the video solutions. But their latest announcement is another step towards exiting the consumer photography market. As of this month, they are discontinuing their pictures.lytro.com image sharing platform. This means their users won’t be able to share the native refocusable light-field photos online. Also, if your “living” images are embedded somewhere, they won’t be viewable any longer.

As Lytro writes in the official announcement, all the “local” Lytro Desktop features will continue to work. All adjustment and animation tools are still available, as well as presentation mode and exporting as .jpg, .mov, .gif, etc.  They explain that the only part they’re killing off is the one specific to online sharing.

Lytro Desktop is the only way you’ll be able to view your living photos off-camera. If you’d like to share them, Lytro team suggests two possible solutions: make a movie of your living picture via export .mov, or capture a focus point and share the resulting .jpg or .gif.

I remember when Lytro first appeared, and it seemed like a really interesting product. They pioneered in the light field photography, so it’s sad to see them close the chapter. But, they are switching focus to video, and hopefully, they’ll be more successful in this field.

[Lytro via DPReview]