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Posts Tagged ‘Shows’

Video: Hasselblad shows how it produces, tests its X System medium format cameras

21 Jul

Hasselblad has released the third video in its ongoing ‘Hasselblad Home’ series, showcasing how the Swedish company produces and tests its X System medium format cameras inside its Gothenburg headquarters.

Throguhout the four-minute video, Hasselblad shows the five-step production and testing process it uses to ensure all X System cameras are properly constructed and programmed to get the best image quality possible. The first step in the process is a cosmetic check to ensure the camera body itself is undamaged from the manufacturing process. If it clears the cosmetic check, that camera is assigned a serial number, which will follow it until it reaches the hands of the customer.

With the serial number assigned, it’s onto installing the software of the camera and completing more assembly of the main camera unit. Hasselblad says it tests each sensor independently — by capturing over 700 test shots — and uses that data to create a calibration profile that is then installed on the camera that specific sensor unit is installed in. The camera will apply that specific calibration profile to each image before data is saved to the recording media.

From there, it’s onto the digital unit test, wherein Hasselblad workers adjust focus, remove dust and apply other quality control measures before moving onto the final photo quality test. Using both studio scenes and color charts, Hasselblad tests the image quality of each camera using both automated and manual verification to ensure no anomalies are seen in the resulting photographs.

The video is yet another unique look into a process usually hidden within the factory walls. Regardless of whether or not you own — or have even shot with — a Hasselblad, it’s hard not to respect the level of precision and attention to detail that goes into each camera unit before it’s packaged up and shipped off.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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BCN+R data shows digital camera sales in Japan were down 40% year-over-year

12 Jan

BCN Retail (BCN+R), a Japanese analyst firm that collects daily sales data of mirrorless interchangeable lens cameras from both online and in-person points of sale in Japan, has published (translated) a summary of its 2020 camera sales data, confirming camera sales were down in the Japanese market due to an already-shrinking market further compounded by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

According to BCN+R’s data, digital camera sales dropped 40.4% year-over-year (YoY). This is over double the 16.8 percent drop BCN+R recorded in 2019 (compared to 2018). BCN+R’s data shows digital camera sales were down from the onset of 2020, but dramatic decreases in March and April align with when the first spike in cases of the novel coronavirus started spreading across the globe. The YoY decrease peaked in April and slowly declined until September.

Apologies for the low-quality chart. It’s all BCN+R has shared.

October proved to be the month with the smallest YoY decrease, which could be attributed to the release of numerous mirrorless cameras being released in September and October, most notably the Sony a7C (September 15), Canon EOS M50 Mark II (October 14) and Fujifilm X-S10 (October 15). The original Canon EOS M50 has continuously proven to be the most popular cameras in Japan for quite some time, so it’d make sense its successor would sell well, too.

We’ll wait to see what the end-of-year numbers from less region-specific sources (CIPA, etc.) are before making any comprehensive overviews, but it’s clear from BCN+R’s data that the fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic managed to make a shrinking market even smaller than it was on track to be, even if the Japanese market alone isn’t indicative as to the state of the industry as a whole.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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CIPA’s October report shows camera market has mostly recovered from its COVID-19 downturn

03 Dec
Top: Panasonic S1 (left) Canon EOS R (right) Bottom: Sony a7 III (left), Nikon Z6 (right)

It’s been a rather tumultuous year for camera sales atop a market already in decline, but the latest report from Camera & Imaging Products Association (CIPA) shows the market is back in business and nearly recovered from the COVID-19 downturn.

CIPA, an industry association that aggregates shipment and sales information from the leading camera manufacturers, has shared its October numbers, which show the September recovery of shipments wasn’t a fluke. According to the October report, total digital camera sales – which include both fixed-lens cameras and interchangeable lens cameras – saw a total of 1.13 million units shipped. That’s still 22.8% fewer units shipped compared to October 2019, but that’s a far better shipment rate than the past six months, which have seen shipments hover around 50% of what they were in 2019 in the same months.

A line graph showing the month-by-month shipment numbers of digital cameras — including compact, fixed-lens, DSLR and mirrorless — for the past three years. Click to enlarge.

And the numbers look even better for interchangeable lens cameras. CIPA’s report says a total of 754K units were shipped, a decrease of just 13.6% compared to October 2019. Despite shipping fewer units, the monetary value of those shipments is up half a percentage point year-over-year (YoY) as well, showing the cameras being sold are more expensive models.

Interestingly, the increase in value from those shipments can be attributed only to mirrorless cameras. Globally, the monetary value of DSLR sales is down 22% YoY for October, aligned with overall unit shipments, while the monetary value of mirrorless shipments is up 11.9% YoY for October. In other words, the average revenue from global DSLR sales has more or less stayed the same while increasing for mirrorless camera sales. This backs up statements from multiple manufacturers – most notably Canon and Nikon in their investor reports – that higher-end, full-frame mirrorless models are selling better and will be the focus of their product lines.

A line graph showing the month-by-month shipment numbers of interchangeable lens cameras for the past three years. Click to enlarge.

The October report also confirms DSLR camera sales are on a far faster decline than mirrorless cameras, at least in most regions. Global DSLR shipments were at 338K units, down 21% YoY for October, while mirrorless camera shipments were 416K units, down just 6.4% YoY for October.

Where it gets interesting is when you look at shipments by region. The increase in monetary value of mirrorless camera shipments comes almost entirely down to China, which saw a 53.8% increase in value YoY for October. Also, Europe stands as an outlier in the DSLR market; according to CIPA’s report, while DSLR sales are down in volume and value to the United States, they’re only slightly down in volume and up substantially (30.5% YoY for October) in Europe. This could simply be due to the stock being sent to the respective regions (budget DSLRs vs higher-end DSLRs), but it’s an interesting discrepancy nonetheless.

A full breakdown of production and shipments of cameras aggregated by CIPA. Click to enlarge and click here for the PDF version.

The ratio between DSLR and mirrorless shipments to different region varies quite a bit as well. In Europe, DSLR and mirrorless shipments in terms of volume are roughly even, but in terms of value, mirrorless is nearly double. The United States, on the other hand, saw roughly 35K more DSLRs shipped to its shores compared to mirrorless cameras, but mirrorless still has double the value of those DSLRs.

It remains to be seen if volume and value return to their 2019 numbers over the holiday seasons, but things are looking up for an industry that’s seen a devastating decline.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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Video: ‘One Shot’ shows what it takes to capture an iconic image at the Olympic games

25 Nov

A thread on Reddit has brought a neat photography documentary from 2017 to our attention. ‘One Shot: Photographing the Olympic Games’ is a behind the scenes look at how photographers capture the iconic images of the Olympics, including a special focus on photographers setting up to capture the 100m men’s final in Rio de Janeiro during the 2016 summer games.

Featured photographers include multi-awarded photographers such as Lucy Nicholson, Dave Burnett, Bob Martin, Tim de Waele, and Tsuyoshi Matsumoto. Nicholson had a very specific image in mind for the 100m men’s final in Rio. As she sets up her gear, nine hours ahead of the starting gun kicking off what is one of the most exciting 10 seconds in sports, Nicholson talks about how she wants a tight shot of the winner with other sprinters on either side of the winner. ‘You only get one chance to take the key shot,’ Nicholson says.

A chart showing Sports Illustrated’s plans for photographing the 100m men’s final in Rio. Click to enlarge.

The documentary, seen below, was awarded the Candido Cannavo Award at the World Final of the Milan Sport Film Festival in 2018. About 150 iconic images from nearly 100 different photographers over the last 50 years of Olympic games are featured. An iconic image tells a story for years to come. Long after the medals have been awarded to the victors, and even long after the photographer has passed, the images and the stories they tell remain. Presenter Jonathan Edwards, Olympic gold medalist triple jumper, says it well, ‘A story that’s taken a lifetime to create, told in one shot. One freeze frame.’

Years of planning are required to create iconic images, and in under a minute, an iconic photo can be sent halfway around the globe. The technology on display in 2016 during the summer games was incredible. Reuters was able to get the first photo of Usain Bolt winning the 100m men’s final out to its customers in 58 seconds. It’s safe to assume that the technology will have advanced even further when photographers head to Tokyo in 2021. And while the equipment and tools photographers use continue to evolve, photography’s importance when telling a story remains unchanged.

‘One Shot’ was directed and written by Peter Davies and presented by Jonathan Edwards. As pointed out by PetaPixel, the documentary can also be viewed on the Olympic Channel. It’s hosted on YouTube by Anthony Edgar, the Head of Media Operations for the International Olympic Committee. Edgar also appears in the video. His channel, linked above, includes a lot of interesting Olympics-related video content.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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Step aside, Intel: Apple shows off its first Macs powered by its new M1 chipset

11 Nov

Apple today unveiled its first Mac computers powered by its new M1 chipset, ushering in a new era for Apple hardware as it leaves behind Intel in favor of its own silicon.

Apple M1 Chipset

Behind all of the new computers Apple showcased at today’s event is its new M1 chipset, the first chip designed specifically for Mac. Unlike past Mac computers, which required multiple chips from multiple suppliers, Apple’s new M1 chip puts all of them into a single system on a chip (SoC) design. This includes the CPU, GPU, I/O, security and memory.

The new chip uses a 5nm process, which helps to fit more than 16 billion transistors onto the M1. The M1 features eight cores—four high-performance cores and four high-efficiency cores—that work together to provide better performance with lower power consumption. Apple claims the new M1 chip offers 2x the total CPU and GPU performance of the leading commercially-available PC chip and matches the peak CPU/GPU performance of the same chip using just 25% and 33% of the power, respectively.

One of the greatest advantages of the SoC design is the ability to use unified memory. Now, with the unified memory architecture (UMA), the M1 allows all of the individual technologies inside the M1 to access the same data without having to copy it between multiple memory pools. This should open up plenty of memory bandwidth for improved performance across the board. Apple specifically notes both video and image processing will see a major performance boost with the M1 chip compared to similar Intel-powered computers.

Apple also claims 15x the machine-learning performance compared to its previous-generation Intel-powered computers with the ability to perform up to 11 trillion operations per second.

Of course, one of the main benefits of Apple’s new silicon is battery performance. As we’ll detail below, the new M1 chip enables up to 17 hours of web browsing and 20 hours of video playback on the new MacBook Pro 13”, while the new MacBook Air offers up to 15 hours and 18 hours of web browsing and video playback, respectively.

With the brain out of the way, let’s get onto the new machines using it.

The New MacBook Air

The new MacBook Air may look like its predecessors, but beneath the unibody frame is Apple’s new M1 chip, making it the first Apple computer with Apple silicon packed inside. Thanks to the new M1 chip inside, Apple says the new MacBook Air is 3.5 times faster than its Intel-powered predecessor, with 5x faster graphics performance and 9x better machine learning performance.

The new MacBook Air comes with a 13.3” retina display with P3 wide color gamut support, up to 16GB of memory and up to 2TB of storage. Other features include two Thunderbolt 3/USB 4 ports, Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.0, a 720p FaceTime HD camera (really, Apple?) and Touch ID.

Apple claims the new MacBook Air can power up to 15 hours of web browsing and 18 hours of video playback on its 50Wh LiPo battery. It comes with a 30W USB-C Power Adapter for charging.

The new MacBook Air starts at $ 999 with the standard M1 chip, 8GB RAM and 256GB of SSD storage. There’s also a version of the new MacBook Air that starts at $ 1249 and offers an M1 chip with an 8-core GPU over the standard seven-core GPU; this upgraded version also starts with 512GB of SSD storage over the 256GB of the $ 999 MacBook Air. A full-maxed-out MacBook Air with the upgraded M1 chip, 16GB RAM and 2TB of SSD storage will set you back $ 2,050.

Mac Mini

Much like the new MacBook Air, the new Mac Mini looks identical to its Intel-powered predecessor on the outside but packs Apple’s new M1 chip on the inside.

Apple didn’t lay out the exact specifications of the M1 chip inside the new Mac Mini, opting instead to compare it to its Intel-power predecessor. Based on that comparison, Apple says the new Mac Mini offers 3x faster processing performance, 6x faster graphics performance and 15x faster machine learning performance, all while consuming 60% less energy.

Features include Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.0 and Gigabit Ethernet.Ports include two Thunderbolt 3/USB 4 ports, an HDMI 2.0 port, two USB-A ports and a 3.5mm headphone jack. When using the thunderbolt 3 port, you can drive Apple’s Pro Display XDR at a full 6K resolution in addition to a secondary 4K display.

The new Mac Minis start at $ 699 ($ 100 less than the previous generation), which includes the eight-core M1 chip, 8GB RAM and 256GB of SSD storage. A maxed-out model, complete with 16GB RAM and 2TB of SSD storage will set you back $ 1,500.

13″ MacBook Pro

The third and final computer to receive the M1 treatment today is the new 13″ MacBook Pro. As with the two previous computers, there is effectively zero external differences between this computer and its Intel-powered predecessors. Inside, though, it’s a different story.

As with the Mac Mini, Apple refrains from spouting the frequencies of the new M1 chip inside the 13″ MacBook Pro, opting instead to gauge its performance based on its Intel-powered predecessor. Based on that, Apple claims the new 13″ MacBook Pro offers 2.8x faster processor performance, 5x the graphics performance and 11x the machine learning performance. Unlike the new MacBook Air, which relies exclusively on passive cooling, the new 13″ MacBook Pro keeps its fans, which means you should be able to push the performance of the M1 chip even further when battery life isn’t an issue.

Speaking of battery life, Apple says the new 12″ MacBook Pro offers up to 17 hours of web browsing and 20 hours of video playback on a single charge—that’s roughly 10 hours more than Apple’s previous Intel-powered MacBook Pros.

Other specifications include Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.0, Touch ID, a 720p FaceTime camera (again, really, Apple?), P3 wide color gamut support and an upgraded three-microphone array. Ports include two Thunderbolt 3/USB 4 ports and a 3.5mm headphone jack. Like the Mac Mini, the new 13″ MacBook Pro can power Apple’s Pro Display XDR at its full 6k resolution.

The new 13″ MacBook Pro starts at $ 1,300 with the eight-core M1 chip, 8GB RAM and 256GB of SSD storage. A maxed-out model with 16GB RAM and 2TB of SSD storage will set you back $ 2,300.

It’s worth noting that both the Mac Mini and 13″ MacBook Pro can still be purchased with Intel processors, if you’re not ready to make the jump to Apple silicon yet. The MacBook Air, however, is now exclusively powered by Apple’s M1 SoC.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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BCN Retail shows Canon catching Sony in the Japanese full-frame MILC market, Nikon stagnant — for now

27 Oct

BCN Retail, a Japanese analyst firm that collects daily sales data of mirrorless interchangeable lens cameras from online and in-person points of sale in Japan, has published (translated) its latest numbers, showing the breakdown of Japanese domestic market share in the full-frame mirrorless interchangeable lens camera (MILC) market.

BCN Retail starts its report with partially encouraging news, noting the camera market, at least in Japan, has almost entirely recovered from the pandemic drop, with unit sales in the month of September being down just 2% and revenue from those sales down just 10% year-over-year (YoY). Lower numbers YoY is never a good thing, but considering the state of the camera market even pre-pandemic, these drops aren’t terrible.

According to BCN Retail’s latest numbers, Canon and Panasonic have seen a rise in market share over the past few months, while Nikon has more or less stayed even. Meanwhile, both Sony and Sigma have seen their market shares drop over the past few months.

Full-frame mirrorless market share numbers: Brown (Sony), Red (Canon), Yellow (Nikon), Blue (Panasonic), Grey (Sigma). The dark blue and red bars at the bottom show unit sales and revenue (as a percentage of overall interchangeable lens camera (ILC) camera sales), respectively.

BCN Retail says Canon’s rise in market share — now 34.7% — can be attributed to the release of its R5 and R6 mirrorless cameras, while Panasonic’s rise — now 5.8% — is attributed to the launch of its S5. Nikon’s market share saw a small increase in July, which could likely be attributed to the release of its entry-level Z5, but since August its market share has more or less stayed stagnant, sitting at roughly 13%. It’s possible its forthcoming Z6 II and Z7 II mirrorless cameras could give the company a boost, though.

Meanwhile, Sony has seen its market share drop from roughly 60% back in May to now just 43.9%, only 9% ahead of Canon who, at the start of the year, had just 15% of the market share. Sigma, too, has seen its market share drop to just 2.6% after once being ahead of both Nikon and Panasonic back in May when the FP sales were hot.

The Canon EOS R5 was the most popular full-frame mirrorless interchangeable lens camera (MILC) of September, according to BCN Retail.

It’s worth noting these market share numbers are specific to the Japanese market and greatly impacted by new cameras launched within a given month or quarter.

Back in the summer of 2018, Sony effectively had 100% of the full-frame MILC market share, as there were no other competitors. Within six months of both Canon and Nikon introducing their respective full-frame mirrorless cameras, Sony’s market share was effectively halved and since then, it’s been further chipped away at by Canon.

This doesn’t necessarily mean Canon or Nikon were eating into Sony sales at the beginning when the two first entered the market, as you can see unit volume also rose when Canon and Nikon introduced their mirrorless cameras, but now that sales have more or less returned to their pre-pandemic volume and Sony is further dropping in market share, it is possible we’re starting to see Canon starting to pull away some of Sony’s customers a bit.

Canon EOS RP (left), Nikon Z5 (right).

What should be interesting to see is whether Nikon’s new Z6 II and Z7 II take more market share from Canon or Sony or is simply converting more DSLR users and therefore adding to the sales volume rather than taking from elsewhere in the full-frame MILC market. In the past, it seems Canon’s numbers are more affected by the rise and fall of Nikon’s market share, whereas Sony’s are more affected by the rise and fall of Canon’s market share, but even with the charts, it’s difficult to get the full picture without knowing the precise number of units being sold and the price at which they’re selling for—two numbers that prove challenging to extrapolate from BCN Retail’s numbers or even CIPA.

BCN Retail also notes that full-frame sales have hit 10.7% of the overall interchangeable lens camera (ILC) market, marking the first time it’s been in double-digits. Revenue from full-frame MILC, as a percentage of the overall ILC market, also saw a dramatic jump to 25%. These are both the highest-ever numbers for the full-frame market, but BCN Retail does note this is because the average cost of a full-frame MILC tends to be 2.3x as much as a crop sensor ILC —¥230,000 (~$ 2,200) to ¥100,000 ($ 955), respectively.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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Adobe shows off prototype version of its Content Authenticity tool and ecosystem

21 Oct

In addition to its Lightroom and Photoshop updates, adobe has also revealed a prototype of its Content Authenticity Prototype, a key new tool that will play a key role in Adobe’s Content Authenticity Initiative first unveiled a year ago at Adobe MAX 2019.

A screenshot from the video showing the ‘Content Credentials’ toolset in the beta version of Adobe Photoshop.

As the above video demonstrates, the new opt-in tool provides a way for photojournalists, artists and other creatives to cyptographically sign and embed editing and attribution information to images that have been adjusted or altered in Photoshop (and presumably other Adobe programs). Creators can choose to include as little or as much data as they would like and export that information with the image(s).

A screenshot from the header video showing what information will be embedded with the edited image upon export from Photoshop.

When the image(s) are uploaded to websites with CAI compatibility, viewers will be able to see exactly who captured the image, what edits were made, what assets were used and more. Adobe is even launching a dedicated site (verify.contentauthenticity.org) that will serve as an original database of sorts to see every detail of every change made and asset used.

The verify.contentauthenticity.org website will break down the signed metadata for each asset used.

Currently, the prototype will only be available to a select group of beta testers. Eventually, we can expect the tool to roll out to the masses, but even then, adoption will come to be the greatest barrier to Adobe’s efforts to keep authenticity at the forefront of digital content creation.

Adobe says it’s working with ‘The New York Times Company, Twitter, Inc., Microsoft, BBC, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc., Truepic, WITNESS, CBC and many others,’ but it’s honest about what it will take to get the masses to adopt such attribution technology as the norm:

‘We believe attribution will create a virtuous cycle. The more creators distribute content with proper attribution, the more consumers will expect and use that information to make judgement calls, thus minimizing the influence of bad actors and deceptive content. Ultimately, a holistic solution that includes attribution, detection and education to provide a common and shared understanding of objective facts is essential to help us make more thoughtful decisions when consuming media. Today is a huge leap forward for the CAI, but this is just the beginning.’

While the companies Adobe is already working with are certainly leaders in their respective spheres, there are plenty of other agencies and organizations that will need to hop onboard the CAI train to truly make this a ubiquitous standard that’s the rule instead of the exception. Media empire Gannett, for example, would be a great opportunity, as the company owns over 90 daily newspapers, nearly 1,000 weekly newspapers and almost two dozen television stations. Getty, AP and others are obvious candidates as well.

You can keep up with the latest CAI developments on the Adobe Blog and the Content Authenticity website.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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Skylum shows off new water reflections in Luminar AI’s Sky AI feature

17 Oct
Image credit: Iurie Belegurschi

Last year, Skylum Software added a new feature to Luminar, AI Sky Replacement. The fully automatic feature, powered by artificial intelligence, can almost instantly replace the sky in an image and relight the overall scene. Next year in Luminar AI, Skylum is taking the feature even further with its new Sky AI tool. Sky AI will add a much-requested feature, water reflections.

Skylum has published a new blog post and video, seen further below, showing off how water reflection will work in 2021 when it is added to Luminar AI, which is scheduled to release this year. As is the case with AI Sky Replacement, Sky AI and its water reflections feature will be fully automated.

Sky AI 1.0 (left) versus Sky AI 2.0 (right). Sky AI 2.0 includes the new water reflections functionality. Image credit: Elia Locardi

With Sky AI, when the software detects water in your scene and you replace the sky, Luminar AI will ensure that the new sky is accurately reflected in the water. As Skylum writes, ‘That means no more duplicating your scene, flipping it and applying a bunch of masking to make it look realistic.’ The reflected sky will also adapt on the fly to your selected relight settings and be ‘blurred into the scene without any manual work from you.’

Further, any details in the water in your scene, such as waterbirds, will stay in your scene and not be overwritten by the reflected sky. Sky AI recognizes the objects in your image and works to preserve fine details in a scene. You can check out the upcoming feature in the preview video below.

As you can see in the video above, Sky AI has a similar selection of sliders to what’s currently available in Luminar 4’s AI Sky Replacement tool. However, Skylum has added Water Reflection and Water Ripples sliders. You can control the intensity of the reflection and even add user-adjustable ripples to the reflection by using these new sliders.

Image credit: Daniel Kordan

In addition to the new water reflection capabilities of Sky AI, Skylum is also adding the ability to browse through your library of skies in a thumbnail viewer in 2021. The browser will show you a preview of each sky, whereas in Luminar 4, you have a list of the names of different skies, but no visual preview.

Sky AI is one of many exciting new features coming to Luminar AI. You can discover more about Skylum’s Luminar AI and view preorder options by clicking here.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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Vivo shows off award-winning concept smartphone with removable pop-up camera

15 Oct

As the comments under yesterday’s iPhone 12 articles can attest to, there are still consumers who don’t appreciate seeing a notch at the top of their mobile devices. To rid the world of large notches, some companies have shrunk the front-facing to the size of a ‘hole punch’ design; others have managed to hide it almost entirely beneath the display. But electronics manufacturer Vivo is determined to take an entirely different approach, if its new Red Dot Award-winning IFEA concept smartphone is anything to go by.

Based on the renderings provided by Vivo, this concept smartphone would feature not only a pop-up camera — something other manufacturers have already done — but one that can be removed and used independently of the phone. Again, this is a concept phone, so it’s very possible we’ll never see a real-world device with this camera setup, but even at the concept stage, it doesn’t take much to see how poorly such a design could turn out, despite the obvious benefits.

Such a design would not only clear the main screen from any notches or holes, but also make it possible to hold or mount the camera array in any direction. This would mean you could always use the higher-res camera modules within the array and also open up the possibility of using your phone’s screen as a live view display when taking photos. There’s also the possibility you could attach the camera array to additional accessories, such as flash modules, battery packs or even wearable accessories, not unlike the dozens of GoPro mounts you can purchase.

Of course, all of that becomes irrelevant and incredibly expensive if you manage to lose the detachable camera array — something that seems all too likely given the size of of the array shown in the mockups.

The renderings also show off a triple-camera array on the back of the smartphone, with specs suggesting there could be a 64MP camera module with a 15mm-26mm focal length range.

Only time will tell whether or not we see an actual device from Vivo that uses this technology, but for now it’s a concept and little more.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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Skylum shows how new Templates feature in upcoming Luminar AI update can save you time

01 Oct

Ahead of Luminar AI’s release this holiday season, Skylum Software has shared additional information about how Templates will work in the upcoming all-in-one photo editing software and how Templates can be used to save photographers a lot of time and energy when processing many images.

In many traditional photo editors, users must adjust different sliders to get the desired results when processing images. There are often available presets, which will speed up the editing process, but presets have limitations, and photographers are often left feeling like their creativity has been removed from the editing process. Ideally, many of us want to save time without sacrificing creative control. Skylum believes that Luminar AI’s Templates will remove the frustration and overcome the limitations of presets in other photo editors.

Photo credit: Elia Locardi

The artificial intelligence in Luminar AI has been integrated throughout the entire editing process and has been trained with ‘expert input from artists, photographers, colorists and scientists.’ Alex Tsepko, Skylum’s CEO, says, ‘With Luminar AI, we wanted to ensure that AI not only was easy to use, but that it also provided creatives a way to express themselves. Through our unique 3D depth-mapping and segmentation technologies, we’re able to recognize the contents of a photo, recommended edits and then allow creatives to refine every aspect of that recommendation. Doing this lets creatives retain their unique style in their edits without tedious, manual work. Professional results, but in a fraction of the time.’

Artificial intelligence starts operating as soon as you open an image in Luminar AI. The software identifies the contents of an image, analyzes potential problem spots, and evaluates the depth of the image. Luminar AI then offers a list of carefully selected Templates for users to select from.

Users can test out different Templates and see how they impact their image. Skylum states that a preview is created in less than a second. When you evaluate a specific Template you can even see which AI tools were utilized in the Template. For beginners, it should prove useful to see which tools are used to create different images and how each tool changes the look and feel of a photo.

Photo credit: Javier Pardina

Templates will offer novices a variety of ideas to help choose the direction they want to take an image. For advanced photographers with more editing experience, they can choose when and how they want more advanced manual control over their image edits. They can pick and choose which AI tools they want to utilize and then create their own templates for future use on single images or when batch editing. Skylum states that utilizing templates will allow photographers to save ‘up to 90% of their time spent editing.’

You can learn more about Luminar AI here. For a list of Frequently Asked Questions about Luminar AI, click here. Luminar AI is available for preorder at a special price, which you can learn more about here. As the release of Luminar AI approaches this holiday, stay tuned for more information, including a planned hands-on preview ahead of the full public release of Luminar AI.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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