Designing and manufacturing camera gear ain’t easy, as anyone who has invested in a Kickstarter project can attest. The amount of technology that’s stuffed into gear is astonishing, but that doesn’t mean each product meets the needs of the photographer. So in the spirit of “there’s always room for improvement,” here are a few of our hopes in the new year.
Researchers have created the first "metalens" that can focus the entire visible spectrum of light onto a single point in high resolution. The breakthrough brings metalenses one step closer towards replacing bulky camera lenses with much smaller chips.
Google has introduced a new AI system that's trained to rate photos on whether or not they are good technically and attractive aesthetically. It's called NIMA, or Neural Image Assessment
Want to change winter to summer or day to night in a photo? In the future, that could be as easy as a single click. Scientists at NVIDIA are working on a mind-boggling AI system that can change things like seasons, time of day, and weather in photos.
Instead of searching for the ideal model for a photo shoot, photographers of the future may be able to generate one using artificial intelligence. Neural networks these days can generate portraits of imaginary people.
As the worlds of artificial intelligence and digital photography collide, we're starting to see some mind-blowing technology emerge. The latest research in turning low-resolution photos into high-definition photos may drop your jaws -- it's starting to cross into the realm of sci-fi.
Adobe is pushing further into the world of cloud-based software, and this week it rebranded Lightroom as Lightroom Classic CC so that the company's new cloud-oriented app could be called Lightroom CC. But if your loyalties lie with the desktop app formerly known as Lightroom, don't worry: Adobe says it will continue developing that app into the future.
There's a feature tucked away in the new iPhones that doesn't seem to be getting a lot of traction, but it represents a massive sea change in photography. It's the "Portrait Lighting" mode, and it's the second shot across the bows of traditional photography from the world of computational photography.
How might photography evolve in the coming years and decades? The folks over at COOPH took a look at current trends and research projects to come up with 10 productions about the future of photography. They're discussed in the 4.5-minute video above.
Traditional photography involves choosing a focal length and position before snapping a shot. A new technology called "computational zoom" will allow photographers to remix those two factors afterward to create not only new compositions, but physically impossible ones.
Nikon has patented a new 35mm f/2 lens... for a full frame curved sensor. The news has sparked speculation that Nikon could be planning to use a groundbreaking curved sensor in its upcoming mirrorless camera.
Nikon is working on a new mirrorless camera geared toward the smartphone generation yet superior to rival companies' cameras in quality. That's what the company's president appears to have confirmed in a new interview published in Japan.
Back in 2015, we saw the launch of Affinity Photo, a sleek, lightweight, and powerful alternative to Adobe Photoshop for doing professional edits on photos. Originally released for Mac, it launched for Windows at the end of 2016. Now it seems like there's more big news on the horizon: a possible Lightroom competitor.
The brainiacs at Caltech have produced something really cool: an imaging chip that produces an image from light sensors... without lenses. It's a chip that could be the birth of the future of photography.
In its best form, art can lead major innovations in science and technology. The earliest photographers were more like scientists and chemists than artists.
Virtual reality is an up and coming industry. Big jumps are being made, with many genres of photography and film getting on board. But VR has always been limited in its resolution, with the experience feeling a bit pixelated to the user. Finnish startup Varjo wants to change this with "human eye resolution."
It’s not exactly a camera that can slip in to a coat pocket, but the RED Weapon 8K can capture both 8K motion footage as well as 36MP still photos. Photographer and director Vincent Laforet believes the camera is a harbinger for the future of photography.
8K is the future... at least that's what Matt Granger believes. And so he recorded this educational video at the YouTube studio in NYC to prove his point, explain some of the benefits and pitfalls of ultra-high res footage, and convince you to adopt 8K just as soon as you can.
The future is exciting for mobile photography. Adobe just released this sneak peek that shows off some amazing features powered by Adobe Sensei, which uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to do edits on photos.
There’s a very succinct analogy by Marshall McLuhan, summing up our society’s focus on the past:
“We look at the present through a rear-view mirror. We march backwards into the future.”
