Shooting with the Illum requires a complete rewiring of the way you look at a scene. A great living picture has two subjects, one in the foreground and one in the background. I began trying to fill every photo with as many things as possible, to put a telling detail or funny image right behind the subject of my photo. The Illum has its own set of rules for how to get a great shot; it comes with a huge, fun, strange learning curve, and it’s unlike any camera I’ve ever shot with. You’re shooting with layers, shooting something that people will be able to interact with later.

Shooting with the Illum is a completely new photography experience

When it works, the Illum is capable of producing really remarkable pictures. (It still doesn’t shoot video, though Lytro says that’s not far away.) It still stumbles in low light — I avoided shooting above ISO 1000 — but as long as the conditions are right you get good, accurate colors, and impressive dynamic range. And that Lytro moment, when you shift focus from the person in the foreground to the city in the back or from the tip of their finger to their smiling face, never stops being amazing. But images are never quite tack-sharp as you move the focus around (Lytro says any given spot maxes out at four megapixels), making it look as if everything’s out of focus rather than in focus. That makes Lytro’s living pictures totally impractical for printing or exporting as simple JPGs, and even dulls the magic of refocusing.

There’s a button on the camera to help you maximize the effect, helpfully called the Lytro Button. (Using it is only recommended in moderation, since it turns the thousand-shot battery into something more like dozens.) It displays on top of whatever you’re shooting, showing the depth range of your photo with scattered dots. Blue represents the closest part of the shot that you’ll be able to get in focus; orange is the farthest away you’ll be able to make sharp.

For a few days, I used the Lytro button for every shot, but eventually, I trained my eyes to see what the Illum’s lens sees. The distance between subjects; the story I could tell racking from one to the other; the sense of space and size I could create with perspective. I started shooting faster and more confidently, and still got great shots.