360Photography

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  • Sony Kumamoto sensor factory earthquake: first public footage

    Sony Kumamoto sensor factory: first public footage of the 2016 earthquake

    On April 16, 2016, disaster struck in Kumamoto in the Kyushu region of Japan. A series of earthquakes, including an unprecedented 7.0 mainshock struck beneath Kumamoto City where Sony’s sensor factory resides. The factory itself was a mere 20 kilometers from the earthquake’s epicenter. A foreshock (warning) of magnitude 6.2 came approximately two days earlier, which gave the factory time to evacuate; however, the damage to the carefully built, precision controlled and automated factory with clean rooms was devastating. Not to mention the impact on the lives of those in the region…

    During a recent trip to the repaired Kumamoto factory, DPReview was afforded an inside look at the facility and a chance to meet the very people that keep one of the world’s largest sources of imaging sensors operational. We watched a video that showed the extent of the damages and repair efforts. Combined with a better of understanding of how the facility operates, we were able to appreciate just how extensive the destruction and repair processes were. We’ll get to that in the following slides, but have a look above at the public’s first look of footage from the facility during the earthquake, and the massive repair efforts that followed.

    Massive impact

    Before we dive more into the impact on Sony’s sensor factory itself, we’d be remiss to not mention the impact on the region. The foreshock and mainshock together claimed more than 50 lives, injured 3,000 others, forced more than 44,000 people to evacuate from their homes and left over 180,000 people seeking shelter in the days after the earthquake. The entire city of Kumamoto was left without water, flights were grounded, as was rail service due to a derailed train. A thousand buildings had been seriously damaged either directly by the earthquake or due to the resulting fires and landslides, and an entire hospital had to be evacuated due to the building being knocked off its foundation.

    More than 140 aftershocks were registered within just two days. The estimated economic costs due to the earthquake are estimated to be up to $ 7.5 billion USD. Although you can’t quite appreciate it in this image, the sensor factory is surrounded by mountainous hills resulting from a tectonic line housing many active faults. Earthquakes of some magnitude or another are common to the area. In the following days we’ll have more pictures of the area, as we traveled extensively within the Kyushu region.

    Source of statistics: Wikipedia

    ‘The outside was visible from inside the clean-room’

    Many sections of the 40,000 square meter facility were severely damaged. There were continued aftershocks for many days that made it difficult to even re-enter and start repairs. In fact, the region is used to After it was deemed safe to enter, the damage was assessed. It was extensive. Heavy duty H-beams for structural support buckled, causing walls and ceilings to collapse. Here is an image showing the ceiling of the clean room ripped open, exposing the sky above. ‘Now we were speechless’ said the camera crew filming the damage.

    And those ceilings aren’t your typical roofs over your head: they house tracks that carry many of the parts from machine to machine in the automated processes of taking a silicon wafer and generating active sensors from them. Essentially, many parts of the sensor development process were disrupted.

    Delicate, precision machinery: shattered

    The extensive damage to the clean room meant that many of the machines automatically processing silicon wafers to generate sensors* were destroyed, including the many wafers each machine contained. Throughout the video you’ll see shattered silicon – at various stages of the silicon-to-sensor process – scattered everywhere. Ultimately many functional machines were salvaged, removed, and brought back after the clean room was reconstructed, but many were deemed too damaged to ever function again.

    * Stay tuned for an in-depth look at the actual sensor manufacturing process, which we learned about during a recent trip to the factory.

    All hands on deck

    The sensor factory in Kumamoto produces most sensors Sony manufactures not just for their own cameras, but for other manufacturers as well, including those in the smartphone, security camera, webcam, automotive, medical and other imaging-related industries. The disruption of this facility had no small impact: consider that by July 2017, Sony has sold 7.2 billion sensors worldwide.

    Therefore, it was imperative to restore operations to normal as soon as possible. And that’s why Sony factory members themselves, including executive ones, went to work right away restoring the factory. There are nearly 2700 employees at this factor, and it was all hands on deck.

    A spirit of personal responsibility and dedication

    Imagine an earthquake at your corporate office that ruined much of your workspace. Would you expect to return to clean up and help repair the damage yourself? That’s what the Kumamoto employees did. The spirit is really remarkable when you stop to consider that most of us here in the States would expect our companies to simply ‘deal with it’. Here is a factory employee vacuuming up thousands of fragments of broken silicon wafers.

    Operations resumed ahead of schedule

    The factories worked with such diligence and dedication that they restored operations ahead of schedule. They did this whilst putting in place precautions that would lower the lead time from 3.5 months to 2 months were this sort of disaster to happen in the future. These measures included stronger piping as well as the engineering of self-stop systems that halt precision processes when shake is detected. These systems respond in particular to P-waves, the first of two major elastic seismic waves to arrive at a seismograph during an earthquake.

    A human story of courage, dedication and ultimate success

    And so the story ends on a happy note. Here is an image of the team of employees that worked countless hours to restore the Kumamoto facility to normal operations. We can only imagine the dedication involved, and how heartening it was to work together to bring back to life such an important part of the company. It’s a story of not just company dedication and culture, but a human one of working together to achieve an honorable goal.

    We were obviously touched watching the video and seeing the spirit of the employees. Were you? Let us know in the comments below.

    Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

  • Canon EOS 80D to EOS 6D Mark II: in the light of the review, should I upgrade?

    Is it worth upgrading my EOS 80D to the EOS 6D Mark II?

    We already had a simple look at how good an upgrade the EOS 6D II makes for 80D owners, based on our early impressions of the camera. Now we’ve had a chance to spend more time with it (and to go back and shoot with the 80D again), we thought we’d look at the differences and benefits in more detail.

    We’re going to try not to make too many assumptions about what you shoot with your 80D and what you value in a camera, beyond assuming that you kinda like your current camera, that you enjoy using a camera that works broadly as well in live view mode as it does through the viewfinder and that you’d like something fairly similar but, you know, better. Will the 6D II do that for you?

    Image quality improvements

    The 6D II’s larger sensor means it receives more total light than the 80D, when shot with the same exposure settings (the same light per unit area, but with more capture area). This generally means the 6D II will offer better image quality than the 80D. As much as anything else, this tends to be what prompts most people to move to larger sensor formats.

    However, you don’t get the full advantage that you’d get if the 6D II simply used a scaled-up version of the 80D’s sensor, so how much of a step up does the 6D end up being?

    The sensor size difference means you can get shallower depth-of-field more readily than you could on the 80D. Indeed, shoot the same scene from the same position and at the same f-number and you’ll get shallower depth of field. For certain types of photos, shallow depth of field is interpreted as better.

    The 6D II’s larger sensor also means you get better performance in low light. If you regularly shoot above about ISO 1600, the 6D II will give you an immediate improvement in image quality, simply because it gets more light.

    Image quality concerns

    The more sophisticated design of the 80D’s sensor means it adds less noise to its images than its big brother. This means that, at low ISO settings, the 80D will produce more flexible Raw files, that make it easier to represent the detail in high-contrast scenes, before you hit the noise floor. If you’ve become used to exploiting the 80D’s pretty impressive dynamic range, it may be a bit of a shock to find you end up with more prominent noise if you try to manipulate an image shot in high-DR circumstances, such as sunsets or backlit subjects.

    That said, we’re aware that a great many people primarily shoot JPEG. Since the differences in performance between the two cameras’ sensors tends to occur in very dark tones within the image, so may well be either too dark to perceive or clipped entirely to black if you’re only looking at JPEG images. Even engaging Auto Lighting Optimizer or Highlight Tone Priority – the camera’s two DR compression modes that risk pulling noise into the image – isn’t a problem (though it’s interesting you can’t use the two in conjunction). However, you don’t get the noise improvement at low ISO you might reasonably expect from the move to full-frame.

    Viewfinder differences

    The 6D II has a viewfinder with 98% coverage and 0.71x magnification, while the 80D has 100% coverage and 0.94x magnification. Yet that’s not the clear win to the 80D that it might seem.

    Since both magnification figures are measured using a 50mm lens, the 80D’s figure benefits from its 1.6x crop factor. Compare them on a normalized basis and the 6D II’s 0.71x magnification looks pretty good compared with 0.59x. And, sure enough, in use the 6D II’s viewfinder is appreciably bigger. It’s one of the benefits that a full frame DSLR offers over a cropped sensor that is often overlooked, especially by anyone too young to have regularly shot film and become accustomed to a large finder. It’s lovely to shoot through a nice, big viewfinder and the 6D II’s is a significant step up from the 80D’s.

    It’s not all good news, though. The 80D’s 100% finder means its easier to construct precise compositions. Knowing exactly where the corners are is hugely valuable for ensuring lead-in lines run directly from the corner of the frame, for instance (the 6D II’s 98% coverage should be enough that you don’t have to worry too much about stray objects intruding in your shots).

    Autofocus

    The camera uses essentially the same AF module as the 80D. This means the spread of AF points is considerably less extensive on the larger camera. This means that, unlike the 80D, you don’t get AF points on the ‘thirds’ lines of your image: the outer columns of points reach a little beyond the thirds horizontally, but they don’t quite reach the vertical thirds lines. This isn’t an unworkable situation, of course: the parallax error of focus-and-recompose isn’t going to be significant over such a small distance, but it’ll take some getting used to, after the 80D’s wider spread.

    In terms of autofocus performance, we doubt you’ll notice any great difference. Both cameras performed fairly similarly in our testing. The EOS 6D II isn’t terrible at tracking a subject but it’s not great, either. If you’ve found settings or a way of working that suits the kind of shooting you like to do, you can carry this over to the 6D II.

    Like the 80D, the 6D II’s tracking in live view mode is pretty good, especially if you’re shooting single images at a time. It’s in continuous (servo) mode that the performance drops significantly compared with the 80D, in terms of accuracy (in Continuous H mode) or a much slower frame rate (in Continuous L). So not really an upgrade, but broadly consistent with the system you’ve already learned and adapted to.

    Difference in features

    The EOS 6D II has Canon’s latest, Digic 7 processor, but the differences between this and the older chip used in the 80D are subtle. There don’t appear to be any additional functions associated with the newer processor but Canon has talked about using the additional processing power to run more sophisticated algorithms that prevent the camera’s AF tracking from being distracted by other potential targets.

    Another underlying hardware difference is in the two camera’s Wi-Fi connectivity. The 80D has a fairly conventional Wi-Fi setup, with the option to use NFC to speed-up pairing to your smartphone, if its manufacturer allows such frivolity. The updated implementation in the 6D II is a step forward, in that it allows a constant Bluetooth connection to be maintained between your phone and the camera. Again, the degree to which this simplifies life depends at least in part on what brand of phone you’re using, but it does make image transfer very straightforward.

    The EOS 6D II also offers GPS, which the 80D doesn’t. This may not sound like something you’ll need but, even if you’re not an especially frequent traveler but, if you switch it on, it means every one of your images gains a useful additional piece of metadata that can be valuable in terms of organizing and retrieving your files, after you’ve shot them. Battery life does take a hit when using the GPS, however.

    Other feature aspects

    While the similarity of body shape and button layouts make it clear they’re aimed at similar photographers, there are a few differences that reflect the 80D’s position higher up the APS-C lineup than the 6D II’s position, relative to Canon’s other full-frame options.

    The 80D gets a shutter mechanism that can fire as fast as 1/8000th of a second and can sync with flashes as fast as 1/250th of a second. With a larger distance to travel and perhaps some money being saved, the 6D II can only shoot at up to 1/4000th of a second and flash sync at 1/180th. These may sound like small differences but you may well notice them if you use fill flash or wide aperture lenses outdoors.

    Other differences include the 80D having a headphone socket for audio monitoring during video shooting: something 6D II users will have to live without. It’s not quite clear why Canon chose not to include it or the less-compressed ‘All-I’ video option, both of which might be a frustration if you’ve been enjoying the 80D’s easy-to-shoot video.

    But what about lenses?

    The usefulness of lenses, vs simple compatibility is a subject I can be something of a stuck record about, but I do believe it’s something worth thinking about very hard before you upgrade. Don’t think about how many of your existing lenses will be usable, think about how many of them will perform roles that you actually need. At least take stock of how committed you really are to a system before concluding that you can only look within your current system.

    Before I started at DPReview, I owned an APS-C DSLR, a mid-level kit zoom, a 50mm F1.8, and a third-party 70-200mm F2.8 (bought secondhand from a DPR forum member). How committed to ‘my’ brand was I?

    The kit zoom is a write-off straight away, so I may as well try to sell that along with my old APS-C body. Having got used to using it as a 75mm equiv lens, do I suddenly need the 50mm field-of-view? Maybe, but it’s a cheap-enough lens that it’s not a deciding factor. The 70-200mm F2.8 was secondhand anyway, so I can probably recoup much of what I’ve paid for it if I sold it.

    If it’d come down to it, it was a couple of spare batteries and the time I’d spent learning the quirks of my camera’s interface and behavior that was really holding me to that brand, not my ‘investment’ in lenses.

    Should I upgrade?

    Ultimately, that’s something only you can decide, we’re just trying to lay out what we see as the key factors you might want to consider.

    We should be clear: the EOD 6D II isn’t a bad camera. In many respects, it’s a perfectly good one: certainly one that’s pretty enjoyable to shoot with. Although Dual Pixel AF really shines when shooting video, it’s still useful for stills shooters, providing what’s still the best and most usable live view experience of any of the DSLR makers.

    If you enjoy your 80D, then you’ll probably like the 6D II for many of the same reasons (with the added bonus of more control over depth of field, better low light image quality and a bigger viewfinder).

    The only real reason we’ve devoted so much space to addressing the question is because, with the 6D II, Canon has made the decision slightly less clear-cut than it’d normally be. You don’t get a significant improvement in AF performance, nor do you get the all-round improvement in image quality that the cost of moving to full-frame usually brings. But there certainly are advantages, and ones that you might find beneficial.

    If you’re and 80D owner who’s decided to move to the 6D II or have decided not to, let us know what swung the decision for you.

    Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

  • Island paradise: A travel photographer’s guide to Tahiti

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    Summer probably isn’t the time of year when we’re all dreaming of getting away to an island paradise to sip colorful drinks on the beach by day and take photos by golden hour… that yearning is gonna hit hard around January. But last August travel photographer and Resource Travel editor Michael Bonocore escaped to the island of Tahiti in French Polynesia for a solid month of shooting and really cool adventures.

    As he told us over email: “Sharks, Kelly Slater… you name it, we had it.”

    Now a full year later, he’s finally finished pulling out his favorite photos from the experience and putting together a travel photographer’s guide to this dream destination. So check out some of the photos up top, and if you like what you see, visit Resource Travel for a lot more photos and some travel tips for your next trip to Tahiti.

    Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go check my account balance for plane ticket money…

    Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

  • Nikon KeyMission 360 records itself getting chewed on by a tiger

    It looks like this tiger was about as frustrated with the Nikon KeyMission 360 as we were when we reviewed it. Obviously frustrated after missing golden hour because she couldn’t get the camera connected to her Android phone, she just gave up and chewed the crap out of it…

    Joking aside, Russell Edwards of RSE Photography captured this strange video when the Nikon KeyMission 360 he put just inside the sumatran tigers’ enclosure caught the attention of a curious female. But if the fact that the tiger chewed on the camera doesn’t really amaze you, the fact that the camera survived largely undamaged should.

    “To my amazement the kit survived apart from the “lookalike” joby gorilla pod that the tiger treated like it’s doomed prays bones, with literally only a few noticeable tiger teeth marks on the km360,” writes Edwards on YouTube. “The tiger was A-okay and the km360 still works as it should. So if any one is interested in how tough that action cam is, well check out the footage for yourself.”

    To see a few pictures of the mostly-undamaged KeyMission 360, head over to Nikon Rumors.

    Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

  • Photo of the week: Shooting portraits of the Himba people in Namibia

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    My photography heroes are Steve McCurry, Sebastiao Salgado, Jimmy Nelson and Joey L for his work in Africa, India and Syria. Their work has always inspired me, being at once raw and gritty, and at the same time revealing a bullet-proof dignity in their subjects. I would love to be able to work in this space myself.

    I understand that it’s a different era now and that grabbing a job at National Geographic is not a realistic option. I also know that no one is coming to knock on my door to hire me for this sort of work just because I would love to do it. There are no favours in this industry. If I ever manage to make this sort of work my full time job it will be because I have already proved that I could produce quality imagery in this area.

    So I recently packed my bags and gear and headed to a country which has always held a special interest for me: Namibia. I went to the tribal homelands of the Himba people and organized through a local guide to head into one of the villages for golden hour, for two evenings in a row, to shoot portraits with them.

    On the first evening I went in I found this lovely little girl sitting with her Grandmother. She was shy and watching me as I shot with some of her family, and every time I looked over she hid her face and giggled. After a few minutes though her grandmother called me over and wanted me to take a shot of the two of them together, and after a couple of minutes the little girl opened up and I managed to grab these two shots. For obvious reasons, I try to share them as a pair whenever possible.

    I used my trusty Canon 5DmkII and shot with the Sigma 50mm F1.4 lens, which I love for its crisp image. The settings were ISO200 and F2 at 1/100. I was handholding the camera, and the images are both naturally lit with a white reflector to fill.

    If you’d like to see a behind the scenes video of this trip check it out here.

    Sean Tucker is a professional filmmaker and photographer who is constantly striving to bring his own spark and eye to every project. You can find more of his work by visiting his website, subscribing to his channel on YouTube, or following him on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

    Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

  • Worth the Weight: Ultralight backpacking photography with the Olympus PEN-F

    Mount Rainier from Grand Park ISO 200 | 21mm | F3.5 | 1/80th

    One of the things that I love the most about my Olympus PEN-F camera is its chameleon-like nature. One minute it can be a tourist snapshot camera, the next a rugged backwoods professional shooting rig. Once I was even chastised for ‘still shooting film’ by a millennial.

    This past summer I decided to take my PEN-F with me on my annual ultra-light hike to Mt. Rainier National Park. Those of you familiar with the concept of ultra-light hiking will immediately notice the irony of my statement. Ultra-light hiking requires that only essential items are included in one’s pack. Adding over two and a half pounds of photo gear doesn’t really fit the motif.

    The Set Up

    I have hiked with cameras for decades, but I have never really been satisfied with my set up.

    Simple neck straps—no matter how wide—are out because of the interference with pack straps, croakies, and now hydration systems. Kuban-hitches are just too much mental origami to deal with. Similarly, hip slings can’t be used because they inevitably overlap with the main hip belt of the pack rendering them inaccessible.

    It was a bit of a difficult challenge, but I was able to locate a great belt strap clip that was both strong enough securely hold my PEN-F and also small enough to fit on the limited space exposed on the hip belt of my Osprey Aether 60 AG pack. This was the key component of my set up. (IMZ’s DSLR Camera Hanger Belt Clip / 3 oz.)

    In addition to the belt clip, I wanted much more gripping security on the camera body itself, so I added a couple elements there.

    First was a fingertip grip by Haoge that both gives the body some more heft as well as adding some good security to the three dimensional grip and finger purchase of the body (Haoge HG-PENF QR quick release plate camera bracket holder hand grip for Olympus Pen-F / 4 oz.).

    I am fairly pleased with this grip, but I’m still searching for one with even more positive fingertip connections. For one-handed, damp, unstable shooting situations, I love the feel of the PEN-F with this grip on it. Solid.

    K Spire from Elysian Fields Camp, Mt. Rainier ISO 200 | 32mm | -0.3 EV | F10 | 1/800th

    The other item I added was a wrist strap (Prost Leather Hand Strap / 2 oz.). Here I only minimally succeeded with my choice (not that I could find a better one). I wanted the ability to slip my hand into a strap that would keep the camera very close to the palm even if my grip was relaxed.

    Such a strap would have to go from the eyelet on the camera body near the shutter release to a spot on the base near the tripod mounting port. The best I could do was a strap that simply ran down the side of the camera from the eyelet to the base. It provided some security, but not everything I was looking for.

    It did, however, provide a nice bit of padding for the camera that paid off in some tight squeezes between rocks and downed trees.

    Shooting Process

    The wonderful thing about the clip is that the camera attaches to the harness with a ball shaped brass connector. This allows the camera to hang easily below the hip belt of the pack with the lens following the natural crease in my hip. Even in steep climbing the camera was both out of the way and completely accessible to me.

    There were so many times when I was winded enough that if I had had to futz with a case or a Kuban-hitch I would have simply skipped the shot. Because I am a bit worrisome about my gear, I always clicked the locking pin into position when the camera was seated in the clip. This meant that releasing the camera was always a 2-handed process. The throat on the clip is deep enough that I believe there are many instances where the locking pin could be dismissed without any downside, but I kept it locked on.

    Descending from Spray Park, Mt. Rainier ISO 200 | 12mm | F6.3 | 1/320th

    In this configuration, the camera did not swing freely (desirable). It did pivot evenly against my hip and while I thought that this pivoting might create some abrasion or wear on the camera body of lens barrel, there are no visible battle scars on the camera from this adventure. Also, I shot entirely with the eyepiece, leaving the LCD screen folded away for protection against scratches and trail dust.

    I took only one lens with me, the Olympus M. Zuiko Pro 12-40 f 1:2.8 zoom (17 oz.). For both protection and effect I had 2 filters on the lens at all times: a simple Rokinon UV filter and also an Altura omni-directional polarizing filter. I nearly always shot in Program mode, frequently with one to two thirds of an f-stop of decreased exposure in order to compensate for the dark foregrounds which had a tendency to washout the scenic backgrounds.

    Early sun enters Ohanapecosh Valley ISO 200 | 38mm | -0.3 EV | F5.6 | 1/320th

    Across the period of 7 days of hiking I shot 440 images onto a 32GB SanDisk Ultra card with tons of room to spare. While I had 2 back-up batteries at the ready, the battery that I started with lasted for the entire journey.

    For those of you familiar with the Pacific Northwest and specifically Mt. Rainier, our trip started at Mowich Lake and ended at Steven’s Creek (Grove of the Patriarchs) with camps at Spray Park, Lake James, Grand Park, Frying Pan Creek, Summerland, and Ohanapecosh.

    Ghost Fir, Ohanapecosh, Mt. Rainier ISO 200 | 12mm | F5.6 | 1/200th

    I did have two mishaps with my clip, both user error but worth noting. First was on a training hike (and gear check). The small brass clip knob that attaches to the tripod mount worked its way all the way out and dropped the camera, luckily onto soft dirt and bushes. That camera drop nearly stopped my heart. For the long trip I made sure it was much more tightly attached and checked it regularly.

    Second, while on the Rainier trip, there was a time when the right side of the clip itself worked free from the hip strap. This is possible and resulted in a dangle rather than a drop. Making sure the straps were in the correct position, unfolded, and flat against the other straps became part of my routine.

    I love the process of shooting considered photographs. I am generally pleased with the results. And even though it added an additional 2.8 pounds to my total carry (that’s 6%!) it was totally worth the weight.

    Mount Rainier from upper Spray Park ISO 200 | 12mm | F5.6 | 1/250th

    Specifications:

    • Lens: 1 lb, 1 oz.
    • Strap: 2 oz.
    • Grip: 4 oz.
    • Camera Body: 1 lb.
    • 2 extra batteries: 3 oz. (unused) Belt clip: 3 oz.

    Total Weight: 2 lbs, 13 oz.

    Ben Bauermeister has been an amateur photographer his entire life and is currently also a social impact entrepreneur living in the small Puget Sound town of Port Townsend where he enjoys cycling, hiking, kayaking, as well as unnatural acts of community stewardship. His community mentoring website can be found at www.skillmation.org, or you can follow him on Instagram @bbauerm.

    Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

  • Xiaomi Mi Max 2 quick review

    The Mi Max 2 is the latest incarnation of Chinese manufacturer Xiaomi’s large-format ‘phablet.’ It combines a very large 6.44″ Full-HD screen that allows for split-screen applications with Qualcomm’s upper mid-range chipset Snapdragon 625, 4GB of RAM and storage options up to 128GB. At 174 x 89mm the Mi Max 2 is definitely not small but, apart from the large display, the dimensions also allow for the use of a gigantic 5300 mAh battery that, according to Xiaomi, gives you 57 hours of call-time and also supports quick-charging via a USB Type-C port.

    In the camera department the Mi Max 2 offers a 1/2.9″ Sony IMX 386 12MP image sensor that is coupled with a F2.2 aperture and on-sensor phase detection AF. In video mode you can shoot footage in 4K resolution or 120 fps slow-motion clips in 720p. All components are wrapped up in a sleek-looking full-metal unibody with a fingerprint reader on the back.

    Thanks to Gearbest.com, a retailer shipping Xiaomi devices worldwide, we’ve had the chance to try the Mi Max 2 and its camera, shoot a wide range of samples and see how it generally performs as a device for mobile photography.

    Key specifications:

    • 1/2.9″ Sony IMX 386 12MP image sensor, 1.25 µm pixel size
    • F2.2 aperture
    • PDAF
    • Dual-LED flash
    • 5MP / F2.0 front camera
    • 4K video, 720p/120 fps slow-motion
    • 6.44″ 1080p IPS LCD display
    • Android 7.1.1
    • Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 chipset
    • 4GB RAM
    • 64/128 GB storage, microSD support
    • 5300 mAh battery
    • Fingerprint sensor

    Camera app

    The camera app features a manual mode but no DNG Raw file format.

    The camera app has been kept simple, with point-and-shoot operation in mind. Focus point and exposure can be set by tapping on the preview image and a mode screen offers a number of special options, including panorama, beautify and manual mode. The latter offers manual shutter speeds of up to 32 seconds but unfortunately capture in DNG Raw format is not part of the package.

    The mode screen also gives you access to the settings menu where you can activate tap-to-capture, change contrast, saturation and sharpness or display grid lines in the preview image. A few effect filters are on board as well, and overall the app is simple to use and intuitive.

    Image Quality

    In bright light the Mi Max 2 camera captures contrasty images with punchy colors and does a good job at keeping highlight clipping at bay. During our testing we had a few exposures that were a touch brighter than we’d like, but overall the exposure system does a decent job and white balance is fairly neutral as well.

    Detail is decent for this class of device but at a 100% view some oversharpening artifacts are visible and low-contrast areas can show some compression. The sharpness of the lens of our test unit is good, with just some minor softness towards the edges. Overall, in terms of image detail and noise, the Xiaomi cannot keep up with high-end smartphones but does a good job in bright light for a mid-ranger.

    ISO 124, 1/806 sec

    Skin tones tend to be pleasantly neutral and face detection ensures good subject exposure in most situations.

    ISO 125, 1/121 sec

    By default HDR is set to auto and in many bright scenes the camera makes use of the function. As a result, highlights are well preserved in bright elements of the scene.

    ISO 125, 1/502 sec, HDR

    Using the tap-to-focus function allows you to set focus and exposure point manually. This can help a lot when taking close-up images like the sample below where the flower was more extremely overexposed when shooting in standard mode.

    ISO 125, 1/1328 sec

    While detail is good, luminance noise is clearly visible in areas of plain color, such as the blue sky below. On some high-contrast edges you can also see a halo-effect, which is a sign of oversharpening.

    ISO 100, 1/1881 sec

    In lower light the Mi Max uses ISO settings up to 6400 and at very low light levels applies a multi-frame night mode. The ISO 320 shot below was taken indoors. Compared to the bright light shots above fine detail is noticeably reduced and luminance noise becomes quite intrusive. In the shadow areas some blurred chroma noise is creeping in as well.

    ISO 320, 1/50 sec

    The ISO 640 shot below was captured in a fairly dimly lit interior. When viewing at a 100% magnification blurred noise is very noticeable but the Xiaomi camera maintains decent edge definition and color in these conditions.

    ISO 640, 1/33 sec

    For the indoor portrait below the camera activated its low light mode which results in very soft detail. The white balance system also struggles with the mixed light temperatures inside this restaurant. The image is usable at typical social-media size but arguably not suitable for printing or viewing on larger displays.

    In these conditions face detection also has trouble locking on and the difference between the Xiaomi and top-end smartphone cameras, such as the Google Pixel or HTC U11 is much more obvious than in bright light.

    ISO 2000, 1/17 sec

    The image below was taken in very low light and is quite soft and noisy. However, it’s a positive that the Mi Max is capable of capturing a decent exposure at such low light levels.

    ISO 6400, 1/17 sec

    HDR mode

    As mentioned above, HDR mode is set to auto by default. As you can see in the samples below it is definitely not a bad a idea to leave this setting as it is. In high-contrast scenes HDR mode is capable of capturing noticeably better highlight detail then standard mode. Still, the HDR looks quite natural and not overprocessed.

    ISO 125, 1/602 sec, HDR off
    ISO 125, 1/602 sec, HDR on

    Panorama mode

    On the Mi Max 2 camera panoramic images are captured while holding the phone in portrait orientation. You can record an angle of up to 180 degrees but stop any time by hitting the shutter button.

    Exposure is biased towards the first frame which can result in some underexposure like in the first sample below. Under closer inspection you’ll also find some stitching errors but the panorama mode deals very well with moving subjects in the scene and overall does a decent job.

    Panorama, 7552 x 3712 pixels
    Panorama, 13148 x 3648 pixels

    Video

    The 1080p video below shows a similar color and tonal response to the still images. Detail is only average, but the video mode’s main problem is a tendency to continuously refocus when panning, making most clips virtually unusable. This is something that needs fixing via a firmware update ASAP, otherwise the Mi Max 2 is simply not suitable for video recording.

    At 120 frames per second the slow-motion mode can slow motion down nicely and the 720p resolution still offers enough detail for the occasional slow-motion scene. Unfortunately the mode suffers from the same refocusing issues as the standard video mode, but AF is more stable when holding the camera still.

    Conclusion

    The Mi Max 2 camera can produce good images in bright light and is capable of capturing good exposures and color even in very dim conditions. However, pixel-level image quality deteriorates quickly as light levels go down and video mode is next to unusable as the camera tends to refocus very frequently while panning.

    Still, there is a lot to like about the Xiaomi. Its battery life allows for at least two days of shooting and general use without any recharging and the large 6.44″ display is great for viewing and editing images. The microSD slot makes image transfer from other devices easy if you are not a fan of the cloud and for a mid-ranger the Mi Max 2 also comes with a nice metal unibody and good build quality. The Mi Max 2 with 64GB of storage is now available at Gearbest for $ 270. The coupon code “MAX2C” gives you a $ 10 discount.

    What we like:

    • Decent detail in bright light and good sharpness across the frame
    • Intuitive camera camera app
    • Efficient HDR mode
    • Decent panorama output
    • Premium build quality
    • Excellent battery life
    • Screen size is great for image display and editing
    • Responsive general operation
    • Value

    What we don’t like:

    • Noticeable luminance noise at base ISO
    • Smeared noise and strong softness in low light
    • Constant refocusing when panning in video mode
    • No Raw file format
    • Too large for most pockets

    Sample Gallery

    There are 20 images in our Xiaomi Mi Max 2 samples gallery. Please do not reproduce any of these images on a website or any newsletter / magazine without prior permission (see our copyright page). We make the originals available for private users to download to their own machines for personal examination or printing (in conjunction with this review), we do so in good faith, please don’t abuse it.

    Unless otherwise noted images taken with no particular settings at full resolution.

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    Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

  • Corel launches PaintShop Pro 2018 with improved editing tools and faster performance

    Corel just released PaintShop Pro 2018, the latest version of its image editing and graphic design software suite. For this latest version, the Corel engineers have managed to reduce launch times and create a simplified graphical user interface with a new Dual Workspace Environment. There are also customizable tool bars and a number of improved editing tools, including Crop, Text, Selection, Clone Brush, Gradient Fill, Eraser and the Dropper tool.

    In addition PaintShop Pro 2018 gets you ten new color palettes, thirty new brushes, thirty new gradients, thirty new textures and fifteen new patterns. If you decide to opt for the Ultimate edition you’ll also have access to a collection of add-ons including Painter Essentials 5, Perfectly Clear 3 SE and After Shot 3.

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    Corel’s new Photo Video Bundle combines PaintShop Pro 2018 and VideoStudio Pro X10 for a complete photo, design, and video editing package. All software options are available in several languages. PaintShop Pro 2018 will set you back $ 80 while the Ultimate edition is $ 100. For the Photo Video bundle you’ll have to invest $ 160.

    Press Release

    PaintShop Pro 2018 Makes Advanced Photo Editing More Accessible and Affordable Than Ever

    Dramatically redesigned interface, accelerated performance, enhanced tools, and loads of all-new creative content jump-start your creative projects

    Ottawa, Ontario – Aug. 9, 2017

    Corel introduces PaintShop® Pro 2018, the complete photo editing and graphic design suite that offers more speed, flexibility, and creativity than ever before. Enhance your editing experience with a redesigned and customizable user interface that’s now friendlier with high-resolution displays and pen and touch devices. Start and finish your next project faster thanks to improved performance under the hood — and express your creativity with more than 125 pieces of exciting new content including brushes, gradients, textures, and patterns.

    “Whether you’re looking for professional photo editing power or just getting started, you need software that lets you jump in and be productive right away. PaintShop Pro now lets you choose from two unique interfaces, plus it gives you the ability to customize them to build an editing and design environment that’s uniquely your own,” said Chris Pierce, Product Manager for Corel Photo. “With PaintShop Pro 2018, we’re delivering a dramatically faster, easier, and highly creative experience that’s even more accessible and of course, still subscription free.”

    The new PaintShop Pro 2018 and PaintShop Pro 2018 Ultimate boost productivity with user-requested enhancements and spark creativity with all-new content, including:

    • NEW! Dual Workspace Environment: Introducing two new workspaces designed to match the way you work! New to photo editing or looking to focus on a core set of tools? Try the new Essentials workspace for an easy-to-use, streamlined look. Or, if you’re a PaintShop Pro expert, switch to the Complete workspace for a more traditional experience that offers access to the software’s complete editing and design capabilities.
    • NEW! Simplified, Touch & Pen-Friendly Interface: Now get more control over features, functionality, and customization. Node size not right? Change it. Scroll bar too small? Make it bigger. New larger icons now make it easy to work on touchscreens, 2-in-1 devices, and high-DPI monitors.
    • ENHANCED! Faster Launch Time & Performance: Time is precious and whether you’re launching a program or performing a specific action, no one likes to wait around. PaintShop Pro 2018 launches more than 50% faster than the previous version (X9), while the software’s most popular tools now respond with near-instant results. Text Wrapping is faster and Depth of Field adjustments can be achieved 4 times quicker than before.
    • NEW! Customizable Toolbars: Be more productive with larger, easier-to-see icons and use the new Quick Customize feature to update your toolbars with the tools you want at your fingertips.
    • NEW! Color Palettes, Brushes & More Creative Content: Choose from a selection of complementary hues with 10 new Color Palettes, apply artistic strokes with 30 new Brushes, and get creative with 30 new Gradients, 30 new Textures, and 15 new Patterns.

    Choose PaintShop Pro 2018 Ultimate, the comprehensive editing kit for photographers, and also receive a collection of add-ons worth more than $ 250 including:

    • NEW! Painter® Essentials™ 5: Get photo-painting tools that easily transform your pictures into impressive art right before your eyes. Or start sketching, drawing, and painting from scratch using Natural-Media® brushes.
    • NEW! Perfectly Clear 3 SE: Restore details, color, and other elements lost by your camera with the proven, patented corrections. Create a custom look with robust, time-saving presets that let you control multiple adjustments with just one click — all without leaving PaintShop Pro.
    • AfterShot™ 3: With the addition of AfterShot, get a one-two punch to rival Adobe’s Creative Cloud photography subscription, only without the monthly fee — including, digital asset management, RAW conversion, and adjustment. Take advantage of non-destructive editing that preserves your original, whether you edit one version of your photo or 100.

    Photo Video Bundle Delivers a Complete Editing Package

    Also introduced today, the Photo Video Bundle brings together PaintShop Pro 2018 and VideoStudio® Pro X10 for a complete photo, design, and video editing package to help tell your story. For more information on the Corel Photo Video Bundle, visit us at www.paintshoppro.com/photo-video-bundle.

    Pricing and Availability

    PaintShop Pro 2018 and PaintShop Pro 2018 Ultimate are available now in English, German, French, Dutch, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Traditional Chinese, and Japanese. Suggested retail pricing (SRP) for PaintShop Pro 2018 is $ 79.99 (USD/CAN) / EUR 69.99 / £69.99 / $ 99 AUD. SRP for PaintShop Pro 2018 Ultimate is $ 99.99 (USD/CAN) / EUR 89.99 / £89.99/ $ 129 AUD. SRP for PaintShop Pro 2018 and Video Studio X10 bundle is $ 159.99 (USD/CAN) / EUR 139.99 / £139.99/ $ 199 AUD. All European pricing includes VAT. Upgrade pricing is available to registered users of all previous versions of PaintShop Pro. For more information or to download a free 30-day trial, please visit www.paintshoppro.com.

    To discover how you can bring the power of PaintShop Pro to your business and learn more about volume licensing for commercial or education-based organizations, please visit www.paintshoppro.com/business.

    Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

  • Five useful photo apps for travelers

    Photo apps for travelers

    Photographers take great care in choosing the right gear for a trip. Why not make sure your smartphone is well equipped for photography too? After all, it’s probably the camera you’ll have with you in the event that your DSLR battery comes up short, or your shoulders need a break from the weight of your photo bag.

    While the stock camera app will serve most people just fine, there are a huge number of photo apps that go a step further – offering unique shooting features and clever editing options. Whether it’s a late summer getaway or just a trip to the park, these five iPhone apps (a couple of which are available for Android, too) can help you get a better shot to remember the journey by.

    SKRWT
    iOS/Android | $ 1.99

    Travels often take photographers to new cities, but accurately rendering tall buildings and structures with the iPhone’s wide-angle lens alone can be problematic. SKRWT (pronounced Screw It — seriously) is handy for correcting perspective and lens distortion.

    When you compose a shot that is angled upwards at a building, for example, the resulting picture often shows lines that converge at the top. SKRWT focuses exclusively on straightening horizontal or vertical lines so the picture depicts more of what the eye perceives. With SKRWT, applying corrections takes a bit of user input, including prepping the image for the vertical correction filter and moving the slider to align the image with the grid. The app provides full auto cropping, vignette correction, ratio adjustments, and an EXIF reader alongside Mobile, Wide, Fisheye, and GoPro modes.

    You can save the corrected photo to a dedicated gallery or directly to your camera roll. SKRWT also features two in-app extensions: MRRW (pronounced Mirror), a mirroring tool, and 4PNTs (pronounced Four Points), a four-point-perspective tool for skewing and transforming images. Both apps are available as in-app purchases for 99 cents each.

    If you find yourself drawn to taking photos of local architecture and wishing you could correct some of the distortion on the fly, SKRWT is a nice option.

    Hydra
    iOS | $ 4.99

    Hydra shoots, processes and merges multiple images in an effort to produce a higher quality image. It offers five capture modes: HDR, Video-HDR, Lo-light, Zoom, and Hi-Res. Depending on available light, Hydra can merge up to 60 frames to create a single high-resolution shot, with an output of up to 32-megapixel images.

    Hydra’s best use case is dimly lit, moody landscapes or interiors where you are able to hold your phone stock still — the app will not complete a shot if there’s too much motion. The HDR mode captures up to 20 images in challenging lighting conditions while the Video-HDR setting uses single-image tone mapping or a special sensor mode (for the iPhone 6), and then offers a choice of light intensities and video resolutions.

    Zoom mode aims to correct motion blur, though as with other modes, it’s best to hold your phone steady to avoid unexpected results. Hydra is designed for specialized circumstances as a complement to rather than a substitute for the built-in iPhone camera app, but it’s great to have on hand for quiet, dark places.

    Think you may end up printing low light photos from your trip? Hydra is worth having on hand.

    ProCam 4
    iOS | $ 4.99

    ProCam 4 is a classic photographer’s app that aims to pack plenty of manual controls — as well as a robust photo editor — into your iPhone. Its wide assortment of settings comes in an easy-to-use format that won’t throw you off track when you’re in a hurry. The shooting app, which includes both photo and video mode, offers specialized settings like Night Mode, Burst Mode, Slow Shutter, Video, and Time Lapse.

    You can manually select ISO, shutter speed, exposure, bracketing, white balance, and stabilization. A histogram helps with exposure settings, and in addition Raw support, manual focus, and focus peaking are offered. If you have an iPhone 7 Plus, try shooting some Wigglegram 3D photos with the iSight Duo camera — two photos taken at the same time by each of the phone’s cameras alternate in quick succession to produce a 3D effect that you can save as a GIF or video. In addition to broad shooting options, you can also edit photos and videos with controls for saturation, white balance, exposure, brightness and contrast, perspective correction, and a mix of special effects filters.

    If your smartphone is occasionally asked to stand in for your dedicated camera, ProCam is worth downloading for its complete set of manual controls.

    Google Street View
    iOS/Android | Free

    While you’re hiking the trail or strolling the city, anytime is a good time to create a Google Street View 360-degree photo. You can shoot it right from the app on your iPhone — no special equipment needed. The app does most of the work of indicating when to shoot as you pick a scenic spot and start rotating your body to follow the orange circle on your screen. Start with your phone’s camera and follow the app prompts until you have all angles of your image filled in.

    As you shoot, the circle automatically repositions itself to help you complete your photo. When you’re done, the app stitches the panels together. Then, publish to Google Maps to share your photo spheres. The app lets you manage public and private images, observe contributions from others, and view your captures in Cardboard mode with a VR viewer. You can also share your photo spheres on Facebook, Twitter, or privately via email.

    Those who rarely use their smartphone camera may still enjoy Google Street View’s easy 360-degree photo creation and documentation features. Plus, it’s a handy way to scope out nearby locations for photo opportunities.

    Enlight
    iOS | $ 3.99

    Enlight is an advanced mobile photo shooter and editor that works independently or with the iOS photos app to offer advanced editing options and visual effects. With its hide-show main menu, coupled with a tap-and-drag interface, you get total control over your photo’s details, tone, color, and special effects. Each menu item opens into a variety of options, letting you crop, adjust, apply filters, sharpen, and add a host of artistic elements using adjustable presets, tools, and masks.

    Masking features let you blend effects, while artistic and film-based presets let you add grain, black and white conversion, sketching effects, patterned surfaces, and more. A photo mixer lets you merge two photos together for double exposure, and montage. Enlight’s art filters can transform your photo into a watercolor, oil painting, or sketch. Want to start with the basics? No problem: Simple improvements like crop, skew, color adjustment, and healing are available, and then easily combined with decorative borders and frames, vignette lighting, gradients, and vintage filters. Top it off with doodles, decals, special effects, and customized text.

    If you’d like your camera to come with a side of stylized editing options, consider Enlight.

    Best free and paid options

    These five apps work well, especially for the popular, specialized shots and circumstances for which they were designed. But if you only want to download one or two before you hit the road, here are our picks.

    Best free option

    The only free app in the group — Google Street View for iOS or Android — is a standout in its own right. With this app, dipping a toe into 360-degree image creation requires no special camera or photographic skill. The app’s integrated instructions provide everything you need to start shooting and posting impressive scenic landscapes that viewers worldwide can enjoy. If you’re carrying a dedicated camera, it provides a nice way to complement your traditional photos with something a little bit different – and with no penalty of carrying an extra device.

    Best paid option

    On the paid side, ProCam 4 gets the nod as the best app for its range of pro-level options, including detailed shooting controls, DSLR-style functionality, Raw support, and a variety of editing features.

    The apps above are a tiny sample of creative mobile photo shooters and editors. If you have a favorite that was not mentioned, be sure to share it in the comments.

    Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

  • NASA Curiosity Rover captures rare photographs of clouds on Mars

    Clouds drift across the sky above a Martian horizon in this photograph captured on July 17, 2017 by the Navcam on NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover. Photo: NASA/JPL-Caltech/York University

    Last month, NASA’s Curiosity Rover captured something (appropriately enough) curious in the Martian sky: clouds. Specifically, Curiosity snapped several sequences of “wispy, early-season clouds resembling Earth’s ice-crystal cirrus clouds” that NASA is calling “the most clearly visible so far” since the Rover landed 5 years and 5 days ago.

    As NASA explains in a news release:

    Researchers used Curiosity’s Navigation Camera (Navcam) to take two sets of eight images of the sky on an early Martian morning last month. For one set, the camera pointed nearly straight up. For the other, it pointed just above the southern horizon. Cloud movement was recorded in both and was made easier to see by image enhancement.

    Each sequence of 8 images was enhanced and turned into an animated GIF:

    To learn more about these photos and the science behind why there are clouds on Mars, and why they were a lot more common billions of years ago, head over to the NASA news release by clicking here.

    All photos courtesy of NASA/JPL-Caltech/York University

    Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)